So hoooooow's married life?

If you are not married yet, but think you will ever be married or plan on getting married in the future, prepare to hear that question... a lot. And have a good answer. "Good" does not satisfy the masses.

Today I had my first guest blogger from Lynne "The Lower Free Bridge" Calamiapants. And it's true... I have been slacking on my updates.

Today I bought a spray from Williams Sonoma called Winter Forrest that smells like Christmas. Not like gingerbread or snow (whatever snow smells like), but like a combination of pine and cinnamon. It reminds me of when we used to have a real tree when I was a kid... or when my mom would get pine spray for the prelit fake tree. And I want the second memory. A sprayed prelit tree. I am excited to make this happen. I have some Target gift cards and I know just what they're going towards. Wow, Thanksgiving is next week, Christmas is in a month an 10 days. Happy Holidays!! Here's to making my first one as a wife a memorable one!

Guest Blogger

Sometimes I get angry when Jackie doesn't update her blog. I visited the Patchwork Life to get an update on her life yesterday but do you know what I saw when I got there? No update. If you haven't guessed by now I, Lynne Pistachio Calamia, have commandeered her mini red computer and am forcefully guest blogging because I have a lot of important things to say about dogs.

I recently watched a NOVA documentary about dog-human communication. It was amazing and I can't stop talking about it and thinking about it. It is called Dogs Decoded and is available for your viewing pleasure at pbs.org. I graciously included the link so its easier to find and someone out there will actually watch it. As we all know dogs evolved from the Gray Wolf, but the Gray Wolf only has one bark. It makes one noise. Domesticated dogs have many different barks and scientists hypothesize that dogs developed these other barks to communicate with human beings! This scientist guy recorded different styles of barks and played them for human test subjects in his lab and an overwhelming amount of the humans figured out what the dogs were trying to communicate. That doesn't make sense and I don't know exactly how to explain it but for example he recorded a dog being approached by a stranger at the front gate of a house and the specific bark sound was recognized by people as a defense or a warning type bark. JUST WATCH THE SHOW its much better than how I'm explaining it here.

I'm feeling pressure to rush this guest blog post because Jackie and I are going to run some errands and I apologize for the content. I do not, however, apologize for the photo of me slow dancing with the dog. Notice how Benedict's hands are on my shoulders and my paws are on his waist which is clear reversal of normative slow dancing gender roles AND socially accepted species roles. TAKE THAT AMERICA!

Guest Blogger: The Lower Free Bridge/

Picture Perfection

So our photographer Alex has finally completed the pictures and wow, how I love them. Today we are meeting up with him to get the disk, look through them, and get coffee. I want to look through them on flickr again but I also want to be excited to see them at 3:30 today, so I'm going to wait.

Things I learned about my wedding from my wedding pictures:

My hair is insanely long.

The camera is not my chin's friend.

My tattoo looks nifty in black and white.... so does kelly's.

Gordon is a handsome man (ok I knew this before, but it needed to be said).

We were sucking face duing a lot of the wedding.

Even by the end of the summer, I'm a pale pale lady. But so is my husband.

Our food looked delicious and possibly even better on camera.

My friends are awesome dancers.

Gordon and I should never be photographed dancing.

Our nieces and nephews are freaking adorable.

Gordon's friends can make picking me up look easy (I am not so sure it was, I was in a 25+ lb dress).

I have a gorgeous wedding party.

I want to get about 90% of the 667 pictures printed. This is going to be tough.

Which one am I going to pick for my thank you card????

Cohabitation and Dogs

Today we brought Benny to the vet and he did very well but might have mange, so he has to get medicine everyday for the next month. But he got his lyme's disease shot and some preventative stuff for heart worm. The thing I like about the vet we took him to is that it is within walking distance of the house. Other than that, there's nothing great or bad about it. But not having to force Benny into the car is good enough for me. He is about half housebroken. Yesterday he peed on the couch Gordon was sitting on, so that wasn't great, but today he sat by the back door until we let him out and then peed out there. So yay! These are things that a married person finds joy in: Not having animals pee on you! And pizza.

So speaking of pizza, today Gordon are attempting one from scratch... kind of. We are using our bread maker to make the pizza dough. We have sauce (not from scratch. I am not Italian and I don't pretend to be.), mozzarella, we're making breaded chicken (yes, we breaded it ourself... not to make it better, but because the chicken we usually get at CostCo, which is prebreaded, we used the last of last night.) and broccoli. That's right people. I'm talking chicken and broccoli pizza here! And we have the airbake pizza pan to cook it on. I have two actually because I put it on my wedding registry and got 2 instead of the 1 I asked for. Whatever. I just use both now. It's really awesome. Seriously, you need one. Or you need to ask for one and get two.

In other news, G and I have been cohabitating for 8 months now and I look forward to cohabitating for a long long time. I feel this article by Michael Ian Black really drives home the best way to make it all work. Here is excellent point Mr. Black makes about expressing one's emotions so they don't get bottled up:

4. If you don’t like what the other person is wearing, cuss them out. That means when you’re about to leave the house and you totally hate the outfit they have on, the right thing to do is say (in a quiet, soothing voice), "What the f*** are you wearing?” Then just stare at them until they change.

I really hope this helps you in your current or future or failed relationships. I know it has helped us.

Now I am going to go get medicine for the dog from the vet then make pizza and watch Close Encounters of the Third Kind with my husband, my dog, and my Beanie who we occasionally feed, entertain, and play with like a dog, but much more housebroken.

Benedict Magnus

This is Benedict Magnus aka Benedict aka Benny Mag aka Benny aka Puppy Lou. He's 5 months old, playful, snuggley, and been so good. Though it's only been a day, he seems to be adjusting quite well.

He is a welcome addition to our family. He loves the big backyard and the bone and rope we got him.

He has been a great companion for naps on the couch.

So let's give Benny a big welcome home!

The Name Game

So over the past week I have been on a change my name on everything possible rampage. First I did it at work as soon as I came back from my honeymoon (though I already had the business cards made up as well as the name plate on my desk). Tuesday I went to the Social Security Administration and waited patiently while the guy next to me kept screaming "B!" since they were mostly focusing on the A's. I was right there along with him, though it was in my head, because I had B316 and they had been on B309 for a good 15 minutes. But once I got up there, because of my anal nature, I had more that enough proof of my name change and I should be receiving a new card in the mail in about 2 weeks. Then it was off to the DMV, which was quicker than I anticipated and cheaper. 30 minutes and $12.50 later, I should be expecting my new license with a new name, photo, address, and signature in the mail in about 2 weeks as well. I was not prepared for the new picture part, but grateful that I took a shower that morning. Though I only had enough energy to blow dry my bangs and put the rest of my hair in a pony tail. It will be an interesting and most certainly embarrassing ID photo, but I guess it looks more like me that my last license where I looked like I was wearing a black wig.

After attaining the important name change documents so that my taxes and my name will all line up in perfect harmony, I went home and instead of making apple pie like I wanted to (which I ended up doing last night), I went to all the websites for companies that have my name and emailed them to tell them to change it. Everything from car insurance and cell phone to electricity and gas. Then yesterday I went to my bank to change my name and order checks, which I haven't had new ones since I was 18. To date, I still use my babies in gardens checks. It will be nice to have ones that have the right name, address, and bank, and look like adult checks. It's a big step in my life.

Another big step in my life as a married lady was making dinner and pie for my husband last night. Maybe this would seem unfeminist of me, but he usually makes dinner and is very good to me and I cook this meal well and that's about all I have going for me food wise. I made turkey meatloaf, cheddar and broccoli rice (from a bag) and extra broccoli mixed in (because the "broccoli" in the cheddar and broccoli rice seems like it's there more for flavor than nutritional value. Then, while the meatloaf was cooking, which takes days (ok, more like an hour, but you get the point), I got the apples, sugar, and graham crackers ready for my first attempt at apple pie. Finally, my husband came home, and helped peel and slice the apples for the pie. The part I was more than excited to avoid. Then while we ate dinner, the pie cooked. It was nice and Gordon was very pleased with the outcome of both the dinner and dessert, but it was a 3 hour process that I don't plan on revisiting everyday.

I would like to add other meals to my cooking repertoire, which pretty much just includes the aforementioned meal, burrito/taco night, bbq chicken, chicken parm, and paninis. All pretty much comfort food. Occasionally G and I make chicken or shrimp in garlic sauce with veggies over jasmine rice. I guess that's healthier. More veggies?

Tonight is date night! This means the Rowes are going out on the town! Dinner! Movie! Sleep! We really live it up.

Tomorrow we might be adding to the family... if it happens I will post so many pictures.

Relaxing Thoughts

I don't write enough, but I don't have a whole lot going on besides work. I think the rain followed us back from Aruba, we have barely had any nice weather. But I have been working so much, I haven't had time to notice. I did get to go to Carnegie Hall for my first opera(s). It was 10 opera shorts including one by the wonderful Marie Incontrera. Her and Roxie wed in June 2011. I am very much looking forward to it.

This week is a bunch of college fairs around Nassau county, which is called a consortium. Saturday I am nerding it up nerd style with my husband at Comic Con in NYC. After which we hope to get drinks and dinner before returning to our suburban life. I miss the city simply because of the time it took me to get home from things like this. Sunday is apple and pumpkin picking with my girls. This will be fun as long as I don't have to wake up too early. Then I have two glorious days off. After going nonstop since this past Saturday, I plan to sleep and watch tv those two days. Maaaaaybe clean (beyond overneeded at this point), but we'll see.

I am still waiting on my pictures from the photographer. I found out that the video that was taken of the wedding has no sound since right before the ceremony the camera fell off the mixing board (still trying not to get upset about it). Once I get the pictures, we can pick one to make our thank you cards from. I say now that I am excited to make my photo albums from the wedding pictures, but once it starts taking a long time, we'll reevaluate.

As you probably know (since I'm pretty sure the only people that read this also have access to my facebook, I cut off all my hair the day after the wedding to a graduated bob with bangs. Well I still like the bangs, but I go back and forth about the cut of my hair. I am never happy with short hair very long, which sucks since it takes so long to grow back out. But I do like how easy it is to style. I should look into that more. Right now it's mostly headbands (see previous post).

Anyway, I am off to start my long day/week (which is really a continuation since I have been working sine Saturday.