the no-husband blues

I've eaten 4 bowls of ramen noodles in the past 3 days. No, my friends, I'm not back in college. No, I didn't lose my job. And no, it's not some weird high-sodium diet.

The cause of this ramen noodle binge? My husband is out of town. And I might be slipping into a slow, deep depression.

I did however watch a full season of America's Next Top Model and I finally took a shower at 5 pm today. So that's progress.

Thankfully he gets home tomorrow afternoon. 16 hours and 2 more bowls of ramen to go...

How to Make Your Husband Sad

Wives out there, if you are looking for a new way to make your husband sad, I have just the trick for you.

 

First, you pick something that he really has a passion for and you indulge in it. Begin dialogue that creates a plan that includes his favorite past time or passion. For my husband, this passion is travel, so we will go with that for the sake of this exercise.

 

Example: "Husband -- let's go on a fantastic vacation with friends at then end of February! I can use the rest of my days off for vacation. We will be able to see one of your best friends and I'll get my best friend to come too. It will be the best vacation of our lives."

 

Second, begin planning out how you will make this plan happen. Be sure to get many more people involved than just you and him, that way when the plan gets cancelled it will really rub it in. He may not go on a vacation, but his friends sure will send him on a guilt trip.

Example: "Husband, I found plane tickets for $200 roundtrip! Call your friends up and tell them that we are on our way!" Be sure to get everyone involved in this fantasy vacation to already ask off from their work.

 

Third, look at your bank account and evaluate all of your debt. Quietly cry into your $4 coffee from Starbucks.

 

Fourth, text message your husband that after further review we will not be able to go on this wonderful vacation. Wait for a reply. When a reply does not come, this means that your mission has been completed.

 

Next you will go home and find him very sad. If he's anything like my husband, I found him rolled up in a large map on the floor crying into an atlas and looking at old photographs from past trips we've made.

 

Congratulations! You've just made your husband very sad in just 4 simple steps. It's just that easy.

 

Now making him happy again? That may take a few more steps...

2009 Top Moments #1: A Thousand Words

Three things: Yes, I know it's January 2, 2010 and I'm just now finishing my review of 2009. Back. Off.

Secondly, is it just me or is anyone else a little bit disappointed that it's 2010 and we still don't have space cars yet?

Thirdly, if I was going to rank 2009 as a chick on hotornot.com I would probably give her a 4. Not terrible, but you would never recommend to a friend. Let's hope 2010 is at least an 8.

So now without further ado, the number 1 moment of 2009 -- isn't really a moment, but many moments captured on film, macs and phones. From ridiculous iPhone pictures...

To playing with my new mac...

To watching my husband do what he does best.

This past year, B decided to take a leap of faith and start up his own photography business. I've loved watching him follow a passion that he has had since he was 15 years old. So, I present to you the best thing to come out of 2009, Bryan Skeen Photography.

So here's to you 2009. I started off the decade as an awkward 15 year old with a bad hair cut and a boyfriend and I ended the decade as an awkward 25 year old with a bad hair cut and a husband. Ten years later and I still don't know what to do with my hair.

2009 Top Moments #2: the Mister

Hands down the very best part of 2009 was being married. And not just being married, but being married to B. He's my rock, my paper and my scissors. I couldn't have gotten through 2009 without him.

He is also my editor. Each post must go through an approval process with B. Before each post I call him into the room and read him my blog. If he laughs, I publish it. If he just nods with no laugh, I edit it. If he cocks his head to the side, glares at me and says "don't you dare..." I must absolutely publish it. But the fact is there is absolutely nothing that I love more than to make my Bryan laugh and if one of my stupid little posts can do that, then I'll keep on writing them.

I give my husband such a hard time on here -- from the terrible pictures to the embarrasing stories to the habits that he would probably like to keep a secret. One thing is for certain, I married a very good sport.

The best compliment Bryan can give one of my posts is a hearty laugh followed by the sentence "and the best part is -- it's all true!" Well, Mr. Skeen, I love you with all of my heart (all of my sarcasm) and all of my soul. You mean the world to me and I can't wait to see what 2010 means for you and me.

And the best part is -- it's all true.

Some of our 2009 adventures:

Date night
Shopping
Cars
Dieting
Pillow Talk
Haircuts
SYTYC
Friday Nights
Handsome
Gifts
Salad Days
The Good Husband
Call of the Wild
Lovey Dovey
Marriage Advice
Dog Training
Married is the New Single
ILMH
Puppy Love
Nightmares
Night-hairs

2009 Top Moments #3: Old Timer

This year something terrible happened to me. I turned 25. Which means next year I'll turn 26. Which means in just 5 short years, I'll be over the hill. Over the hill with excitement that maybe someone will believe me that I'm not 18. 

Pretty much since my 21st birthday I've dreaded the forthcoming 365 days that made me 1 year older. Each year I would notice something else go wrong on my body. My hips got wider, my arms softer, my face more and more haggard. But this year was special. This year I found a grey hair -- the ultimate sign of aging. I saw my life flash before my eyes. I hadn't even had children and yet I was already resembling a grandmother. Then random joints started hurting and I started to complain about chairs and how they hurt me when I sat in them too long. One time I was sitting indian-style on the floor and it took me 30 minutes to recover once I was actually able to unfold my legs and partially stand. I didn't know 25 was this hard or I would have enjoyed 24 a little bit more while I still had the time and the energy to. All of a sudden I began to crave dried prunes and reruns of Matlock. I couldn't find one pair of panty hose that didn't have runs in them but I wore them anyways with my black therapeutic sneakers. I love to drive 25 mph and pull out in front of people just to slam on my brakes and curse the young. Oh and I hate that slutty Miley Cyrus.

So I decided that I was wasting too much of my precious time left thinking about getting old. I've learned to accept this old age and the odd misplaced facial hair it has brought me. But, trust me, I didn't let my youth go down without a fight...

25 and growing

age is just a number

Hearing Aids

Grey matters

Kids no more

 

2009 Top Moments #4: Work is a 4-letter word.

If there is one thing that college taught me it's that whatever that 4 years was -- it wasn't real. I'm not even convinced that those years actually happened -- sure we have photo albums, memories, financial debt and scars but those years just seem to good to be true. If there is one thing that college did not teach me it's that real life is not fun.

You see in college, professors throw theories at you all day long. You are tested on millions of hypothetical situations that have a 1% chance of actually happening, being taught by people who have never actually entered the workforce -- they just continued on with school so long that someone finally allowed them to teach. Professors build up this theory of how great the job market is and that working to be like a real life Candy Land. And just when you think you have all of the knowledge and experience to be the next CEO of a company that will hire you the day that you graduate if not before, you graduate. You are handed a small piece of paper, a handshake and then you are sent on your way. But what you don't know is that after graduation all of the professors meet in a small, dark room and laugh. Hysterically laugh. They laugh for hours saying to each other "Remember when you told that kid that he could be the next Bill Gates?!?!" or "Remember when we told them that they would be successful and they would like working?!?!" Then they wipe those smiles off of their faces, tell you that you were their favorite student and they can't wait to watch you succeed.

So, after 3 years of being in the workforce, I'm still not laughing.Instead of the 3 economic theory classes I took (and don't remember) why couldn't they have offered classes like "How to deal with co-workers" or "How to deal with stress" or "How to sit in a cubicle for 8 hours at a time and not play with your iPhone." Or maybe just maybe they could have taught us how to write a resume. In a perfect world, this would be the classes that I would offer:

Required Courses:

Typing 101

Nobody Cares 102

Office Life 101

Office Life 102

Upper Level Courses:

Out of Office Etiquette

Dress Code

How to Land a Job

Always Be On Time

Electives:

Jury Duty is Real
Bad Day Mathmatics
Theory of a Salesman
Office Food is Grown-up Cafeteria Food

Johnny Can Spell

You'll Never Get those 40 Hours Back
The Things Employers Make You Do

How to Deal with Office Birthday Parties

How to Deal with Close Talking Co-Workers

2009 Top Moments #5: Cooking 101

Although its 2009 and not 1959, there is still some subtle expectation from the world that when you get married you can magically tap into homemaking skills that you have never before possessed. Cleaning,cooking, making beds, taking care of another human being for example. After 23 years, I finally find someone who wants to marry me just as I am and now I have to change everything about me -- it just doesn't seem right.

I knew that becoming a really clean and organized person would throw Bryan off completely. He knew what my room looked like when we dated, he knew that I used the floor of my closet more than I used the hangers on the rack, he knew that sometimes an old bowl of cereal would be found underneath my bed. It happens. So I knew that he would catch on really fast to my marital bliss scheme if I started to become a clean person. This also excused me from making any beds.

But cooking -- I had never cooked for Bryan before so this was something that he didn't know if I could or couldn't do and it wouldn't ruin his pre-established adoration that he had for me. If I could, he would love me more, if I couldn't, he would find it endearing and cute. I couldn't, by the way -- as he would later find out. Also, he didn't find it endearing but disturbing. But it hasn't stopped me yet. There isn't any thing that salt, pepper and a tearful apology can't make better.

Here are a few recipes from my cooking disasters from this past year. Bon appetit!

chicken and dumplings
bean soup
vomit smoothie
apple bacon cheese sandwich
more bacon
death by coffee
surprise me!

and if all else fails:
order a pizza

go to a restaurant

or drive thru

2009 Top Moments #6: In with the old, out with the young

Six months into our marriage, Bryan and I decided to go green. Green Acres that is. We left the city life for small town living and frequently look back and sigh. We went from a city of 6 million people and endless opportunities to a small town of 20,000 retirees and a Cracker Barrel. It's almost cruel living in a retirement community when you aren't retired. It's like being 16 and the only one of your friends with a summer job, while every one else gets to play golf and swim and stay up as late as they want. Except you're not 16, your friends are old and that's not summer but every single day of the year.
 
Things I've learned since moving to a small town:
 
-          Chain restaurants are a privilege, not a right.
-          If someone doesn't know your mom, dad, grandparents or an immediate family member, you don't exist.
-          Road kill is real. I have seen more dead animals in the past 2 years than I've seen live ones.
-          Not only does nothing good happen after 10 pm but nothing happens at all.
-          I have been mistaken more for a teenager than I did when I was actually a teenager.
-          Every day is a slow news day.
 
And so on:
You know you live in a small town…
Bad News
City friends needed.
Slow news day
Raining cats and old age
Curl Up & Dye

2009 Top Moments #7: Weight is only a number

This year marked our 4 year anniversary (1 1/2 for being married, 4 for being together). This year also marked the first time that we noticed the we were kind of fat. It's like when Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge and realized that they were naked, except we ate from the Drive-thru of McDonald's and realized we didn't look good naked. Before it was cute fat. Puppy love fat. Happy fat. Now it's just sloppy fat.

In January we started watching the Biggest Loser and decided to go on a diet. A diet that would yo-yo from January to now. We have gone from having completely normal eating habits to binge eating on the weekends just to swear on starting a new diet on Monday. In other words: I've turned Bryan into a cranky, middle-aged woman who hates his thighs, arms and abs. We also declared to everyone we met as well as every family member that we had working phone numbers for that we were going to run a half-marathon in November of this year. The good news? I can almost run a mile. The bad news? A half marathon is 13 miles. Needless to say, on November 15th we did not run in that marathon. But we did carbo-load and we went to the movies instead.

So with the failed attempts of diet and exercise under our now tighter belts, I present to you tips on how to get a Body Built by Skeen:

*Results not typical.

girl's only

low self-esteem

carbs: the other white meat

chocolate covered exercise

office snacks

marathon

muffin tops

exercise sucks

2009 Top Moments #8: when good habits go bad

If you've been reading my blog for a while now, I think it's safe to say that Bryan and I have a lot of bad habits. Probably more than you will ever want to know. I blog about 10% of our bad habits -- just the ones that are semi-ok to talk about in public. And trust me -- you don't want to know about the other 90%.

I didn't realized all of our bad habits until yesterday morning when I was blow-drying my hair in the shower while smoking a pipe. I looked over at Bryan and he was laying in bed drinking a glass of wine and sharpening some of our kitchen knives. It dawned on me that he was going to be late for work. I called him on his cell phone to tell him and then he jumped out of bed, spilling his wine which is now crusted on our floor (who knew wine would crust?), threw on some clothes and went off to work. Talk about your bad habit. He didn't even take a shower. Gross.

So just for you to feel better about yourself and your bad habits here are a few of ours:

shopping for others
dirty
bad habits make for bad parents
most likely to go bankrupt
typical friday night
drugs
tanning is bad for you?
the lazy housewife
good, clean white trash fun
nightmares

Bang-gate Update

I know you've all been worried sick over the length status of my bangs. I've received hundreds of emails on the subject of my bangs alone. Thank you to those who sent me hair vitamins, support group invites, alcohol. You've really been a great help so I thought I would update you all on the growth of my bangs.

Here is what they started out as:

a mere 3 inches of my forehead is covered, as you can see.

Here where we are at 2 weeks later:

As you can see we are not out of the woods yet, but it looks like Dora the Explorer is growing up.

And yes, that is a snuggie that I am wrapped up in. Merry Christmas to me.

Also, it may look like I took this photo in a dorm room, but I promise you this is our home and not a college dorm.

2009 Top Moments #9: 12 Ovaries Drumming

If I was clever, I would have started each blog countdown with a 12 days of Christmas theme and continue on until I reached the end of this seemingly useless countdown. But I'm not clever (sarcasm doesn't count as clever, people, but thank you for flattering me) so I’ll just use it for this post title and move on.

I didn't realize how much I talk about that time of the month on here until I went back and read my posts from this year. Wow -- how do you people stick around? Anyways, I figured that if I'm going to go ahead and post about it every month it must be in my top ten.

I do declare 2009 as the "Year of the Period.

Aunt Flo isn't a relative
There’s an app for that
Tampon Poetry
I am Woman, Hear Me Complain
Skip to #2
Like Mother, Like Daughter