oh my, I've never had such a shiny new toy as the new iphone. Words can't express how much I love it. I bought a matching set for John and I for our impending anniversary...and now I fear we'll never talk to each other again because we'll be too busy playing with our gizmos.

PS. A matching set requires being in line twice...for a total of 4.5 hours. That's true love right there.

It's my birthday and I have nothing exciting to say except that it has been the best one in a long time...between John, our families, friends and students I've been pampered.

Oh and I'll be able to torture John with the card the kids bought me that plays "Bad to the Bone", they know as well as me that he hates George Thoroughgood and yet I'll sing all his songs off-key to Johnny whenever the opportunity arises!!

Aside from my new pink digital camera (which is en route), it is the best gift ever!

My brother in law can marry anyone he damn well pleases according to me, because the perfect prince just found us a gorgeous ball and claw bathtub that was waaaaaay beyond our bathroom budget...and he's giving it to us for free!!!

So you know what that means??? I might actually have a completed bathroom by this June...which will make it precisely one year from when the demolition started in the first place. Wait, did I tell you that it's the only full bath in the house??

I know what you're thinking and I totally agree, I am a very easy going woman who can shower amongst the wreck and ruin that is my bathroom. I am also fully equipped to blow dry my hair while sitting on the floor, and applying makeup in the half bath downstairs. Luckily, I'm very low maintenance and I rarely do any of the above and most often just run out of the house with my hair half wet, dragging a brush through it while pulling it up into a ponytail.

** John, I'm just poking fun at ya, I really don't care about the bathroom, it'll be done beautifully when it's finished--but it is damn good blog fodder.

What can be said about a man who buys you shoes for Valentine's Day? (I love him!) Rediculously expensive shoes with a dozen creamy white roses to go with them (I love him!). Shoes that he picked out all on his own that made even the woman waiting on him, try them on in the back while getting my size! Shoes which he handed me and giddily said that he thought they would look great with a dress or with jeans. He actually said, "You're the type of girl who could rock $300 shoes with jeans in a bar as he rolled my jeans up to get a better look at the shoes...

Internets, he's amazing.

update: These are the shoes, and no they aren't stillettos, but he knows that I stand on my feet for seven hours a day!

Well, I loved when the muppets did it, so it seemed like an appropriate title. Here's a little recap of our weekend (which started a little early).

Thursday- I was still feeling under the weather with this lingering illness that would not disappear, it wasn't a big deal, I just couldn't breathe out of my nostrils. I dragged myself over to my mom's workplace (an enormous chain superstore) to pick up John's birthday present from her and to see if I could find any last minute gifts. I left with nearly empty hands, only with Mom's gift of money wrapped neatly in a card that looked like a black lab.

That night, I dosed up with some cold and flu medication and we headed off to thitwbar to celebrate with friends since I was whisking John away from everyone to celebrate in NYC. John was a trooper, he down pitchers of beer and a plethora of shots as if it were his 21st birthday. His mom came to help us celebrate and I could see in her eyes that she wasn't particularly pleased that I was getting him so sloshed but, I could see in his eyes that he was enjoying himself, and hey, you'll never be 28 again, right? Again, we brought our friends home with us and continued the party in the basement. Eventually, we remembered that we had to drive the next day so we finally trudged upstairs to sleep.

Friday- John's actual birthday! I attempted to cure birthday hangover with birthday sex! It didn't cure anything but it was a nice start to the day, and with the money I was spending on the weekend, it was the only gift I could give him. Sometimes I'm so selfless, so giving, I even amaze myself (ha ha). We quickly packed a bag, kissed our dogbaby goodbye (left in the tender loving hands of E and T to take care of for the weekend) and headed out on the road...only after we stopped for some greasy fast food--phase two in my attempt to cure us.

It seemed like New York was a million miles away but when we pulled up to our hotel, it was all worth it. We checked in and oohed and ahhed over our view from our balcony. I couldn't have planned it better, from our room we had a breathtaking view of the Chrysler building (pictures to follow when we eventually unpack the car). After resting, recuperating and again performing resuccitative sex, we went out to dinner to celebrate John's birth. We set out on the streets as tourists, looking up at the tall buildings, laughing, pointing out landmarks and enjoying the whipping winds of the city. With no idea where we wanted to go, we just wandered until our faces were numb and our ears were pink and burning. Ultimately, we ended up at the Playwright and had dinner and martinis. After we filled our bellies we walked around a little more but then decided to head back to the hotel to rest up for our next day. Truly, celebrating takes it out of you.

Saturday- We slept in, rolled around in our king size bed, basked in the glory of having two different kinds of HBO (when you're just starting out in marriage, you can't really afford the fancy channels). Then on the agenda, more sightseeing! Walking arm in arm with large smiles splayed across our faces we went in and out of stores, I experienced my first Starbucks (not that there aren't any around the Cornfield, I just never went into one) and we spent most of the day walking around. Then it happened. We turned the corner and we saw a sign that said "$11.95 buffet with all you can drink for an hour". Then I saw the name of the place Jekyll and Hyde and I was sold! It was solid corny fun, plus no lunch can be complete without seeing Frankenstein's monster get resurrected.

We had lunch, we sat at the bar and then I decided to buy John flowers. But being more than a little tipsy, I didn't just walk across the street and buy them from a vendor--oh no that would be too easy-- I called someone to have them delivered (don't ask...I'm an idiot). So I walked back into the bar and said, "John, we're just going to have to stick around until 6:30" and that's when I was informed that we had two hours to sit around...(slap hand on forehead!)...we managed to entertain ourselves at the bar during that time, making friends with the bartender and inviting him to join us in celebratory Jameson shots. Right before John's flowers came, I came back from the bathroom surprised to find that in my seat there were two dozen pink roses...for me. Apparently, great minds think alike.

Finally, John's flowers arrived and they were hideous! It was a gross arrangement with a tacky vase (I had asked for just a bundle of roses so he could carry them around)...we ended up giving them to another patron of the restaurant so that we could walk home unencumbered. Hey, it was a good idea in theory!

So that was most our weekend...oh except for the little matter of being certain that I was pregnant while incredibly drunk--let me clarify, I didn't think I was pregnant before I was drunk or I wouldn't have been drinking. This certainty/drunkeness caused me to ask the front desk to get me a pregnancy test (Hey the W's motto was Whatever. Whenever, that applied right?). Guess what? I'm not pregnant, but I am embarassing!!!

I know I had a great time, I wish there had been more time to see and do more things and of course, I am sad that the Evil Dead closed the weekend before we got up to see it, so now I have to fight for my money back. I believe I accomplished my goal, however, and that was to have a special weekend with the birthday boy.

Alternate Title--Thank You Note to John

We spent our first Christmas together and it was better than I ever expected (at this point I should stop being so surprised about how nicely everything works, but if I did, life would be boring). First of all, rather than diamonds, flashy big TVs and cars that were being flashed across all of the holiday ads, you bought me many wonderful gifts that I wanted but didn't interfere with our master plan (for the rest of you: we're no longer using credit cards or spending beyond our means--it's a very simple plan and it's been working fantastically since the end of August. Once we get out of debt, we will be sitting pretty and we will have finished working on the interior of our house!). I cannot express how excited I am about all my shiny new books, my CDs and my gorgeous photograph that perfectly sets off our newly painted dining room. I kid you not, I spread the books out on the floor and rolled on them. The dog helped, of course.

Beyond gifts, I've never had such an overwhelming sense of happiness. I repeat myself all the time about this but it needs to be said. You are the best guy in the world and I'm so happy, so lucky, and so excited that you are my partner in this not quite-as-we'd-like-it-to-be world. Every day I get a gift from you--when you help me turn around this house, when you nicely "teach" me how to become organized and yet, still have the ability to smile at me and kiss me when I slip back into my old ways. The best gift that I get from you every day is being allowed to be my goofy, happy and laughing self. Let me give an example of one of random exchanges (my favorite of the holidays):
Scene: John and I are driving out of the development and heading towards Wawa because we were a little hungover at Christmas dinner and didn't get to gorge ourselves the way that we wanted. We decided to have Christmas Dinner: Part Deux, in the form of six inch hoagies at 10pm. We started talking about something that I cannot for the life of me recall but this snippet stands out.

John: You know, like a rabbit punch.

Melina: A rabbit punch? What's a rabbit punch?

John: You know, like a punch to the back of the head.

Melina: During sex? That's a donkey punch! Who'd want to punch a rabbit?

John: Well, with that reasoning...why would anyone punch a donkey?

Melina: Because he was a bad donkey?

Cue laughter and defining what constitutes a "bad donkey".

(Please be advised that I don't condone the domestic abuse of donkeys, I was speaking in hypotheticals only)

Onto the next part of my thank you note. On Christmas this year, you received about 20 DVDs that your dad painstakingly transformed from all the old footage of home movies over your lifetime. For hours, I was transfixed as I watched you morph from a tiny baby to an adorable cherubic toddler with a mane of blond curls! Before my eyes you became an adorable little boy and then an older brother. You were adorably sweet to your sister, often helping her open her Barbie stuff and taking the time to show her how the elevator worked on her Barbie Mansion. You became the cameraman, and you would carefully set the scene of wherever your family was. You'd capture each member of the family and ask your brother to give you a smile and a wave (when he wasn't running around wrecking havoc on the scene). I felt your awe as you scanned over a Blue Whale on a trip to DC. I saw your boyish enthusiasm when you filmed about 10 minutes of the same plane when you went to the airforce base! I would laugh so hard I would begin crying over your ernestness, and your sweetness in the fifth grade presentation of Johnny Appleseed and other hilarious (yet adoreable) skits. Then you became a sad tweener, slightly awkward and no longer wanting to be in front of the cameras. There wasn't a reason for it, you were still the cutie that you always were...but I remember running away from the cameras crying at the same age, so I felt your pain. We'll skip over some of the other footage that you found "horrifying" and "embarassing" (wrestling and your directorial debut of your first Godzilla movie) and I'll just say that I'm glad my parents weren't always there to film some of my teenage moments of horror. Finally, I saw you come into to your own on the football field. The confident stance that I've comed to know and love was present, your voice--loud and commanding, you were having fun! I should've known that knocking into people would've opened you up! It was an amazing gift to watch the boy evolve and become the man. I love you, and thank you for wonderful holiday.

Love always,

Me

John and I exchanged all of Christmas presents over the past two days. In fact, not six minutes after I wrapped the presents I handed them to John and urged him to open them with gleefully clapped hands and an impish grin.

And he gave me all of mine.

And I made out like a (geek) bandit. I got ALL the books that I asked for Christmas from Santa. I got three awesome CDs, a gorgeous sepia photograph and...
my
favorite
gift
EVA!!!
Seasons one and two of VERONICA MARS!!!! How excited am I? As excited as anyone could ever possibly be. John could attempt to hand me $3,000,000 and I would brush him aside and scold him for standing in front of my home girl Kristen Bell.

My mom yelled at us over dinner last night (with a smile) for opening our gifts early and she and I took a little trip out so that John has more gifts to open on Christmas...shh...don't tell...she bought him lotsa stuff (I think she's gunning for Mother in law of the year or something!?!).

And now for something awesome?? I received something like eight books and I have ten days off from work, it's a blissful, blissful life I lead!

In about a half hour I'll be over at my friend's house for a gift exchange. Her husband has made us tons of awesome food, I'm bringing champagne and chambord and I heard there are going to be other fabulous items there.

The gift exchange is secondary to hanging out with seven awesome girls...we had to draw names and we were only allowed to spend $20 on each other. I picked my friend Jackie, for the second year in a row. I opted for the gag gift option. I got her a pill sized item that when she puts it under water it turns into a washcloth that says, "Wash away your issues". A bobblehead mouse thingy that you can put a different picture in the face...I of course, put my own photo in there. I also bought her a lovely peony scented candle.

Can I wait for my gift? No I sure can't...it could be interesting, we've added people to the posse that don't know me all that well. I'll let you know when I get back.

So I've realized that I'm impulsive in every area of my life! I just spent $178.00 MORE on Christmast gifts...I thought I was done, but I just had to go and do it again. It's all stupid stuff too. My friend was in a really horrible car accident recently and by sheer luck she came out of it with some serious injuries...but she should've been dead (I'm so glad that she's not). For her, I got a japanese good luck statue that is supposed to guard you after near death experiences. I don't want to go into the other purchases, I just know that the mailman is sick of dropping off heavy cardboard boxes off at my house and the idea of wrapping everything that's sitting in my dining room is getting less and less appealing. Do you think it would be lazy if I just called everyone over to come pick up their piles...if the ungrateful bastards turn their noses up at this idea then they lose their gifts. I jest (for now...check back as the eternal procrastinator waits until dec. 24th to begin the wrapping that is required of her).
On to other thoughts, I think being single for Christmas will be very fun this year! I have a cute little tank top that has a couple of presents on it and it says in pink, "Unwrap Me!" and I think that this will be my motto for the holiday season...perhaps I'll get a few unexpected surprises myself! We can hope. In fact, that spurs me to call up D and see if he can't swing on by. Perhaps it won't be a surprise, but it definitely will be worth unwrapping.