stuff is cool

Heyyyyyy bet you guys thought we had given up on our blog forever. Yeah, well, we sorta had I guess. I am not sure why I haven’t been keeping it up. It’s just that I am soooooo busy (haha.)

In fact I haven’t read *anyone’s* blog in months. I really really have no idea why. It’s like I just plain forgot about the blogosphere. Which would seem impossible, but it can be done!

I was replying to an email from Petie and I clicked on her family blog and was just so enchanted with reading about the daily adorableness of my little nieces that I could not believe I had missed out on so much. I have LOTS of reading about JoJo and Lisey to catch up on! And I know nothing about my precious, um, what would he be, nephew-in-law-in-law? Petie’s brother Joey and his wife Maria have sweet baby Joaquin. I am hoping to reconnect with Maria and hear all about the little prince!

Hmm sounds like I have babies on my mind. Kiinda. I mean, it’s gonna happen within a few years, and we are getting closer to BabyTime as each day, week, month, year passes. Danny and I talk about our plans for our future children allll the time. I think we’ve sort of got a plan figured out, though of course it’s not totally up to us, we have to work on God’s plan for us. BUT, we figure we’d of course rather be in a house first, a starter house, of course. However, if we don’t move into a house until age 32 or something (however unlikely) obviously the baby would have to come before that.

Danny has always been figuring on age 30 being “it’s time.” But that’s only two years away! EEek!

I don’t want to make this first return to blogging to turn into a novel, so I’ll shaddup for now I can’t type for very long because of my wrists getting sore from it, but maybe more typing is the right exercise I need!

If you forgot what we looked like, here’s a recent pic of Mr. and Mrs. Daniel DiPaolo. Nah, I just like sharing pics.

Not our Halloween costumes, BTW. What sort of costume is a bathrobe anyway? This pic is from the ROBE 2008 party we attended during Danny’s company retreat weekend. That party got preeety weird. The mask I am wearing was from another, MUCH more formal and elegant event going on in the main ballroom. I snagged this off a table as we walked by the ballroom. Then later, this random girl and I went back to the ballroom, now empty, and took down a bunch of fancy masks that had been used as decoration. I cannot believe i was running around the hotel in my jammies. Maybe I shouldn’t have had so much champagne. Man, Danny’s company is really really cool.

Below is another picture from that weekend, but we have more clothes on.

Pete’s comment made me think abut my grandmother’s childhood, and my father’s, which I daydream about often. My great-grandparents house in Elgin, Texas still stands, and it’s been beautifully well-kept. It has a cheerful and inviting bright red door, a big front porch, lots of trees around it, and a big field behind it with a red barn. It’s so perfect.

Here’s a picture from when we were there last May, right after Grandmom passed away.

And the barn

Dad and Danny

Mommie-Me and Daddy D (the D was for Danklefs) standing in front of their house

Unfortunately it’s not in the family anymore, but anytime we go anywhere near Elgin we make the pilgrimage to go stand out front ad talk about how it used to be. My dad talks about going to visit his grandparents, Mommie-Me and Daddy D, about how hot the bedrooms upstairs were, about riding in Daddy D’s big truck to his grocery store in town, about “the good old days.” I wish I could have been there. I would have competed with my own grandmother for May Queen (she would still win), and we’d both be big bookworms, and we’d help Mommie-Me cook. Maybe she made the same beef stew I made the other day. I learned the recipe from my grandmother.

I miss Grandmom, and Mommie-Me.

This is Grandmom when she was 17 or 18.

Here she is laughing. I never saw this side of her. She was loving and wonderful, but I never saw her laugh like this. She’s so beautiful.

These days, too, will someday be “The Good Old days.” And my grandkids will hopefully know about them from my stories.

So, with the wedding behind us, life seems a little strange. Certainly not empty, but lacking that certain excitement. Then again, I do not miss the stress and pressure of planning a wedding, and I hope my family finds me more pleasant company than I have been.

Being married to Danny hasn’t really changed our relationship much, at least in the day-to-day. But we both find a certain giddiness in referring to each other as “husband” and “wife”, slipping it into interactions with strangers as often as we can: “My husband usually handles in Internet stuff in our house. . .” while on the phone with SBC during a DSL outage, etc. etc.

I try not to dwell on things I forgot to do at the wedding. I lament that we didn’t take more photographs posed by Rice-y things at Cohen House. I REALLY regret not getting a single picture with any of my aunts. I wish I had made a short speech thanking my family for all their love, help, and support. I wish I had spent more time with my friends. And so on. But it was an incredible party, and we all had the most fun we’d had in years.

These days, I am working on being a housewife. Many of you may not have heard that I decided not to return to my writing job full-time. After months of medical leave, I decided to stay on in a diminished capacity, working only part-time, and from home. This frees up time to continue to focus on my health, which is still troublesome. I am switching to a new infusion in March, and hopefully it will work just as well as Remicade, but will also help get rid of the psoriasis that came out all over my skin in January. Methotrexate and lots of makeup helped hide it at the wedding, but my legs and feet are particularly afflicted. Since I normally always wear jeans anyways, even in the summer, this isn’t a huge concern, though I have had to start wearing leggings if I want to wear a dress. Sometimes I even just wear jeans with a really casual dress. No biggie, and kinda cute. I can’t walk much or stand for very long, because not only is it hard on my joints, but the sores on my feet can’t take it.

On top of that I have been plagued by heartburn of all things for sveral weeks now. I have never experienced heartburn before! It is a strange feeling. I picked up some Prilosec at the store yesterday. so today is Day One! According to the commercials, I think I am supposed to be at a local carnival. In two weeks I expect to be watching a NASCAR race from the roof of an RV, or hang gliding. The directions don’t say, so I’ll just stick to my usual activities and hope the Prilosec works just as well.

Though my back is certainly MUCH better than it was those awful months between April and December, I still get worrisome pain in my hips and tail bone almost daily. I am going to see a Pain Management specialist in April, and hopefully she will have some answers that will reduce both my pain and my intake of hydrocodone. I was supposed to see her last week, but mistiming in the transfer of my records from the other doctors meant I had to reschedule, and the wait is unfortunately long.

In the meantime, I take it pretty easy. I still read voraciously. I still revel in my candle collection.

And thanks to my obsession with all things fragranced, I am going to start a new website with the help of my clever computer-savvy husband.

I am still working on it, trying to put enough content up for it to be a worthwhile read when launched.

It will be all about all kinds of fragrance, including perfume, room spray, candles, and laundry detergent. It will be reviews of products, hints about fighting tough odors, tricks to make your home smell just the way you want it to, and a general celebration of the wonderful aromas of life. Since the fragrance industry is so huge right now, I will never be without something to write about. From aromatherapy dish soaps to scented toiler paper dispensers, our culture is almost as obsessed with fragrance as I am. We already have the domain, and I am playing with the design. i am glad I stumbled onto an appropriate domain, because so many have been snatched up by people on the outside chance they can sell it to someone who wants it. The one I originally wanted was taken, and up for sale for $1500!

I am excited about this new project, which combines what I love and what I am good at. It is exactly the sort of project I need to find purpose in the everyday. It is far better and more satisfying than writing material for other people. I had grown more than restless with my work, and desperately needed to write for myself instead of others. I will still work on projects for others, of course, for a living. It is still a great way to learn new things and stay in touch with the world.

I hope to even do some freelance work on my own, for friends and acquaintances who need some copy, but don’t want to pay the high cost of hiring an agency.

With all that, it is a pretty full life. Add to that the mountain of wedding gifts to sort through, enjoy, and write thank-yous for, and our apartment is full as well.

Danny is so precious. Just this morning he had to dash back after leaving for work, because he had forgotten to put on his wedding ring. We both take ours off for washing and sometimes sleeping, because they are a bit loose for the time being, and hard to get used to. But they have a safe place of honor in the antique pewter ring holder I keep by my bed.

As I write this by joints are beginning to ache, so I may not make the errands I had planned. I also have to be careful not to type for too long, because of course it bothers my wrists.

But reading taxes none of my joints, and so I am turning to my books. Right now I am reading a book about the daily life in London in 1700. Turns out it is not much different than it was in 1660, as i read a similar book abut daily life in The Restoration. But I still love to study it.

Well, I hope that entry wasn’t too dull to read. Just wanted to let my far-flung friends know how things are going. Love to all, and please, please, come for a visit this Spring, any of you. We have so many fun hostess tools now, and I want to use them! I want to be MARY T!

Danny has been in Indiana for work all week so I have been staying with my parents and my brother at the house I lived in since I was 12. Prior to this one we had 3 others, and those I actually remember more fondly than this one, but this is the home I have known for most of my life.

Since moving to Post Midtown with Danny I have spent much less time here. I used to spend several nights a week at home, but now “home” means my apartment with Danny. This week of being with my family has been a wonderful treat.

My room is mostly unchanged since I was 16. I have a wonderful tall bed and all of my furniture pieces are beautiful wooden antiques from my great-grandmother. I have an awesome old tv cabinet that is actually going to waste sitting in the corner of my bedroom. When Danny and I have a house I will rescue it.

When I come home I always spend hours and hours in my mom and dad’s bed, watching tv and playing on the computer. This week, with my pained spine, I have spent days here. At night I watch tv with my mom and we talk and my dad sleeps in my bed until I tell him he can have his own bed back.

I wonder, when I am a married woman will I still be able to come home and eat candy and drink Dr. Pepper with my mom while we watch Still Standing and laugh even though we know it’s silly?

I think so.

I love coming to my other home. Home home. It’s nice to have two places where you feel safe and loved. And I have even more at the homes of my extended family. I am a very lucky girl.