Not So Grounded

What a load a crap ...

Who was I kidding ... I HATE all this damn hauling & cleaning out & trying to arrange junk that I have no room for and may only need once the next decade ... my house is full of crap, I'm full of crap ... I'm just hoping the beer chills fast & the college guys arrive soon so I can order 'em around & feel better. 

Red Leather

My best friend found us a new red leather couch & chair (at a thrift store, for next to nothing, in perfect shape), within about 72 hours of requesting one.  She also sold my current couch & chair (which she had originally found years ago, at a thrift store, for next to nothing, in perfect shape...)  This is the same woman who found all my household furnishings, and paint, and renovation designs ... also within moments of asking.  Plus, did all the subsequent decorating. The same woman who introduced me to my editor.  And my husband. 

To say she's Good is an understatement.

So this weekend we're doin' some Changing.  For those of you who don't know my best friend, these events go something like this ... moment she found the new red couch & chair she's been keeping herself awake at night re-arranging in her head every stick of furniture, every plant, knick-knack, photograph, piece of art, carpet, book ... in my house.  My job the next 48 hours is to unclutter every room & surface & orifice, making at least 3 trips to the dump.  Then at precisely 2:00 Sunday afternoon she'll arrive.  And start pointing & moving & arranging.  I swear, not a single thing will remain in its original place.  By 4:00 we'll be Done.  We'll open a good bottle of white wine, and it'll look like a brand new house.

I love doing this.  I completely suck at (and dislike immensely) things like decorating & choosing furniture or paint, but I'm great at uncluttering & hauling & following instructions, so we're the perfect team.  She's done this for me at every moment of major life transition, and a zillion moments inbetween.  But this time it feels extra cool:  her intent, of course, is to help John & me turn My house into Our house.  All for a mere 50 hours & a bottle of wine.  I'm tellin' ya, she's way more than just Good.

Sealed With a Kiss

Just returned from our honeymoon, at the Snowbird Mountain Lodge near Robbinsville, North Carolina, a lovely inn adjacent the Nantahala National Forest, about 100 yards from the Cherohala Skyway and the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest.  Hiked & hiked & hiked, despite the steamy heat. (thanks to Tim Homan's hiking guide.) Hung out on peaks & balds, traversed wet & dry creek beds.  At some point we'll actually download photos (okay, I think we have about 223,018 photos from the wedding week ...).

Also developed serious motorcycle lust -- ohmygod is it cool motorcycle country.  (BUT the Cherohala Skyway needed bicycle lanes on both sides -- absurdly frustrating that no one thought to add them to a scenic route completed less than 10 years ago.)

And then just did the DownTime thing.  Delicious food, strawberry margaritas, sunset views ... really relaxing.  Yet, just as happy to come home.  Which feels just as good. 

I do ...

I'm married.  One minute I'm single and the next minute (actually twenty minutes) I'm married.  To a man I've known less than 9 months.  In retrospect, seems like it took me a ridiculously long lifetime to accomplish something that was no-brainer quick. 

Later I'll post pictures & details & other such things, but right now I'm just being all of a sudden married.  Happy & bone tired & spacey & giddy & happy again & did I mention exhausted ...? 

I cried all day Friday, 2 days before the wedding, overwhelmed that those most precious to me rained themselves down on me, designing those things I can't design, handling logistics, making chuppahs & earrings & origami paper cranes, throwing pre-wedding festivities, crossing thousands of miles, the last week one dear friend just stayed sensitive wide open on the other end of my emails & text messages & calls which otherwise would've seemed like silly bottled messages stranded at sea ... Not to mention I was marrying the groom of my dreams ... All of it made me cry every time I turned around. 

Until wee Saturday morning when I woke to pee (and cry), realized my nephew was stuck in the bathroom behind a broken door jamb, and while he offered to lay out some towels & just sleep on the floor, John took a screw driver to the knob & saved the day (or the night and the young man, as the case may be).  At 3:00 am.  An hour that makes it perfectly clear laughing is far better than crying.

Next day we shoved a washcloth in the gaping hole where the door knob used to be.  And got ready to get married.