Christmas Party

Friday night we had our 2nd annual Christmas party.  It was a small gathering since it's so close to Christmas and we had several friends who couldn't make it because they were either out of town or had other family obligations.  We put 7:30 on the Evite, but when nobody was here at 8:15 we thought for sure that nobody was going to show up.  The Murph and I got excited and thought we would be able to put on our pj's and watch a movie.  Then everyone showed up at once.   We ended up having about a dozen people.  We thought they wouldn't stay long and move on somewhere else for a late night drink or two somewhere other than our house, but at midnight they were all still here.  Everyone seemed to have a great time.  The Murph and I ended up having a great time after we got over the disappointment that we wouldn't be able to put on our pj's just yet.

I made sausage balls, sweet and spicy nuts, crab and avocado on toasted baguettes, stuffed olives, 2 kinds of chips and dips,  fruit and cheese trays, and ricotto and honey bruschetta  I picked up a veggie platter, cheese straws, petitie fours, wedding cookies and peppermint bark.

Everybody brought their choice of wine to drink, but I made a champagne punch with cranberry juice and frozen orange juice and had soft drinks and other bar mixers and liquors set out, including egg nog and rum.

I didn't get a lot of pictures of everyone once they got here and the Babysitter showed up late and refused to have her picture made because she knew they would be all over Facebook the next day.  So these are all I managed to get.

Everybody must have had a good time because nobody would leave so The Murph had to throw them all out promptly at midnight.  It was way past our bedtime.  We are not in our twenties anymore!   We slept in on Saturday and were totally useless the entire day.  

We didn't even get our workout in on Saturday which is almost unheard of!  I made up for it today by running 10 miles with little L (former Running Nazi) and then going to the gym and spinning for 30 minutes and about 10 minutes of weights.  

After running I finished up the rest of my Christmas shopping early this morning and picked up a honey baked ham at the HoneyBaked ham store.  I love those things!  It was great not having to wait in lines or dodge traffic!  No crowds at the mall yet!  Only us runners that early on a Sunday morning.  I was home by 10 a.m.  

Now I just have to wrap everything and get ready for my family and the Babysitter to come over Christmas day for lunch.  And the Boy comes home tonight from his dad's house.

Wedding Invitations Picked Out And On Budget!

We finally ordered wedding invitations!  You would think this is easy, but I assure you it is not.  For one thing, if you remember these past blog posts Here and my all time favorite Here where I added photos of invitations I liked, you will understand the problem.

I wanted fancy, expensive wedding invitations fit for a movie star or well.... a princess.  Unfortunately, these types of invitations cost money.  LOTS of money.  For example, my favorite invitation is $55 dollars per invitation and prices can go up from there.  No wonder they are so wonderful!  

When the Running Nazi was pointing out what a budgeting dumb ass I was on that run a while back (this one, remember),  I made sure not to mention the cost of the invitations I liked or my "secret" wedding invitation budget.  Since we are having a small wedding and only ordering 75 invitations,  I figured we could spend a little more per invitation.  

My "secret" wedding invitation budget was $2,000 dollars.  Do the math and you can see that 75 invitations at $55 dollars is over $4,000 dollars.  That amount was even out of my "secret" wedding invitation budget.

The Murph was more vocal about his wedding invitation budget.  His was under $500 dollars.  This was a more acceptable amount for the Running Nazi as well, although she thought we could get invitations for under $200 if we weren't such spendy fools.

So, see the dilemma we were in when it came time to order invitations.  I'm trying to find fancy smancy $4,000 invites for under $2,000, the Murph wants invites for under $500 and it really doesn't matter what the Running Nazi thinks.  I never put her in charge of the budget and now I'm too scared of her to tell her how much we spend.  

So we walked in the store today and there were literally thousands of invitations to choose from, including William Arthur and Vera Wang.  They were hanging on the walls everywhere and there were tons of books to browse through.  We had some decisions to make.

So that's where this poor man comes into the picture.  Alan, the owner of Alan's Invitations, one of the most popular invitation shops in Birmingham.   We talked to him last year about invitations and got totally confused at the huge selection.  It was probably the Murph and my first argument, although the Murph said it wasn't really an argument, just a minor disagreement.  

Alan didn't remember us at all or at least he said he didn't.  A good thing for us he didn't remember us, he might have thrown us out of the shop right then.

I think Alan has a super human ability to block out unpleasant things and unpleasant would describe me and the Murph trying to decide on invitations.  He's been in retail for awhile.  I remember purchasing birthday invitations for the Boy here many, many years ago.  I don't think they do birthday invitations anymore. 

Alan had his job cut out for him today.  The Murph and I have different ways of communicating and making decisions.  All unpleasant.  The Murph had decided on an invitation within 5 minutes of entering the store.  While I thought that invitation was okay, it wasn't exactly what I wanted.  I thought it was kind of plain.  I wanted sparkle.  I wanted some bling bling.  I wanted tulle or ribbon or both.  And I wanted it to have at least a hint of fuchsia.  Fuchsia, not red, not burgundy.  Just that perfect shade of pink.

Not too much to ask you'd think, except for the fact that this invitation doesn't exist unless you're willing to spend mega bucks.  Being practical like the Running Nazi, the Murph said, "Why spend a lot of money on something people just throw away?"

Love the funky chandelier!

After a couple of hours where I satisfied myself that I wasn't going to find any bling in our wedding invitation budget, I decided on shiny vintage gold invitations with a satin ribbon.  We customized the entire thing and added a hint of fuchia to the inside border and ink and the envelope flap.  Then we picked out fonts.  Millions of fonts.

I wanted our names in cursive, the Murph didn't like flowing, curly girly letters.  Alan came to the rescue by finding a cursive font that wasn't too frilly for the Murph, who was already declaring the fact that he was going to have to turn in his man card.  

Below is a close sample to what we chose.  All by William Arthur.

Alan probably needed some Valium by the time we left.  Although I was the worst, most indecisive one, Alan told me I had my hands full with the Murph.

 I know I do, but...

Alan's been in the wedding invitation business long enough to know better than to tell a man in front of his fiance that he has HIS hands full.  Even though I know the Murph has his hands full with me too, it's more fun to say the Murph is a handful.

The Murph with his checking account a little bit lighter.

But think of how much money we saved.  My secret budget was $2,000.  The Murph's budget was $500.  The actual wedding invitation cost for 75 invitations was $850.  We saved over $1,000 dollars!!

Go me!!

Cantankerous

can·tan·ker·ous/kanˈtaNGkərəs/

Adjective:

Bad-tempered, argumentative, and uncooperative.

This has been the word of the week at our house.  Actually, it has been the word of the past two weeks.  Mostly because I haven't felt well and I get a little irritable when I don't feel well.  The Murph has called me cantankerous all week.  And had fun doing it too!   He can see it in my face when I start getting irritable even though I try to fake that I'm not irritable because I don't like him being right all the time.

After the really bad episode at the doctor's office, I went home and was pretty desperate for meds.  I knew there were some expired antibiotics in the cabinet but was afraid to use them because I didn't want to take a chance on having super hero strength bacteria floating around in my body because they were able to resist a weakened antibiotic.

All bets were off when I got home from the doctor.  I was miserable and afraid to get accosted by another quack.  I have an appointment with a new pulmonary specialist in July so I just have to make it until then.  I don't trust any other doctors right now so there was only one desperate thing left to do.  Take the expired antibiotics.

After just one I immediately felt better.  So far everything is good.  I've had three and was even able to run long with the Running Nazi this morning.  I felt weak but was able to run 10 miles.  

This morning I wasn't the one being cantankerous.  The Running Nazi, let's just say, was not her normal self.  She was as cantankerous as hell!  I was so glad I had the perfect word to describe her.  (not to her face of course!)

Lemon balm - perfect for cantankerous behavior

I can only imagine what caused her cantankerous behavior.  I'm sure it has something to do with the fact she just started a new job a few weeks ago and she's had to be up by 4 a.m every week day morning and goes non-stop until close to midnight with lots of traveling.  She's only home on the weekends and has hardly any time to do anything much less work out.  Yep, it's no wonder she was cantankerous.

This particular cantankerous episode was (I think) directed at me somehow although she pretended it was the Murph.  Or rather the Murph's swimming pool.   Since neither the Murph nor I are working right now (this is temporary) and we have plenty of time to work out and stuff and I think she's a little huffy about that.  She asked me last week if I wanted to be her assistant and work maybe 10 hours a week making calls and computer "stuff".  She was all vague about exactly what I would have to do and that had me suspicious right away.  She can be pretty sneaky!

Anyway, the Murph and I decided that we are going to wait until the Fall to think about jobs again so I told her if she still needed someone in the Fall I would consider it.  I think that is what started all her cantankerousness because the next thing I know she asked me if we'd "fixed" the pool yet.  I told her the Murph had the water tested and it came back ok and all he needed was a little something to make the water less alkaline.  The water is anything but clear but the Murph insists that one of the filters isn't working and then there's that yellow gunk that I think is algae but the Murph says he knows what he's doing and he gets all defensive when I say anything negative about his pool or his pool handling skills.  So I keep my mouth shut.

The Running Nazi then launches into a blast about how easy pool care is and her pool is always crystal clear (and it is) despite the fact she works all the time and is never home. She told me what she thought the Murph needed to do and she didn't understand why since neither one of us work, how we couldn't somehow keep our pool clear and if something was wrong with the filtering system, why didn't the Murph get it repaired.   It was then that I had a feeling this was not about how clear our pool was.

I told her the Murph says the pool is clean, just not clear, and she said we should not get in the pool because we can get impetigo.  Then I told her the Murph says the pool is cleaner than a lake and people swim in lakes all the time and she said you can get impetigo in a lake too.  I agreed that the water didn't look too healthy and the Murph stands in it all the time.  I told him he was going to get a fungus on his privates if he didn't watch out.  He wasn't too concerned.  I don't get in the pool at all except on a float and I try not to touch the water.

After the little cantankerous tirade the Running Nazi apologized, said it really wasn't her business and she was just tired and irritable and she wouldn't blame me if I was mad at her because she would be mad if I had said those things to her.

I wasn't mad at all.  In fact, it was rather amusing.  I love it when I have companionship in my cantankerousness. It's even better when someone else is more cantankerous than me.  

When I got home I told the Murph some if the conversation.  I asked him if he ever back washed the pool (she told me that's what you're suppose to do and I wasn't sure the Murph's done that in a while).  He scoffed and said he KNEW how to take care of the pool.   I told him that the Running Nazi said it was easy to take care of a pool and her pool was always clear and that she said her two brother's had pools and theirs were always clear and had waterfalls too!

He said I didn't know what I was talking about.  He's the pool expert.

                                 The Running Nazi's Pool

                                            Our Pool

After I told him all this, he suddenly decided to put some chemicals in the pool (cement pond).  He said he "melted the pool" just now and threw in a sh**t load of algaecide and stirred it up and shocked it really good and oh yea, he sarcastically said he "learned how to backwash".  

None of this will probably work.  The pool's a hot mess!  (that was our last word of the week before cantankerous)