As I’ve mentioned previously, I’ll be up in Boston this weekend with my sister and her sorority team for the Fifth Annual Walk for Change. I’ve made my donation already, but if anyone would like to contribute to the fundraising, feel free:
http://www.firstgiving.com/teamaxo
I think it’s a good cause and a great way to spend a day.
Changes happen in life. The BARCC provides community support for those whose lives have changed dramatically in an awful way. I’ve been there. And now, I’m going through a completely different kind of change. The last thing I want to do with this change is withdraw and focus on just me. So when my sister told me her sorority group was creating a team for this walk and invited me to join her, I decided it was a great idea on a lot of levels.
In any case, I’m walking on April 11th with my sister and her sorority team for the Fifth Annual Walk for Change. I’ve made my donation already, but if anyone would like to contribute to the fundraising, feel free:
Let’s get to it: My husband asked me for a divorce last Monday.
Immediate question would be why? We’ve had our issues, things we’ve been trying to work on for years now. It was finally time to end the trying. He was tired, I was tired, neither of us was happy. He wants to go out on his own, find what makes him happy. I agree that he needs to do the right thing for him.
In the state of NJ, in order to file for a no-fault divorce, we need to be voluntarily separated for a “cooling off” period of 18 months living at separate addresses. At the end of that 18 months, we will file the papers with the court.
It’s been a long road, and I’m tired too. We’re trying to make this happen on amicable terms, but our decision is solid. In 18 months, we will be divorced and until then, we’re going our own ways.
Maybe I’ll learn how to breathe again after it stops hurting.
Hubby and I rang in the New Year just the way we like it nowadays, quietly between just the two of us. We had a couple of parties we were invited to, and a couple of offers for dinner plans, but really, it was nice to just have a quiet night together. Maybe next year, we’ll go out to one of those parties or do a small dinner thing. Maybe. This New Year was pretty relaxed.
New Year’s Day, we took our time and got some things done around the house that had been sitting since Christmas. Presents were put away and wrappings were cleared out of the house. Hubby was busily calibrating the thingy to monitor humidity in his new humidor. I gave the plants much needed pruning session and watered everything. We headed to daddy’s house to have dinner and finally finish troubleshooting and fixing his pc and his wife’s netbook.
Day 2 of the year 2010 was fun times. We headed to dim sum with daddy and his wife, Helen and her sister Dawnie, and Mandy. It was a sort of promise we made to daddy’s wife and we ll stuffed ourselves silly. For Helen, it was the last indulge yourself day of the new year as she plunged into a new diet. Afterwards, we headed over to KennyCelican and DraconisNoir’s home to wish their oldest a very happy birthday.
While we were there, we renewed acquaintance with a family we’d fallen out of contact with over the years. Dana and Dusty seemed to be doing quite well and their oldest son has grown so big! We met their second son for the first time, and he’s quite the charmer. It was a very nice afternoon chatting about kids, books we’ve read, WoW and whatnot. Course, hubby is not so big on the WoW or the books, since neither are hobbies of his, but he had fun playing with the boys, four in total.
In one day, I’d hung out with my best friend since 7th grade, spent time with a new friend that has become very close in the last year and renewed acquaintance with people I hadn’t seen in years. That’s one heck of a day.
At a solid 6’3″ and 225 lbs, the hubby is not a small man. In fact, he’s a big dude and most of him solid muscle, which normally I am incredibly happy about snuggling up to. But when calamity strikes, it is not an easy thing to hold that man up off the floor.
In this case, calamity struck the bottom of his foot and corkscrewed in there for a puncture wound of…seemingly tiny proportions. We thought a little flushing out with hydrogen peroxide would be just fine. But no.
By this morning, he was unable to walk on said foot – after having mowed the lawn and run all over the house doing manly things yesterday, aggravating the issue. I tried touching the puncture and was treated to him jerking back in pain and howling. I had him soak the foot in warm salt water (always good for cleaning out a cut and drawing out what ails a person) and was treated to the sight of angry red lines rising up under his skin, radiating out from the puncture site.
That would be infection, folks, hard core infection spreading out across his foot and right up his leg. Damn, but he doesn’t do things half way.
I immediately pinned him down and had him make a doctor’s appointment. I also had him call out sick. There was no way he was going to walk from the train station to work and hang out at work all day walking to client appointments and lunch meetings and then walk back to the train station to get home. Uh uh.
A visit to the doctor revealed that we’d caught it neatly early and the doc gave him a hard core course of antibiotics over 2 days with orders to come back in for a check up on Thursday. If the infection hasn’t subsided, they’re going to open that baby up and flush it out. Which is what I’d do to myself, but hubby is in too much pain to have that happen. The doc has access to local anesthetic, so he can do it for my big guy if necessary. We caught it early, but make no mistake, the doc said that could have spread right up hubby’s leg and become a serious issue.
Either way, keeping hubby from running around doing his household stuff, like taking out the trash and doing dishes, seems to be a race for me and my mom. We keep having to beat him to it so we can keep his cute behind planted someplace and that foot up off the ground. Gah, you’d think the man would know how to take a day off and be lazy.
Don’t get me wrong. I love him and he’s a keeper. I’m lucky he likes to do all those household things, or at least does them because he loves me. But for his own well being, I need his butt planted on a bed and that foot healing.
The hubby and I are going to be spending the weekend with his family up in the Poconos. It’s a peaceful house that his parents own, right on the riverside. We’ve been up there once before this summer and I really thought it a beautiful place – complete with a few bald eagles along the river banks.
This weekend, I’m hoping to get in some good photography practice as hubby and I take walkies up and down the river. Usually, my main location for photography practice is the zoo. This will make a nice change.
Additionally, I plan to take advantage of the peaceful quiet and finish up Baby Zolman blankie. I also want to get a solid start on Baby Hsueh blankie. The pattern I’ve chosen for that is fairly straightforward and I think it will work up quite quickly. 
If by some chance, I need a change of pace – I’ll be bringing my drop spindle and the rest of my Spring is Here superwash merino. I had originally planned to ply it with 100% angora from Sam or Gally, but changed my mind. I think I will ply it with itself, which means I need another cop (the spun yarn around the spindle shaft). My hope is that I won’t put too much twist in this time and will come out with a nice skein to play with when I knit it up.
Aside from long walkies, hubby plans to take me for a float down the river if the river holds up. I won’t be bringing the camera along (too risky if we cap size) – but I think it’ll be a pretty ride.
That’s a lot to do in just two days, but all of it pleasant. I’m really looking forward to it. Maybe I’ll have some nice pics come Monday.
We went shopping for bridesmaids’ dresses today with the bride-to-be, hubby’s sister. Honestly, it was probably the shortest search for a bridesmaid gown I’ve had in all the weddings I’ve participated in to date. No kidding.
We arrived around 2:30pm and we were pretty much wrapped up by, oh, 4:30pm? Perhaps 5-ish. Not bad at all.
Also a pleasure, the bride’s taste was very reasonable and suited both the bridesmaids trying on dresses for her (that would be me and also another young lady). I think it was a good thing she had the two of us there trying on dresses because I’m a hefty girl with a whole heck of a lot of curvature going on and the other bridesmaid was slender and quite petite. It was good to see the styles of dresses on both of us.
We tried on less than a dozen dresses and only had to try one dress on twice. Honestly, by far the easiest experience I’ve had with bridesmaid dresses ever. Plus, we only had the one session – no going off to boutique after boutique every weekend for months. That could tell you something about what I’ve gone through in other weddings. 
Ah well, the dress was chosen – a very complimentary style for all the girls. It was also very reasonably priced. Woohoo! I purchased my dress right away. Even if I’m going to be trying to lose weight between now and the wedding, it’s unlikely my bust size will shrink so I’d need the same size dress regardless. If I do succeed in slimming down everywhere else, the better I’ll look overall. But it’s nice to know that the dress is already flattering on me.
This will be the first black and white wedding I’ve been in and I think it’ll look pretty awesome. Also, it’s far easier to check and see if I already have a comfortable pair of black shoes that the bride will approve than go about finding a pair of shoes and dying them to match some other color and then breaking them in so I don’t go lame on the day of the wedding. Been there, trust me, this is much easier. Plus, the bride has only asked for a small preference: open toed with no bling. That’s a very easy style to match with plenty of room for individuality and comfort.
Quite honestly, I’m every bit as happy about this dress as I was about my own sister’s bridesmaid dress for her wedding – both could be worn again and are very complimentary. Yay!
(It’s kind of not right not to focus on the bride and groom, but I hope there’ll be a little time to get a couple of good shots of myself and hubby all spiffed up in formal wear at the wedding. I think it’ll look pretty darned sharp. Wedding photos come first of course.)
