I’ve decided to see if photography is a viable hobby.

The way this works is I have been gradually increasing my dose of Chantix since last Friday. In theory, the Chantix plays with the same receptors that attracts the nicotine in the cigarettes, keeping them happy so I don’t have as many urges to smoke. I’ve been following the prescription and taking the medication just like I am supposed to. So today is D-Day, zero-hour, my Quit Day. I am supposed to try very hard not to have a cigarette. If I fail, that’s okay. I am supposed to just pick up where I left off and keep trying. My doctor expects me to be down to at most one or two cigarettes a week in 12 weeks when I go back to check in with her. My goal is to be done. Completely done.

Today has been a little hard already. My smoking trigger is basically anytime, anywhere. So not having that cigarette when I first got up today has left me feeling a little weird. Like my body expects it. It’s not really that I want the cigarette itself…Just the fact of not having one is odd. I had a handful of pistachios during a particularly difficult moment and that seemed to help. We’ll see.

See you next week!

Friday, 2/15/08 The Rehearsal
The day started with a lot of running around. Getting my hair colored (bad idea 2 days before the wedding, that crap is hard to get off your skin), picking up Mike’s tuxedo, trying to pack…Then we had to drive to Baltimore for the rehearsal. Needless to say we didn’t even get a chance to eat! We sat in rush hour traffic and I thought we would be late. Fortunately, Mike knows some back roads between picking up my sister, the ring bearer, and a bridesmaid to the rehearsal site at Martin’s. We weren’t late! In fact, we were the first ones there! I’m not allowed to tell how we got there, because if Mike’s mom is reading my blog she would probably kill us.

The rehearsal started late, since everyone was stuck in traffic. The guy running the rehearsal was cool for the most part so it wasn’t a huge problem. He told us we’d run through the ceremony three times. We all lined up, figured out who was doing what and when with the unity candles and the processional and everything. Then we started the read-through. Morty, our officiant, was fabulous. I think he might have been more nervous than us! As we were reading through we figured out some final details. Morty started reading through the part where we repeat after him. Mike and I were watching Morty and Mike is supposed to repeat..but instead says “Wait, what was that?” We all cracked up. It was hilarious. This on top of my 8-year-old nephew making Bridezilla movements with his arms and quietly roaring…it was a bit much! We got through the read-through and everyone agreed that we would be okay for Sunday and didn’t need to run through it again, so we all headed out for the Rehearsal Dinner, hosted by Mike’s mother and stepfather. It was wonderful! We went to Timbuktu Restaurant, Mike and I finally got to eat, and got to spend time with our friends and family. It meant so much to have everyone there!

Saturday, 2/16/08 1 Day to Go!
Not much today…My sister and I went to pay for the wedding flowers and made a couple of stops to visit our father and sister’s graves. Tears were shed, of course. I am really glad we went, though.

Afterwards, we went to the Bridesmaid’s Luncheon with the girls. Good food, lots of laughs, lots of fun. Then the girls took me to the spa. We had the most amazing manicures and pedicures! The most wonderful idea for a Bachelorette Party ever! I have never felt so relaxed in my life! My sister and I went to our hotel and had dinner with our aunt and uncle.

Sunday, 2/17/08 The Big Day
Okay, I admit I don’t remember a lot about my wedding day, but I will do my best.

The day started with the girls all meeting at the hotel to get hair and makeup done by some very talented friends of my sister. We got a little bit of a late start because I overslept a little, as did everyone but the Bridesmaids! We were supposed to be at Martin’s at 11, but that’s what time we left the hotel! The photographer and videographer were already there when we got there to get dressed, but they were really cool about us being late. The photographer wanted to take some pictures of us getting ready which was cool. It took forever to get dressed! In the middle of all of this, the flowers arrive. We were missing boutonnières for the ring bearer and fathers! I almost died! One of my Bridesmaids totally took care of it, though. At one point the photographer told us he was going to start taking pictures of the guys and left us alone. We finally got dressed and Mike was squirreled away so he wouldn’t see me so the photographer took a few more pictures of us before the ceremony. Guests were arriving as the pictures were being taken, so I wasn’t much of a surprise to everyone. Guests were still arriving at 1:30, when the ceremony was supposed to start, so even though we were all ready the ceremony started late. We finally got lined up and the music started.

I remember standing at the end of the room and looking in at a very bright light. That’s all I could really see. My Uncle David was so serene as he walked me down the aisle where Mike and everyone were waiting. Uncle David lifted my veil after telling the officiant that he and my aunt were presenting me in marriage. He then kissed me on the cheek and took my hand and placed it into Mike’s. This was one of the most beautiful moments in my entire life and I will never forget it. Mike’s sister Jill had written something to read during the ceremony. It was so beautiful! Everyone was really moved. Several people suddenly came down with something in their eyes.

Fortunately, the ceremony seemed to go really smoothly. I remember Mike telling me at one point how pretty he thought I looked. It felt like the ceremony lasted 30 seconds. Then we were kissing as man and wife and the recessional music started. We played some Star Wars music (the scene where Han and Luke are walking up to get their medals) and got some laughs from guests as we walked back up the aisle. It was great.

The reception went by really quickly. I remember walking in through the Introductions and going immediately into the first dance. Mike held me so close as the song was playing. It was so wonderful. Then dinner service started. I wasn’t really hungry so after the toasts I ended up dancing with my three-year-old nephew who had decided to open the dance floor for us. I remember that every time Mike and I tried to go greet our guests we were pulled away for pictures, or cutting the cake, or parent dances, or something! The evening flew by. After we got all of our stuff packed up, we started loading the car. The groomsmen had hung pom poms and signs all over and put balloons in the front. I hope someone got pictures, because I thought it looked great. Mike and I met the best man at his hotel next door to hang out for a little while. We ended up going to dinner with him and we didn’t get home until 11! We still had to get packed for the honeymoon and get to our hotel at Dulles! We checked in at 1:00 or so and requested our 4:00am wake-up call.

Monday, 2/18/2008 – Saturday 2/23/2008 The Mexican Paradise Honeymoon
Yes, we did actually get up at 4:30am after getting so little sleep all weekend. We got to the airport in plenty of time for our first flight (Dulles to Atlanta). The flight was delayed. This stuff happens all the time, so no big deal. We get to Atlanta and find the gate for our connection to Cancun. The flight was delayed. Come on! Twice in a row? Really annoying especially when you are already really tired!

So anyway. I think we got to the resort (Xpu Ha Palace) in Riviera Maya sometime around 5 or so. The weather was amazing. Sunny, in the 80s. We were too tired to really enjoy it though. We checked in, made reservations for off site tours for Thursday and Friday (included in our package), and got a ride to our room, where we decided to get room service, soak in the hot tub, and go to bed. We did drink the bottle of champagne that was waiting for us, though. Apparently honeymooners get perks.

On Tuesday we slept in a little bit, then got up and wandered the resort. The resort is an ecopark in the Yucatan Jungle so there are these zoo-like areas. They have flamingos, tortoises, deer, crocodiles, snakes, monkeys, birds, a tigrillo, and Coaties. We decided to hit the pool for a little (how cool is it to swim up to a bar and drink in the middle of a pool in February?). We also visited the Public Relations desk, since we were told we were supposed to. We had a drink at the lobby bar while waiting for the PR representative to become available, and got to hang out with this really nice bartender named Lucy. She talked to us like she had known us for years! She was a really nice woman and we ended up seeing her almost every night.

We finally sat down with the PR woman. She gave us some Honeymooners t-shirts and made reservations for a honeymoon dinner for Wednesday night. Since we had wrapped up the business side of things, we went back to our room to change and went to dinner. After eating the most amazing 5-course dinner ever at the Mexican restaurant, we went back to our room to drop some stuff off before going out. We had planned to visit the lobby bar for Karaoke Night (just to watch), since Lucy said it would be a lot of fun. We finished dinner around 9 and were going to head over, but when we got back to our room we found a surprise. First, there was this really cute towel sculpture on the bed. It was a free-standing heart! I wanted to freshen up before heading out so I went up to the bathroom area of the room. That’s when we discovered that they had also filled up the hot tub with a bubble bath. We stayed in on Tuesday night.

On Wednesday we went on a tour of the veterinary facility at the resort. It was pretty cool to see the programs they have. They do rehab and release on lots of animals in the area, and even have a program where they release some of the animals from the resort back into the wild. We spent all day outside doing the tour, walking around, swimming in the pool. We got dressed for our special dinner and headed over to the restaurant. There was some confusion with our reservation, and I don’t think they were expecting us. About 3 different people apologized for it! We only had to wait about 5 minutes for them to set our table! Even the PR lady showed up to check on us. We’re talking some serious customer care here.

Dinner was AMAZING. They had a special four-course menu printed up just for us, champagne, flower petals on the table, the whole nine yards. It was so beautiful I wanted to cry! We tried to make sure the waiter knew we were having a great time, and I think we succeeded. After dinner we decided to go to the lobby bar for Casino Night and drinks. We were quite late for Casino Night, but we hung out with some people we recognized from the night before and had some drinks. We stayed out waaaaay too late, though. We had to meet up for a tour at 8:00 the next morning and we stayed out until midnight!

On Thursday we got up really early to have some breakfast before our tour of the Mayan ruins at Coba. Once we met up with our tour, we rode for about an hour to this little Mayan village where we stopped at what I would equate to a truck stop. There was a gift shop with lots of amazing Mayan crafts, jewelry, and artwork. The tour guide suggested we stop for a restroom break since this place has clean restrooms and the actual site at Coba does not. Clean, yes. But no toilet seats! After a 15 minute rest period we got back in the vans and headed to the site of the ruins, which are actually in the jungle.

Coba was beautiful. It was amazing to see structures that had been built so long ago reconstructed. I really can’t think of anything in the US that matches the history we saw that day. We got to walk through the jungle and climb along portions of the ruins as the tour guide told us the history of what we were seeing. We got to see the pyramid there. It was huge! I think I remember being told that it was 144 steps up, but I am not sure. The best part was getting to climb to the top. The thought of doing it was more thrilling than the fear of falling so I went up with Mike. You would not believe the view from the top. Even though I was really nervous being up so high I did take a look around. You could see for miles! We were fortunate that there was a really nice man willing to snap a couple of pictures of us from the top. After getting some pictures it was time to get down. Let me tell you that these steps were narrow, uneven, and steep. I sat down on my butt and went down one step at a time, just like the children. We made our way back through the jungle and met back up with the tour and went back to the rest stop where were were served a buffet lunch and entertained by Mayan children performing traditional dances. It was great.

After lunch we headed back to the resort. We stopped at the lobby bar for a drink before heading back to our room. We changed into our swim suits and went to the pool, where, if you can’t guess, we had another drink or so. We were supposed to meet some of our new friends at the lobby bar so we had an earlier dinner and went over. It was Anything Can Happen Night, and they were playing a trivia game where they would play a short burst of music and you would have to guess the movie or TV show the music was from (after giving the password “Me gusta Mariachi!). Apparently I was the only dork there because I correctly identified Bryan Adams “Everything I do, I do it for you” as being from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. We had decided to cancel our off site tour of Chichen Itza (more Mayan ruins) the next day, so we hung out at the bar really late with our new friends, then called it a night. We put the breakfast order card on the door to have breakfast delivered and went to bed.

On Friday we slept in. We got up for our breakfast delivery, put the dishes outside the door, and went back to bed until 2. We kind of hung around the resort getting more pictures and having a great buffet lunch. Then we went to the Estuary the resort has for kayaking and snorkeling. We decided to get a kayak and tried to get around the little lagoon. It was really hard! We couldn’t seem to keep the boat going in the direction we really wanted. I think we gave up after a half an hour or so because my arms had gotten really tired. From there we went to the pool. We had a drink and swam a little, but it was windy on Friday so I didn’t want to stay too long because I felt cold. We hung out in the room until dinner. We went back to the Mexican restaurant because we liked the food there better than the Italian one. Not to say the Italian food was bad, quite the contrary. It was fantastic! But on the Mexican side, there was the best soup (Lime soup, I must find a recipe!) we had ever had so we wanted to have it again before leaving. We met up with our friends at the lobby bar for one last hurrah and called it a night a little early since we had another 4:00 wakeup call to get to the airport.

Saturday sucked. First, we were leaving a tropical paradise to go home from our honeymoon. Second, we had to leave the resort at 6:15 for an 11:00 flight. So we get to the airport, check in for the flight, go through security and the passport checkpoint, and then go into the duty free shop. I really wanted to get some Kahlua. The Kahlua in Mexico is so fantastic! Mike pointed out that there wasn’t any room in our luggage, though, and since the bottles were more than 3 ounces we’d have to check the booze. We moved on to the gate to discover that our flight was delayed. We got some breakfast and checked again. The flight was delayed more. At this point, we stand a good chance of missing our connection in Atlanta so we’re getting antsy. The flight finally starts boarding. By which I mean they called us by boarding group only to lump us all on one bus that took us to the tarmac and sat us there for about 10 minutes while they finished cleaning the plane from the last flight. Once they boarded the plane it was another 10 minutes before they pulled away from the gate, then we had to wait for 4 more planes to take off before we could! When we got to Atlanta we sat at the gate for a good 10 minutes before the jetway driver bothered to show up and let people off the plane. We had to pick up our bags to go through customs, and we only had about 20 minutes to catch our plane. Those 20 minutes (and then some) were spent waiting for our bags to finally show up so we could go through customs. By the time we got to the point where we could recheck our bags, the plane was gone. We got rebooked for 7:00, rechecked our bags, and started thinking about how to kill 3 hours. We ended up wandering around to find food and just hanging out at the gate. Surprisingly, the plane boarded on time and left in a somewhat timely manner. We got to Dulles around 8:30, went to claim our bags and go home. The bags took FOREVER to get on the conveyor belt. Once it started one of our bags showed up after about 20 minutes. We kept watching and waiting. Can you guess where this is going? After the conveyor belt stopped we started looking for baggage services to find out where the hell our other suitcase was. I’m so tired and angry I am almost in tears at this point. The nice Delta employee behind the counter informs me that my suitcase is on the plane AFTER ours and is scheduled to arrive at 11:30. I lost it. She offered to have the bag delivered so we gave her our information, which we found out later she didn’t even right down correctly, and went home without our suitcase. Crystal, if you are reading this, I could have used your forehead hitting services on several occasions on Saturday.

What have we learned here?
Don’t fly Delta. If you don’t have a choice, walk. You’ll probably get there faster and you will definitely have all of your stuff when you get to where you’re going.

I am so glad this happened on Saturday and not Monday. That could have ruined our honeymoon! But it didn’t. I feel very fortunate that we had the opportunity to go on this trip. We had the best time and want to go back! The really lucky thing is that we really could go back. Mike’s dad and stepmother have a membership at these resorts and will let us have another week if we want. I’m hoping we can go for our first anniversary. That would be really special.

This year, hundreds of thousands of people will hear the words “you have breast cancer.” There’s a good chance that some of them will be people we know and love. I have chosen to fight back against this disease and help make a difference by participating in the American Cancer Society Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk … and I hope you will join me by making a donation in support of my effort.

Making Strides Against Breast Cancer is a noncompetitive walk that takes place in 120 communities across the country. From Arizona to Maine and Washington to Florida, Making Strides walkers unite to honor breast cancer survivors and to educate women about early detection and prevention. And of course, by raising money to support the American Cancer Society’s fight against breast cancer, we help fund groundbreaking research, public awareness campaigns, efforts to ensure all women have access to mammograms, and free programs and services that improve the quality of life for patients and their families.

I hope you will support my efforts by making a donation using my personal online fundraising page. It’s safe and simple. All you have to do is click the link below and follow the few easy steps. Last year, 450,000 Making Strides participants raised $45 million … and they did it one donation at a time. So, whether you’re able to give $10 or $100, every bit truly does help.

Hope starts one dollar at a time. Hope starts with me. And hope can start with you. Thank you in advance for any support you may be able to offer.
Click here to visit my personal page.

The American Cancer Society’s state fundraising notices can be reviewed at: main.acsevents.org/statefundraisingnotices

The first house we went to was…small. Everything felt smooshed. There was no basement, no attic, and very few closets. The owners have cats though. One of them looked like it had swallowed a basketball. It was a normal-looking cat except for the very, very round middle. I thought it looked like it had a tumor. Mike thought the damned thing was a tumor.

The second house we went to was pretty big for a town house. It had large rooms and was on a huge lot. Much to our surprise, it is being sold as-is. The listing didn’t say anything about that, but I guess that isn’t really important information. The living room and dining room are pretty big. They need wall paper removed, a fresh coat of paint, and new carpeting. Not much else. The stucco ceiling is only slightly out of date but is in good condition, so we don’t need to worry about it yet. We moved on to the teeny powder room on the main level. It’s a toilet and a sink, which is all you really need except that the door to the sink cabinet is on its last hinge. Literally.

We then saw the kitchen. The flooring is not horrendous, but is ugly enough to warrant being replaced. The cabinets make no sense. They are squished against two of the three walls (are are really ugly) and someone removed all the knobs from the cabinets and drawers. Someone also installed a “breakfast bar” against the third wall. It was done pretty badly. The height was off based on the cabinet height, and they actually covered a cabinet. The configuration of the cabinets and counters isn’t bad. There is plenty of counterspace in the important places, i.e. next to the sink and stove, but the thing is so ugly the kitchen will have to be gutted.

Next came the “partially finished” basement. What this means is someone tried to build a wall. They did it badly and they put it in a really retarded spot. So that will have to come down and the whole basement will have to be completely finished. The basement door also has a lot of glass in it. This makes it too easy to break a pane and gain access to the house. Door’s gotta go.

We moved on to the bedrooms. Halfway up the stairs I burst out laughing (as did the agents showing us the house). It was about halfway up the stairs that I saw the piss-yellow shag carpet. This carpet is in the hallway and all three bedrooms up there. The bedrooms were actually of decent sizes. The master bedroom has two closets of a smaller size than I would like, but they are useable. The bathroom. The master bathroom is pretty small, but it does have its own shower. The shower had the largest grime stain I have ever seen. I swear nobody had ever cleaned this shower. It was black. The thing needs to be taken out and burned it is so bad. If we decide on this house, the shower has got to go before I will set foot in it again.

The yard is pretty nice. It needs a fence, but that’s not hard to do and doesn’t need to be done right away. I would like to know why there is a waterfall of ice hanging off the garden hose holder. I’m hoping someone just left the spigot on. Mike saw an extension cord when we were leaving and decided to follow it. He followed it around the corner and up the wall to a spot light. Mike and I are very sure that little baby ain’t up to code. The realtors agreed. At least they used an outdoor extension cord.

The third house was also an as-is. The living room, dining room, and kitchen were a little on the small side, but still useable. The living and dining room had gorgeous laminate floors that were in excellent condition. The dining room also had a sliding glass door that leads to a patio. Not too bad. The kitchen had gorgeous stainless steel appliances. The cabinets were all falling apart. There was no bathroom on the main floor.

We went to the basement next. It was fully finished. Someone built a small room in one of the corners by putting up wahfair theen walls. The light switches were over by the sliding glass doors that exit out to the back yard. You have to walk across the dark basement to turn on the lights. The wood-burning stove was a nice touch, but then I saw the bathroom. There was carpet on the walls. It wasn’t piss yellow shag, but still. We were able to look at the back yard. It has no grass. I think this is because none will grow thanks to the very large pine tree.

We finally made our way up to the bedrooms. The master bedroom was not too small. Instead of a master bathroom, there is a private entrance to the upper level bathroom. The other bedrooms weren’t too bad. Every single closet door was broken in some way.

The last house we looked at was okay. It had a nice yard and looked well maintained. It had a nice sized patio. Big enough for a patio set and a grill, but not so big as to take over the whole yard. I thought it was a little odd that there was no step down from the patio, but that’s minor. It isn’t a tall patio. There seemed to be a little rot in one area of the rail part, but that’s also easily fixed. We went back in and the agent showed the condensation inside the glass of the door. A broken seal means that whole door will have to be replaced. The living room is fairly large, but long and a little narrow. The dining room is also a good size. They cut a window in the wall between the kitchen and dining room for a pass-through. Not a bad idea, but they cut it too small, in my opinion. The odd thing about this dining room is the suspended ceiling. We can’t for the life of us figure out why there is a suspended ceiling with some really crappy fluorescent lighting. The hallway to the kitchen and front door has gorgeous linoleum tile that looks like stone. The walls have wood paneling. With nails not in all the way and not finished. Rush job on that one, but not that much work.

The kitchen has the same linoleum tile. Floors look beautiful until you really look at them. And see the half-assed job someone did of laying it. The kitchen is large, but the flooring was done badly so that needs to be redone. One of the first things you notice about the kitchen is the cabinets. They’re nice enough, but the seller bought them off the shelf at some discount place. Nothing fits! They hung the upper cabinets too low, so when they had to put the fridge in they had to move a cabinet up so there is one cabinet that isn’t level with the rest. There are gaps in between cabinets and walls. The pass-through has part of a cabinet covering it on the left side and a huge amount of space between the opening and the cabinet on the right side. It’s as if the seller thought the old cabinets were so bad that they could do a really bad job in replacing them to overprice the house by at least $20,000. The whole kitchen will have to be redone in this one.

The upstairs has three decent bedrooms, a master bath (small, but nice), and a shared bath in the hallway (gorgeous tile job on the walls around the bathtub/shower combo). The basement was…interesting. It was partially finished. They built a wall in a goofy way. They divided the basement into two areas. The finished part had odd angles because of the way they built this wall. Instead of a nice rectangular room, they created something that looked like the “Z” shaped pieces in a Tetris game. The other side was unfinished. This is where they have a laundry area. There’s also the most effed up sump pump I have ever seen. A hole in the ground nowhere near a corner and what looks like a vaccuum cleaner hose that goes straight up and out what used to be a window. Is that even up to code? I have no idea but I hope an inspector makes the seller do something about that before the house is bought.

All-in-all it was a productive day. I actually really like the second house we look at. It needs a lot of work, but it’s nothing that can’t be done over the span of several years. I really like how big the rooms are and the size of the yard. I could see us living there for a while. Even if we have a kid or two it feels like it wouldn’t overcrowd too quickly. We’re going to look at 4 more houses next week. Maybe we’ll find something just as big but that requires a little less TLC.