Ketchup

Not much new on the wedding front, although we decided that instead of trying to plan for the celebration this year, we'd wait until next summer and get married here, in beautiful Colorado. I think most people expect us to do a destination wedding, which is tempting but I think the beach weddings are overdone and besides, we'd still have to throw a big party when we got back because most of our friends wouldn't be able to go. SV has been in Boulder since the 80's so it makes sense to stay here. We have a gorgeous backdrop and great summertime weather. What more do you need?

As for my recovery, I have made my return to the ice playing in my lunch time league again. Although my leg isn't 100%, skating is good for it and the non-super-competitiveness of the lunch time league is a good way to ease back into playing hockey and building up my confidence again. I do have a greater respect for the NHLers that I watch coming back from injury. I used to wonder why they were playing if they couldn't play at 100% and their skills not up to their own par. Now I get it. It's mostly a mind game of having the confidence to return and be what you once were, especially when you still feel a weakness in your body. Mine is compounded by the fact I had two in a row, but I'll get there. I have missed it, but you all know that.

Summer is starting off with an appetizing bang. Even though we've been talking about getting a little charcoal grill for the deck (another option besides gas-grilling), I took the hint when SV came home with the biggreenegg brochures one week before his birthday that the measly Weber wasn't going to cut it. It was a big gouge in the check book but he is thrilled. Between his mad pork-pulling skills and my continuing culinary expansion, our dinner guests seem to be walking away very fat and happy.

Good thing I can burn off these calories now that there are two cooks in the house.

Worth the Wait

I mean the ring, not this post. My apologies for not posting this sooner but most of you saw the ring on Facebook, but here's the story to go along with it:

I started searching for jewelry designers in Boulder because I knew I was going to want something different than a white diamond for a ring, as my last post indicates. I thought I was going to want an opal because it's my birthstone, but I quickly found out that they are not recommended for every day wear because they are so fragile. They chip easily and with my lifestyle, I knew I'd be heart broken if my ring bit the dust the first time I was in a scuffle along the hockey boards, so I started searching for something else. I thought, why not the opposite of white and get black?

But black diamonds are tough to find in anything of decent size because most people use them as accents in a piece, not as the star of the show. I walked into a number of jewelers and they didn't have anything at all I liked in the way of stones. I drove to one place and took one glance at all the diamond-adorned fetishes and heart-shaped diamonds in the front window and turned right back around. Why is it so hard to find something more arty and unique? Then my hair dresser told me about Todd Reed.

I walked in and instantly knew it was for me. He specializes in using raw diamonds, which are just as beautiful as the polished. Once I saw the black diamonds, I didn't like them, because they were opaque and looked kind of plastic-y. But I did like the smokey gray and brown ones so I picked a chocolate-colored, pear-shaped diamond that is vintage. The designer says they can tell by the way the diamond is cut that it's from the 1600's - back before they knew how to cut them for optimum brilliance, they cut them for optimum diamond weight instead. Who knew all this about diamonds?

So in the end, I did get a diamond but a very cool one. It's set in palladium and outlined with small white diamonds so that it does look more like an engagement ring than just a cool ring. The band has 1/2 raw diamonds on it and 1/2 of a "autumn mix" the designer calls it with yellow, brown and orange diamonds, with a couple of white ones thrown in to accent the big mama.

They said it would take 6-8 weeks to make but SV surprised me by getting them to make it in 3 weeks so I had it went I went out to see my sister for her birthday bash. Here it is, although the picture doesn't do it justice.

You'll just have to see it in person one of these days.

They Say the Way to a Man's Heart...

Post Ring Shopping Conversation at Ted's Montana Grill:

SV: I'm going to order the Bison strip steak. Mmmmm... sounds good, doesn't it?
GKL: I don't think I've ever had bison other than a burger.
SV: Here, read about it on the menu! It says it's leaner and slightly sweeter..
GKL: Oh, okay, I'll get the fillet. How about those rings?! I mean, they are so unique. Do you like them?
SV: Yeah.
GKL: I mean, they are so pretty... (looking at brochures) how about this one we saw?
SV: Uh-huh.


(after food delivered)

SV: Wow, this bison tastes good, doesn't it?!
GKL: Uh-huh. So do you like the raw diamonds around the side, or polished?
SV: You should get what you want. Do you want to try my steak? It's reeeeeally goood. Mmmmm.
GKL: No thanks, hon. So don't you like that palladium metal? It's cool, don't you think?
SV: Yes, it is. I would seriously come here again for the bison. It is sweeter, can't you taste it?
GKL: Oh yes, you're right. So you just want a simple band in that?
SV: Wow, this is really good...
GKL: Do you want the rest of mine? I'm full.
SV: Okay! Sounds good, pass it over!
GKL: So just a simple band then?
SV: What? Oh, yeah.
GKL: So you like what we looked at for me? It's gorgeous, isn't it?! Is it in our budget?
SV: Wow, mmmm.... this is really good. I think the fillet is even better! Uh, what? Yes, you should get what you want.
GKL: Okay, yay!

Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and More

The title of my last saved post draft was, Happy Thanksgiving, so I guess I'm a little behind. I was going to drone on in that post about how weird it was to go "home" to Indiana for Turkey day. SV's family is from Lexington but his sister and her husband moved to Indianapolis and they invited us, so that's how I ended up in Hoosierland again. His parents drove in from Kentucky. It was much more relaxing and drama-free to spend the holiday with SV's family than several I remember from my past. I like his family a lot, and that's important in my book if we're going to see a lot of each other over the years. I didn't realize it at the time how that would come to fruition.

Christmas came, a quiet one at home, just the two of us. When all the presents were unwrapped, there was still one more in store for me.

SV got down on one knee and proposed.

Sure, he needed a little bug in his ear and some major hints dropped in his direction, but the point is that he likes to make me happy because I'm a bit spoiled... What? You have been reading my blog for quite some time now, right? Anyway, he spoils me. It works for us.

And for those that are detailed-oriented, he bought me a diamond nose stud a couple of months ago because I once told him it's the only diamond that I need. I didn't know at the time if that meant we were engaged or not but there was no official proposal... hence the coaxing. When the official moment came, he used a ring that I already had. It's an opal ring that was my great Grandmother's engagement ring and that's what I'm wearing, for now.

I hate to stereotype, but I think he could really care less about all the hub-bub and the ear-piercing girlie shrieks when I tell my friends that we are betrothed. I think he's on the "I'll just show up" plan, but I didn't wait all these years to keep it on the down-low. I thought at first that I might, to fit his low-key mood, but fuck that. I'm a gonna tell the world and I'm going to enjoy every minute, every step in this process.

So Happy New Year y'all and thanks for sticking with it even if I'm a bit behind. Now off to design some rings for us!

WTF

I'm channeling Kirby for this one, plus I stole her graphic.

We have somewhat of a cold feud going on with our crazy neighbor lady. It stems back years ago between her and SV, before I entered the picture. Basically, she lets her rat dog run all over our yard and while she is good about cleaning up the caca, the dog now thinks of our yard as his. The result is that the little rat dog comes up and barks at us in our own yard and has even nipped a couple folks, one of them being a friend of ours' five year old daughter. Not big enough bites to need stitches but that's beyond the point. So SV asked her to stop throwing the ball into our yard and she promised that she wouldn't anymore and swore to him that she had stopped when he questioned her months later since the dog still seemed possessive of our territory. That's when I entered the picture. I work from home. I could plainly see every day that she had  NOT stopped throwing the ball into our yard so I snitched on her and SV had to have another talk with her.

That's how it started really, and I call it a cold feud because we try to remain as pleasant as possible to each other because it's clear neither one of us are moving any time soon, but I can tell by her "don't deliver packages to 3620" sign on her door that she clearly doesn't want to deal with us anymore than we want to deal with her.

Why then, does she copy us on everything? That's the WTF part. First, she snuck into our house while we were remodeling and weren't living there - the contractors caught her - and she explained that she was looking for us (yeah, right) and wanted to know the name of the contractor who redid our stairs. Then lo and behold, a few months later, she has the same guys at her house making a similar modern cable-system railing and stairway. Then we notice she installed the very same new door with side panels that we picked out, but with a different accent design. From what I can see through the windows (no, I don't go snooping into her house) she has also painted her kitchen and living room similar colors, minus the accent wall. If that's not enough, then my maids tell me one day upon having to reschedule due to a vacation that they will be at the neighbor's house soon and could clean then. I asked them if crazy neighbor lady was a new client, and they told me no, that one day recently while leaving my house, she ran out of her house and flagged them down.

What's next? A patio like us?!

They say that imitation is the highest form of flattery. I just say, Dude, WTF?!

Halloween Cruise

The results are in: A good time was had by all.

There are three types of Cruisers as I see it. The first type is probably what everyone who reads this blog imagines - the Great White American Tourist (GWAT) that forgets to put enough sun-screen on the first day and walks around with pink skin showing from underneath their ill-fitting Hawaiian shirt and from beneath their sandal straps. Why do they always forget to put sunscreen on their feet? The GWAT hardly steps outside their comfort zone and either stays within the fake, commercialized town set up at the port of call drinking sugared-up spirits in over-sized drinking vessels at Senor Frogs, or they just simply stay on board to reap all the benefits of that all-inclusive food and prefers the smell of chlorine over the surf. Most of the big groups on board fit into this category too. On our cruise, there was a huge Singles group that all wore necklaces with their names on them. Ick. Avoid this type of Cruiser at all costs.

The second type of Cruiser are the people who are drug along on the cruise for whatever reason - maybe it's a birthday celebration or family function, but it wasn't their first choice to go on a cruise. They want to explore outside the fake town, but don't really know what to sign up for, or how to get around and see the port city, but they give it their best shot. Help this Cruiser like we did when you meet them to become non assimilated.

The third type of Cruiser is us, the adventurer. Our group members are all SCUBA divers and have been to these ports before, or know enough how to get around and see the real city. We mostly high-tailed it to a dive operator, or had a dive boat pick us up to go off to explore the real attraction of the Carribbean - the underwater. When not diving, we took taxis into the real town to find tacos de pescado for a few pesos and some fine tequila tasting.


But to tell you the truth, if it weren't for the diving, I don't know if I'd ever cruise again. It's a great way to see many countries and dive the waters in as many days. But I didn't like it when we found a place that we liked and wished we could have hung out for a few days and couldn't, like the little private island of Belize we were on, or the little town of Roatan, Honduras as seen here. This was the dock out to the dive boat.

As for Halloween on a boat. That part was a blast. Especially when we were at sea all day, so what else is there to do? You may have remembered when I said I like Burton's Alice in Wonderland movie and that I'd probably do the Depp Mad Hatter. Well, not only that, but I enlisted all the Colorado cruisers to help me out.

We got second place in the contest on the boat, losing to a "Titanic Couple". Their outfits were pretty good, I wish I would have gotten a picture of them, but we were better I think.

Can you believe the boat we had in Belize was called, Captain Ho-Ho?! Of course you do.

Talk Nautical To Me

 

So when my buddy from Arizona called me after her Halloween cruise last year and exclaimed that she had so much fun, she signed up for the next two years in a row, my responses was, "Really?..." Since then she has been  trying to talk me into going with her this year. I just kept saying things like, "Yeah, we are not cruise people... thanks though."

I  mean, a ship full of crowded, sun-burned, asshole tourists? "What could be worse?", I thought.

But the thought of being able to SCUBA dive in four different areas, hell four different countries even, in four days (well, Mexico twice: Cozumel, Belize City, Roatan, Costa Maya) peeked my interest. That with the idea of being in Mexico on Day of the Dead, tequila tasting, shopping for silver jewelry and dressing up for Halloween every single day of the week made me change my mind, and I enlisted six other friends to join us. Plus, it was a birthday gift from my sweet boyfriend. Bonus.

So if you're wondering why I didn't do a birthday post, this is why. I'm celebrating on the boat people, and celebrating Halloween and Day of the Dead all week long. Ariba!

Permission to come aboard Captain?!

I hope it doesn't suck.