anniversary Archives - burnt toast life

May 30

Poor Bird!

May 30

What a day!

First off, today is my 4th wedding anniversary. Time flies when you’re battling infertility, amirite? I’m going to share a photo from my wedding day to prove that I was thin once (and it wasn’t that long ago). Maybe my “goal outfit” should be this teeny, tiny, exorbitantly overpriced white dress…

mark my words, I will get this body back…

Anyway. This morning I was taking the dogs out, as I do every day right before I leave for work. Ryder, our Golden, is free to roam the yard off-leash and won’t run away, but Bird would sprint cross-country if we let him. So I had Bird’s leash in my hand, and he yanked on it, and I guess my grip wasn’t as good as I thought because the leash dropped. I watched helplessly as he ran with Ryder to the other side of the yard.

THANK GOD Eric hadn’t actually walked out the door yet to leave for work yet, because clearly my fat ass wasn’t going to catch Bird. I yelled up the stairs for help and stood by uselessly as Eric followed Bird around, using his best stern voice to try and get him to come back. No luck. Our property borders a large field where horses are kept, and Bird thought it would be a good idea to go chase the horses, who were out and grazing just beyond the perimeter of our yard.

I didn’t see it happen, but apparently the horses didn’t take too kindly to being chased, and one of them expressed his anger by straight up kicking Bird smack in the face. The good news is that this caused Bird to come running back to Eric for assistance, so at least we got him back in the house. The bad news is that he got kicked in the face by a horse.

I felt terrible, and the whole thing was 100% my fault. Eric ended up working from home and of course rushing Bird to the vet immediately. The poor little guy wouldn’t let anyone near his mouth without snapping at them, so they had to put him under anesthesia to assess the situation and to sew him up. His jaw wasn’t fractured, but he did need both internal and external stitches and he might end up losing a tooth.

Happy anniversary, right? I mean, it could have been SO much worse (like, if the horse had stomped on his head in earnest… if he ran out into the road and got hit by a car… if we was still missing and unaccounted for, and possibly halfway to Canada). But still. Poor Bird has to wear a cone of shame for 2 weeks, has to be on medication, and woke up crying from surgery because he was in so much pain. As it stands now, he’s just moping around the house not being himself (it probably has a lot to do with wearing the cone, which he does not like). I feel like a terrible mother. Oh, and the $1100 vet bill wasn’t pretty, either. This comes not even a week after dropping $450 on new brakes and rotors for my car and a few short weeks after accidentally putting my iPhone through the wash. So much for saving up for maternity leave, eh?

Also… selfishly… I’m mad about how it kind of ruined the whole day. First, it cast a negative light and became the central focus of our anniversary. Second, Eric sent me beautiful flowers to work, along with a card that said, “Surprise! We’re going out to dinner. Your choice of where.” This coming from a man who doesn’t really like going out to dinner, and who I usually have to bribe to go out to dinner. Me, I love going out. So had we not had our little drama, I’d have spent the afternoon eagerly weighing my options in terms of restaurants. Instead, I was stuck knowing that we’d have to do takeout because Bird couldn’t be left alone. And I even straightened my hair today!

But as I said, it could have been worse.

Lessons learned for me: double wrap the leash, pay attention, keep a tight grip, stop making expensive mistakes.

Lesson learned for Bird: don’t go chasin’ horses.

May 28

the garden that love built

May 28

In honor of my three year wedding anniversary tomorrow, I have a sort of lovey-dovey post.

I’m not one for mushiness. Eric and I are a make-it-through-anything, meant-to-be-together couple, not an in your face, so-cute-it-makes-you-want-to-vomit couple. Some of the strongest indicators of his affection often come in the form of actions, not words. This weekend he put away the clean dishes without being asked. Yes, it’s minor, but to me it spoke volumes. This weekend he also built me a garden.

In this post I mentioned that Eric’s solutions to problems are often well thought out and elegant, whereas mine are slipshod quick fixes (somehow he took this as an insult, though it wasn’t intended to be one). Allow me to clarify this further. When we first purchased our home, the kitchen featured custom built, solid wood shaker style cabinets in a dark oak finish that were covered in about 20 years of caked-on grease. They were literally sticky to the touch; it was disgusting. However, these cabinets were so gorgeous that anyone with a little bit of vision could see the potential. We immediately disassembled the cabinets with plans to paint them off-white to brighten the whole kitchen. Once the doors came off, we noticed that the base underneath the sink had gotten wet and rotted out. Eric immediately made plans to replace the wood and rebuild a sturdier bottom to support our under sink necessities. Guys – this. project. took. days. It’s my absolute favorite example of his meticulous project planning because I was so fixated on the real project at hand – the cabinets – (which were also the biggest pain in the ass and took well over a week to complete) that I did not give a shit about a stupid under the sink cabinet base that no one would see again ever. I got frustrated. I’m sure I said some harsh words. But now? I have a cabinet base that won’t ever fall apart again. It’s already gotten wet due to some faulty plumbing and has withstood the test of moisture. Had it just been me replacing it, in typical slipshod fashion, it would probably be a soggy, unusable mess again. I’d be spending double the time on a self-described “stupid project.”

So back to the garden. I’ve always been wanted a backyard vegetable garden in a vague, daydream-y way, but haven’t really done anything about it. It seemed a huge undertaking, and lets be honest – I’ve never had much of a green thumb. I just want to have a green thumb, and that’s definitely not the same thing.

I got out of work early on Friday and didn’t feel like going home, so I called my mother-in-law to see if she was going out shopping. She said she wanted to head to the local nursery and use up a gift card that she had won, and that’s how I unexpectedly ended up with a blueberry bush and tomato, squash and pepper plants that needed a place to be planted, preferably before they shriveled and died. I was stressed out immediately.

We had a couple of things planned for the weekend and as usual, Eric’s list of priorities differed a bit from mine. He wanted to fix the heater in our camper and build a fire pit out of a pile of rocks in the backyard, whereas I just wanted to “make the yard pretty.” When I explained in increasingly panicked tones that I needed a garden before my poor plants died from inexcusable negligence on my part, he sighed in exasperation. I figured this would be another month-long fight ending with dead plants, tears and resentment. But then he surprised me and moved one of my priorities to the top of his list.

We had an above ground pool that got destroyed during a freak October snowstorm, and Eric had torn down the pool and ripped out the pool deck, which is why we had some extra lumber lying around just taking up space. Eric took that wood and began to build me my garden, almost as though he knew what I wanted more than I knew what I wanted (probably true). It didn’t take days; it took hours. By Monday evening, I planted those tomatoes, peppers and squash in a garden that I didn’t even know I needed but am now convinced I absolutely cannot live without.

You see, he doesn’t always do what I want him to do. We don’t have enough money to go away for the weekend to celebrate our anniversary. But now I have something – a tangible representation of love that will (hopefully) bloom and grow for the whole season. And that’s more precious to me than a cheesy, sappy card or an overpriced B&B stay could ever be.

loving my love garden

Mar 15

ten years ago today

Mar 15

Ten years ago today I was 18. I had just ended a three year relationship with the boy I was convinced I would marry. We had broken up many months before, but were still “hanging out,” and my heart gave him a March 1st deadline that I surprisingly managed to stick with. It’s like there was a before and after, and once the calendar struck March I shut off my feelings like a faucet. I wish I still had that kind of power over my emotions.

Ten years ago today I had a horrific fight with my parents. I can’t remember exactly what I had to do – I think I was supposed to drive my sister somewhere and didn’t want to. I remember my mom screaming at me on the phone. I remember throwing the phone at my sister’s head (probably aiming for it) and slamming her bedroom door open so hard that it left a door handle-shaped impression in the drywall. My mom had taken away my car until further notice and I. was. PISSED.

So you see, Eric and I are a product of circumstance. He really was at the right place at the right time. I had met him about a year earlier when he started working at the (now out-of-business) Hollywood Video where I worked. That was my very first job. We only worked together for a few months before I left to become a barista at Wegmans, but I still stopped by to rent movies and hang out with my former coworkers. It just so happens that not long before this colossal fight, I had stopped in to find him red-eyed and delirious, working 14 hour shifts because someone had quit. Sympathetic, I brought him a double mocha from work and he gave me his number in case I “wanted to watch a movie or something sometime.”

I had his number handy on that night of rebellion. I was feeling young, I was feeling reckless. Screw my ex-boyfriend who stopped loving me! Screw my parents for taking away my car! Screw the whole messed up world for messing up my life! I dialed the number and asked if he would come pick me up and rescue me from my parents. It was so out of character for me; I knew him, but barely. I remember standing at the end of the driveway when he pulled up in his beat-up red pickup truck and took me back to his house. I remember feeling vindicated.

We watched a movie. We got drunk on rum and coke that we drank out of mason jars. I remember it was one of those nights that I never wanted to end. I remember when his hand kept creeping closer and closer to mine. I saw it coming, but I pretended to ignore it. I distinctly remember when he finally kissed me. I didn’t go home that night.

The next three months we were inseparable. I forgot what it felt like to not have him around. We hung out every day for every hour that we possibly could. I was smitten. I was falling hard.

But then there was drama… always drama! He stopped taking my calls. He started getting distant. We went back and forth for a while. I didn’t let him go without a fight.

It’s been ten years… I could write for days about all the things we went through. We were always extreme – so happy, so sad, so angry, so euphoric. We had no even keel, no happy medium. We were passionate in every moment.

The highlights: We got engaged in 2004, set a wedding date in 2005. Called it off. Got back together. We got engaged again in 2006, set a wedding date in 2007. Called it off. Got back together. We got engaged in 2009 with a triumphant rally of “third time’s the charm!” We wanted to be married, but the timing was never right. Too much crap kept getting in the way.

We actually, really, finally got married in 2010. Our relationship has changed so much since it’s rocky start. I trust him completely. I love him. It sounds so simple, but to me, it’s profound. Over the course of our break-ups I kept trying to love other people because it would be “easier.” I kept trying to take the easy road, but my heart kept sending me back to him. He’s the only person I could never get over.

My friends – and even me at my most self-righteous – would love to tell you it was all his fault. A lot of it was. He had the tendency to be immature, stand-offish, distant, mean and childish. But remember, he was a man in his early 20s. It would be stranger if he wasn’t acting that way. And for all my indignation, I was no angel either. He brought out my most needy, clingy, annoying, controlling, nagging and even obsessive tendencies. We were mutually flawed. What we really needed was time to grow up. Both of us.

It may sound alarming, all those break-ups. All that heartache. I wish I could explain how I “just know” that he’s the one for me. Let’s put it this way – I could have chosen someone more compatible. I could have chosen someone more stable, less dramatic and more even-tempered. I could have. But every single time I did choose that kind of person, Eric stayed in my heart and my heart never felt peaceful. If I let my mind wander, it landed on him.

He’s the one that got away… except I never let him get away.

my favorite picture of us