I was watching tosh.0 the other day with aiden and he was making fun of the rash of “Hate Videos” by creating one of his own.  Ever since then, when Aiden thinks that someone might be gay, he waves both of his hands.  So, basically during all viewings of subsequent tosh.0 shows.

but after several weeks of spending many of our after work conversations discussing everything we hate i’ve decided that i wanted to talk about all the things i love… because the only thing more fun than sex, shopping, and watching people throw up on tv is talking about all the things that make you happy.  and i didn’t tape it because, well, i’m just not ready for that kind of fame.

I love pouring summer rainstorms.

I love it when teenagers hold the door for anyone older than 20.

I love clean sheets.

I love the color blue.

I love the smell of an outdoor pool in the late afternoon, the right mix of chlorine, heat, and coconut scented tanning oil.

I love the way Aiden’s neck smells.

I love crossing things off of my to-do list.

I love making to-do lists.

I love singing at the top of my lungs in the car.

I love watching Pushing Daisies, even if I’ve already seen the episode a bazillion times.

I love the StairMaster and all the things it does for my butt.

I love any movie, commercial, TV show, or moment that makes me cry happy tears – even if the premise is stupid.

I love the sleep machine app on my iPhone.

I love walking barefoot in the sand.

I love dogs – especially small ones and rabbits.

I love putting on my sunglasses and pretending I’m a movie star.

I love GLEE!, but mostly Sue Sylvester.

I love gold nail polish.

I love that Aiden sends me flowers for reasons like, “Because It’s Monday.”

I love talking to my friends I can’t see every day – even if it’s voicemail tag.

I love frequenting Starbucks with my work buddies for “angel tears”

And that’s my moment of sunshine for today

yesterday i started step one of many steps required to legally change one’s name.  i’m not going to lie, the… feminist? liberal? woman?… inside of me died a little inside all the way through it.  i mean, look, i’ve had this name my whole life, we’re friends, we know each other, and more importantly: it’s a GREAT name!  Charlotte!  Anne!  Cohen!  It’s a perfect name!  And no need to go ruining it with hyphens thank-you-very-much!  I’ve been stewing about what i should do with my name since before we got engaged but always seemed to walk away with the notion that I didn’t need to worry about it yet so why grow MORE gray hairs over it.

and then it came up that i needed to renew my license so I finally had to make the decision to go through with it now or potentially never (i’m a grade A procrastinator).  so i buckled down and took the first step which was researching the crap out of how to do it using the interwebs.  i gathered all the documents i needed and headed out to BFE to wait in the shortest government department line i’ve been in (aside from when we got the marriage license) to meet my new friend: my license liaison if you will.  who just so happened to have the EXACT same birthday as me.  what are the odds???  and just a heads up, don’t ask that around my father… HE WILL TELL YOU WHAT THOSE ODDS ARE.

i had already been thinking that I would have two middle names: my given one and my maiden name but it was hard to convey this information on the form i had been given.  and i kept waiting patiently for my license liaison to ask me about my name but the moment never seemed to arrive.  she checked all the paperwork, scanned it, stamped it, signed it, had me sign it, i paid for it, we did the small talk dance and then… she printed out my paperwork with my new name… minus my maiden name.

and as we know i’m always worried my food will get spit in if i complain.  but i took my big girl pill that morning so i took a deep breath, smiled, and asked my new best friend how i could incorporate my old last name in to my new name.  she smiled at me, as if we were conspiring, leaned in and said, “Oh honey, I kept my maiden name as part of my new name too!”  I told her my plan of having two middle names and she said, “No, no, you are just as fabulous as me and what YOU need is two first names.”

For some reason, I kind of fell in love with that idea:  yesterday I was Charlotte?  Today I’m Charlotte Anne.

So I walked out of the DMV that morning with another awesome DL photo and my brand new name, which at that point was starting to feel like new school supplies, new backpack, new jeans AND new shoes all rolled into one.  But I guess a better metaphor would be new panties: no one really notices but me… and my husband

Every weekend I have a list of projects intermingled with the regular chores to do around the condo compiled from a week or 17 of procrastinating. Between work, the gym, making meals on my nights, the laundry that I swear TRIPLED when we started living together, the regular chores around our condo, I feel like all of the free time I used to have evaporated despite the fact that aiden splits all of the household responsibilities with me.

All week long I imagine the weekend projects that are one in many steps that bring me to that one blissful day in the not so far off future where all of the rooms in our condo are painted, the furniture is functional and placed perfectly, everything is organized, those hideous vertical blinds have been hauled off to the trash, and the only thing that is left is for me to open a bottle of wine and finish watching all those Clean House episodes on our DVR queue.

Oh, go ahead and laugh at me, I’ll wait.

I know that home ownership is a NEVER ENDING project because I’m not a complete fool. But I can’t seem to shake the hope that at some point the condo will – through all of these projects – match up with the perfect home in my mind. And in that imaginary place all the furniture and décor I want are free… I’m working on that reality and the patience that comes with it.

It is just that… some Saturdays I wake up early full of energy ready to tackle all of the items on the list. I make incredible headway and spend the remainder of the weekend patting myself on the back and taking it all in. I get 90% of my weekend project AND chore list done and then I spend a week basking in the glow of my greatness and how far ahead I will be when the next weekend comes around.

And then the next weekend, and sometimes two or three weekends that follow I can’t start one project to save my life. Sure, I check off all the small things – the regular chores, the trips to the gym AND the workout videos, grocery shopping and even taking a shower and looking glamorous for date night. But pick out paint? Order photos? Buy picture frames? Plan a housewarming party? Move that free dresser that just needs to be sanded and painted? Who do I think I am… Martha Stewart?

NO, those weekends the only thing I can handle on my big picture project list is the bottle of wine and the DVR queue of Clean House.

Which is why I’ve decided that I need a personal trainer… except for House Projects. Does such a person exist? Like a drill sergeant crossed with a… a mom. Oh right, dammit – this means I have to call my mom, doesn’t it?

Screw it, where’s that wine???

on Friday night Aiden and I decided to drive up to Park City to see if we could check out some of the meteor shower that had been going on.  Of course, first we had to stop at the GAP outlet to see if there was anything for me us to buy and then we had to get some chocolate from the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory to snack on while we were watching the shooting star show.  By the time we settled onto the marble benches to stare up at the sky we had pretty much spent 2 hours rehashing everything that had happened that week and decided that neither of us wanted to talk about our workplace anymore.

Silence.  And then…

Me: Do you think they make a TomTom voice with Jemaine?

Aiden: If they don’t, they should.

Me: But not just Jemaine, specifically Jemaine from the Albi show.

Aiden: Turn left at the very scary, very dark cave.

Me: Turn right… laughed the boy.

Aiden: You have arrived at your destination, which we all know, turns to jellybeans!

Me: Your destination, well, it wasn’t racist… anymore.

Aiden: I don’t think we’re making any sense at all.

Me: Noooo Albi, we’re just very badly burned.  And we’re different.

And this is why things will just never get boring with the two of us.

i get insanely bothered by bad makeup.  i mean, just unable to concentrate bothered and i just itch to get to the nearest phone and report them to some type of television show that repairs that sort of heinous crime to humanity.  i mean, i’m not a makeup artist and given the right tools and know-how i might one day make it through a workday without my eyeliner bleeding or my eye shadow collecting in my eyelid folds but good GOD some of these offenders actually LEAVE THE HOUSE looking the way they do.

i will be having a conversation with someone and be having an entirely different conversation inside my head about what is going on on their face.  No… no no no no no!  Did you spackle that foundation on?  Mascara never needs a 47th application… ever.  If you can’t use liquid eyeliner just STOP TRYING!

and these people?  i’m talking Cruella de Ville and Madam Medussa.  look, Kim Kardashian wears TOO MUCH makeup but in some sick way it does enhance the look of her face.  these people are wearing makeup just to wear it.  despite the fact that it is doing nothing for them, despite the fact that foundation is meant to cover not highlight your crepe-y skin and despite the fact that their eyebrows are too-penciled-freaking-CREEPY.

they need a show for this.  what not to wear: on your face.

Before (sorry for the crappy photo):

After:

The only real complaint I have about this kitchen is the lack of space… of course it probably wouldn’t hurt me to pare down some cooking utensils.  It also keeps me from stocking up on food I won’t ever eat

The plans moving forward are:

• 2 or 3 bar stools
• cabinet organization
• stainless steel sink (porcelain, really???)

Before:

After:

I am SUPER in love with the green.  Again, I’m glad we took Kit’s advice and painted the ceiling white beforehand.  I made a snap decision to put the stars in the dining room instead of in the entry way, once the green was on the walls I realized that this room needs brass accents and so the stars found a home.  I also pulled a shelf that I have basically been repurposing since I bought it 5 years ago for my bedroom.  It is acting as a bar until we save up to buy one.

Moving forward the plans are:

• Curtains
• Bar/Console
• Some type of rug
• A television for over the fireplace
• Wall art for over the buffet
• Brass light switch and socket plates
• Armchair
• 2 or 4 more dining chairs (table has a leaf that isn’t currently attached)

One of my favorite co-workers, Niki, is leaving this week and she has been fowarding emails to me that she feels might help me in my future without her.  She also sent me an email that I had sent her the day before I left for my wedding/honeymoon because she wanted to remind me to keep emailing her even after she left:

NIKI!!!!! SUCCESS!!!

Aiden has been doing what his friends call “The Woman Diet” where he eats fruit for breakfast, chicken breast and lettuce for lunch, hard boiled eggs for a snack, and chicken and veggies for dinner.

So I told him I was going to do “The High School Girl” diet which consists of eating nothing and throwing up a lot… not to be confused with “The Hollywood Diet” which adds snorting cocaine into the mix.

Obviously my diet worked pretty well because I’m down … (Drum roll please)

3 pounds!

It’s a wedding week miracle!  See you when I get back.

And don’t go getting any ideas, my diet isn’t FDA approved yet.

Kids, drugs are bad m’kay.

We had a Pot Luck Sign up at my work the other day and it was to celebrate/mourn the end of the summer holidays and one of our co-workers moving on to bigger and better things.  I quickly scanned the side dish section and noticed that NO ONE HAD SIGNED UP FOR ANYTHING.  My eye twitched… my moment had finally arrived.

I have been waiting to make “Funeral Potatoes” since the first time I tried them at a work function almost 5 years ago.  It was clearly some type of hashbrown cheesey, gooey, strange and delicious substance that is then topped with corn flakes.  After that it seemed that every time I went to a Utah Pot Luck someone brought funeral potatoes, each time tasting slightly different which made it clear that this was the kind of recipe that each housewife put their own stamp upon.  I needed to be allowed into the secret society of Funeral Potatoes… without needing to attend a funeral or go to church.

My moment indeed had arrived with that one problem being pushed to the back corners of my mind as I quickly jotted down the name of this morbidly named dish.  Unfortunately I do not have the required number of children to acquire such a recipe, I’m not related to anyone who is, and further… I just don’t travel in that circle that brings dishes into the ward house and can pop over to LaNayleena’s house and ask for her recipe.  I was quite disappointed to find that America’s Test Kitchen has never attempted to perfect the Funeral Potato Recipe… so it was time to do what I do best: find a bunch of recipes online and mash them together.

One of the recipes called for Cream of Mushroom soup… DENIED, this is not lean cuisine!  And that goes for you, lady-who-thinks-onions-belong-in-this-dish, NO VEGGIES.  There was also a suggestion for a half cup of melted butter.  Look, I’m trying to give my man more cushion for the pushin’ but we aren’t taking it that far.  DENIED.

I assembled my approved ingredients and then had to face head on that I have always been bothered by the whole cornflakes thing.  I just stare at the wonderful dish and cannot wrap my mind around the person who thought that would be a good idea.  Cornflakes are a different kind of breakfast entirely… denied? Except the dish looks naked without something on top.  Enter potato chips.  Yes.  That is EXACTLY how to get more fat in this dish without a half cup of butter.

And so my recipe goes something like this:

• 30-32 oz bag of Frozen Hashbrowns (if you have to question shredded or cubed WE AREN’T FRIENDS)
• 2 Cups Shredded Cheddar Cheese
• 2 Cups Sour Cream (I used light, to give my arteries a small break)
• 1 Can Cream of Chicken Soup (Herbed if you are pretending this is healthy)
• 1 Cup Potato Chips, crushed

Mix all the ingredients in a stand mixer (… or by hand if you are too poor or lame to own one) and then bake in the oven for 30-40 minute at 350 degrees.

I’ll be honest that my main concern about living with Aiden were the chores.  I have been on my own for long enough that I have basically adopted a routine that involves going through all the “chores” in one week.  I knew that we would need to talk about dividing up the chores and doing equal amounts of work – but the problem was that there were too many things that I wanted done my own neurotic way and was therefore unwilling to give up.

But I was beyond shocked when I noticed that Aiden made a huge effort from day one to do things (and this is his incredibly polite terminology here): the way I’m used to doing things.  He cleans up the kitchen after we’re done eating because he knows I can’t go to bed with a messy kitchen.  He doesn’t put knives in the dishwasher AND he doesn’t put them in the sink.  When he does the laundry he uses cold water.  He helps me make the bed AND helps me make sure the sheet hangs over the sides evenly.  I try to let him help and he never fails to surprise me because I never thought that anyone would care to do things the crazy way I want them done.

Like the crazy way I fold.

Look… what is the point of folding things if you can’t stack them neatly in a drawer.  And the key to being able to do that is making them a uniform size and shape, right?  And well, unless you want to sit there all day you need to use something to help you get everything just right.  I mean… I’m not the only one who folds their clothes using a clipboard… am I?

The other day I got home from work and I had put off the folding two nights in a row because we had been preoccupied with other things.  When I got to the living room Aiden was walking out holding neat piles of shirts looking incredibly proud of himself.  I am ashamed to say that I was a little shocked and asked, “How did you do that?”

He smiled and responded, “From watching you.”

I mean… that’s love isn’t it?  Watching my crazy and copying it rather than making fun of it?  I will never understand what wonderful wonderful things I did to deserve him.