Living The Dream

Mama Said There'd Be Days Like This

2013-02-28T17:19:00.000-08:00

What mama didn't say was that there would be weeks like this. I speak with hesitance because it is not yet Friday at 5pm, so I am running the risk of this black cloud over my head lingering for another day or two.

Let's start with Sunday. My husband was making meatballs for himself for dinner and I hadn't helped him at all. Since he is recovering from foot surgery, while the meatballs baked, he sat on the couch with his foot propped like the doctor had ordered. When the oven dinged, I decided to do my best Wife of the Year impression and plate his dinner and bring it to him. Being 5'1, I didn't have far to bend down to remove the steaming hot meatballs from the oven. How did I know they were steaming? Because I stuck my face thisclose to the pan as I pulled it out of the 400* cooking box, and was immediately pelted with hot, stinging, flesh burning steam. And in a move of further brilliance, I promptly put an ice cube on my burnt face to numb the pain. Which it did, as it also created a bright red blister. ON. MY. FACE!

When I awoke on Monday, I briefly forgot about the meatball war wound from the night before until I caught a glimpse of it in the mirror as I ran to the bathroom for a tissue to try to stop the massive amount of snot running out of my nose. If it was just a face blister, or just a runny nose, I could deal. But somewhere along the way, I also picked up some sort of virus that caused one eye to swell, water uncontrollably, twitch, and fill with goop. I'm a fundraiser by trade and therefore rely on working with the public and being charming and put together enough to sell them on writing checks to my organization with multiple zeroes in them. You don't charm too many checkbooks by sucking up your snot in an attempt to give your chapped, Rudolph impersonating nose a break while also sporting a closed-from-mucus eyeball and a face blister.

Tuesday saw me armed with concealer, antihistamine, and tissues, and cowered in fear. And by 'cowered', I mean attacked in full force. After having a complete meltdown on the way out of the house because the living room was dirty, I declared that I was going to have a better day. I drove to work, where I received word that I had 1900 pieces of mail to get out of a co-worker's car and shipped to my volunteers in another town within the hour, or I would have to fold, stuff, seal, and stamp them myself. The co-worker and I went to her car to load up and bring the letters inside, where we were greeted by our ever persistent protestors holding disgusting signs and screaming sexual slurs in between quoting Bible verses and telling me that I need to get to know Jesus (if I wouldn't get fired for responding to them, I would LOVE to tell them all about Jesus and how I'm certain He doesn't condone their sick actions). Awesome. Back in my office with the sea of bulk mail and the clock ticking, I sorted the letters and logged into my database to get the lead stuffing volunteer's mailing address. I wrote her address on a post-it and stuck it on the top box, loaded up the minimum of 40 pounds of boxes onto my weak girly arms, grabbed my purse, and navigated my way through 3 badge pass doors. The moment I stepped outside, I was welcomed by 28* weather and 35mph wind as I watched that sacred post-it with the all important address tumble and toss on the breeze through the parking lot. I rushed to my car, set the boxes down on the hood and ensued on a seemingly hopeless mission to catch that neon pink office supply with confidential donor information on it. Oh and did I mention that I forgot my coat at home? No less than 7,000 goosebumps and 5 failed grab attempts later, I found myself 23 parking spots away from my car, clinging onto that sweet, sweet post-it. I breathed a sigh of relief, composed myself, walked back to my car, and tucked the address safely inside one of the boxes. After digging through my purse for my keys, I hit the unlock button and tried to get into my Jeep. Hmmm, it didn't work. I tried it again, and again, it didn't work, so I decided I would open the door the old fashioned way and put the ignition key into the door key slot. It fit, but it wouldn't turn left or right. I removed the key and tried the sequence again with the same result. So I abandoned that idea and tried the backseat door. Locked. Passenger front? Locked. Passenger rear? Locked. Trunk door that I was prepared to climb through? Locked. Freezing, defeated, out of breath, and arms scraped from the boxes, I collected all 40 pounds of them and walked them inside where, through tears, I asked another co-worker to keep an eye on them while I tried to break into my car one last time before calling a locksmith. They agreed, and I ran out the door, set my eyes on my car, and immediately turned back inside and grabbed my boxes of letters. Still standing where I had left her 15 seconds before, my co-worker looked at me puzzled until I responded with, 'That's not my car! Mine is 2 spaces over...' Try walking out the door with dignity after that whole display was caught on 4 different security cameras.

After some more tears and a much needed lunch with my sweet husband who can make even the worst day better, I had a pretty quiet day on Wednesday and thought that my run of bad luck was winding down right along with the cold I was starting to beat. And then it was bed time. It has come to my attention that I am a snorer, and seeing as how I have never been able to breathe well through my nose, I decided it was time to try some breathe-right strips. After my nightly bath, I adorned my nose with one of the ever so attractive strips, kissed my husband, and went to bed. What seemed like hours had passed and I found myself in a terrible nightmare. A bad guy had shot his way through my place of work, killing all of my co-workers and looking for me as I hid under a desk in the tiniest ball I could get myself into. I could hear his footsteps. Closer. Closer. Closer. And then he GRABBED me!!!! I screamed and karate chopped him with all my might, and then I could hear a distant voice saying 'It's okay! It's okay! You're okay.' I opened my eyes to see that it was my husband who was soothing me, and it was my husband who I had just karate chopped in my sleep. When I have nightmares, he says my breathing gets very heavy and erratic, and during this particular nightmare he said that I started to hold my breath in between the gasps so he had put his hand on my chest to make sure I was still breathing, and my subconscious thought he was a murderer who needed to be chopped in half and screamed at. I'm lucky to have a partner who not only makes sure I'm still alive in the middle of the night, but one who also comforts me after I attack him for doing so. It took me a long while to settle down after that, and my sleep the rest of the night was minimal.

So that brings me to today. Still tormented by a face blister, too much snot in my nose, scrapes from the bulk mail I had to carry way too many times, and the latest and greatest - a giant bruise on my nose from the breathe-right strips and a guilty conscience from abusing my husband in my sleep.

Tomorrow HAS to be better, right? Right?? RIGHT?!!!

Wedding Diet 101

2012-10-25T19:47:00.001-07:00

I've never had, nor will I ever have the perfect body. Nobody does. Well, except those people - you know the type...lean, muscular, less than 5% body fat, perky everything. I have a few of those real life perfect body friends, and while in general I love and support them, today we are not friends. For today is an ode to the not-so-perfect ones of us who had to work for 4 months to look fabulous in their wedding dress. Today is a chubby girl party, and you are not invited.

It all started on June 17th, 2012 around 8pm. It was approximately an hour after becoming engaged to the love of my life, and the realization that I was going to get married was starting to sink in. I was getting married. In a tight white dress. In 4 months, 2 days, and 19 hours. Game on.

Having always been somewhere between average and chubby, and fluxuating often between the two, I made a conscious decision that I was going to shed those 10 annoying pounds that had been lingering on and off around my thighs for the past 6 years since I graduated college. At 10 pounds lighter, I would look so svelte that I would probably get offers from bridal magazines to be on their covers. But no more than that. On my 5'1 frame, losing even as much as 11 pounds would probably make me look anorexic. Now concerned that I'd have to answer endless "are you eating??" questions after my 10 pound thinner self debuted, I decided to look up my ideal weight on the BMI chart just to make sure I wasn't about to get too thin.

Oh. My. GOD! That can't be right. That CAN'T be right. According to the BMI figures I had just googled, I was not only overweight, but I was 7 pounds from OBESE. OBESE! That has to be wrong, I thought. Who came up with this equation? Is there a glitch? That's it, there must be a glitch. Or maybe they're just bad at math...who among us hasn't been off by 23 in an algebra problem? After re-examining the situation, and by re-examining I mean using every search engine ever created in hopes of finding a more favorable result, I came to the conclusion that perhaps I had put on a few more than 10 lbs over the last few years.

New plan: lose 15 pounds and don't look like the Michelin Man in a veil. During my various seasons between average and chubby over the last 9 years, the only weight loss plan that ever worked for me was Weight Watchers. Why? 1.) If you tell me I can't have carbs, I will eat pasta in my car at 7am just to spite you, 2.) Given the option, I would literally rather cut off a limb to drop quick weight than exercise for 5 minutes, and 3.) I call the shots - if I want french fries for lunch, I can have them as long as I ration my points for the day.

After deciding that Plan A (fattening Ryan up so I looked thinner by default) wouldn't work, I grumbled my way over to the weight watchers website (just the point counting - I didn't feel the need to sit in a circle and discuss why I give potatoes power over me) and started toward my 10 *ahem* 15 pound goal. For those of you out of the loop, the new Weight Watchers system, Points Plus, not only gives you more daily points to use, but all fruit is free! Yes, I know it is a psychological ploy to make me feel like I'm getting away with something while actually making healthier choices, but I happily submit to the mindgame warfare if it makes me thinner.

The first 10 pounds seemed to melt right off of me, and the 15 pounds seemed more and more attainable. Once I hit 15, I decided I would stretch my goal to 20 lost, but that would be it. At pound #22, completely pleased with my progress, I decided to treat myself to a day of eating junk food and then had ice cream for dinner. The next morning, cringing as I stepped on the scale and nervously awaiting the results, I almost yelled with delight to see that I had lost another half pound the day before! The euphoria of having lost weight while eating junk food was quickly replaced by the sinking realization that if you can eat junk food all day, have ice cream for dinner, and still lose weight, you're too fat.

So I continued my point counting and saw a dramatic slow down at pound #30, but pushed through to a final weight loss of 35 pounds for the wedding, landing me in my ideal weight range (the top of the weight range still counts as IN the weight range) on what I still believe to be the incorrectly calculated BMI chart. And while I am certain that my sweet, loving, charming, wonderful husband would love me no matter what size I was, every uneaten french fry from June through October 20th was worth looking fabulous in my dress on our wedding day. And I did look fabulous. We don't have the original pictures yet, so please don't let the watermarks distract you from admiring how thin I am...

Anyone else want to have some ice cream??

Bridezilla Doesn't Care.

2012-10-03T17:21:00.002-07:00

It finally happened. I cracked. I became the bride I swore I'd never be. A fuming, tantrum-throwing, at times sobbing, this-is-my-day-not-yours bride. And the best/worst part? I still don't think I'm totally in the wrong.

While I was never the girl who dreamt about my wedding day, when I got engaged to the love of my life 3 months ago and it became clear that my vote to elope was being over-ruled, I quickly started making up for lost time. I planned EVERYTHING. And then I had to start defending my plan. For everything.

Let me make a disclaimer. A very large, heartfelt and 100% accurate disclaimer. I am SO BLESSED to be surrounded by family and friends who care, and I know that everything that I have taken so personally was said/done without the intention of making me crazy.

Good intent or not, though, it IS making me crazy. This day should be about Ryan and I. Period. Our love, our engagement, our life, our marriage, OUR DAY. Where you sit should not be up for discussion. Who I select to be in my bridal party should not be up for discussion. How I wear my hair, what we serve at the reception, what color the silverware will be, and what dead relative's "something old" I will or will not be using should not be up for discussion. They shouldn't, but apparently they are.

I never had any idea that so many people felt it was their place to question a couple's decisions, tell them they should be doing it differently, and/or make their own plans and expect the bride and groom to do it their way. With all the love, respect, and maturity I can muster, I would like to scream at the top of my lungs that this is NOT YOUR DAY. You either had your day already, or you will have a day some other time, or maybe you don't get a day. That's not my fault, and I shouldn't be expected to change my wedding to please you. Not. Your. Day.

If I want to wear a purple polka dot dress, put lipstick all over my face in the shape of unicorns, and serve cotton candy and peanuts for dinner, it is your role as a guest to tell me I look beautiful and get your own damn dinner on the way home if you don't like what we chose. I have been to a lot of weddings, and there have been a lot of things at said weddings that I didn't love. Did I feel the need to tell the bride or groom that I would have done it differently? Nope. Sure didn't. I wore a color other than white, sat where I was told, brought a gift, and congratulated the newlyweds on their new life together. Because aside from seating charts and cake cutting, I'm pretty sure there is a bigger point to this day. What was it again? Oh yeah - a marriage. Our marriage. MY marriage.

I have a dj who may or may not show up (don't even get me started on the e-mail I sent that resulted in a 20% discount!), I have people who mean a WHOLE LOT to me who can't be there, I have people who WEREN'T INVITED who have told me that they will be there, and I have spent a crap ton of money on this day only to feel like I am under attack for every tiny detail that we have decided about this day. And the conclusion I have come to? I don't care. I don't care. I DON'T care. I. DON'T. CARE.

While it is not now nor has it EVER been my intention to hurt anyone's feelings, the fact that their feelings are imposed onto this day in the first place still baffles me. It is our day and the ONLY detail that I even remotely care about is that when it is all said and done, I will walk out as a married woman. So while I may seem like a self-centered, spoiled, monster of a bride right now, I can promise you that on October 20th, I will not stress over one thing. The cake can collapse, the electricity can go out, and my hair can be set on fire, and if I walk out of that church as Mrs. Sloan, it will still be the happiest day of my whole life.

If nobody likes the music, or my dress, or the food, or any other detail that people so boldly invite themselves to be concerned with, I don't care. If that makes me a bridezilla, then I guess I don't care about that either.

Cheeeeeeeese!

2012-09-18T12:20:00.000-07:00

As Ryan and I prepare to take our vows in 32 days, our days and nights are filled with all things wedding - picking out decorations, ordering bridal party gifts, making a timeline (a mere 9 pages long), and calling my hometown newspaper and DEMANDING a re-print after they printed my father-in-law's name under Ryan's picture in our engagement announcement:

Some of these wedding tasks have been more fun than others, but the absolute MOST fun 2 items came courtesy of our super talented and awesome in general friend, Elisabeth. Having a short (4 month) engagement (and NO, I'm not pregnant...we're just in love), we have had to cut some of the ordinary engagement activities, but we decided that we absolutely were not sacrificing pictures. This was so important to us in fact, that we booked TWO different days with Liz to make sure that we had enough shots of our mugs to decorate the whole house with!

For the first day, we headed to downtown Cedar Rapids dressed in jeans and some super sexy shoes to showcase just how urban we are. Here are some of my favorites:

Under the "City of Five Seasons" tree

Hugging my love

I love how intently we're gazing at each other. And the shoes. Of course the shoes!

Piggy back time!

Taking the plunge!

I know, I know, get a room...

And in the interest of full disclosure, here is the recap of my not-so-favorite albeit totally blog worthy moment. Just before the above super sexy black and white kiss photo, I noticed that there was a spider on the column that Elisabeth was asking me to lean against. My sweet protector of a fiance bravely knocked it down and as he spotted a second spider I didn't originally see, he said, "here, I'll get his wife, too." Smiling and basking in how wonderful he is to me, I didn't have thepresence of mind to realize that the second spider was spinning a very long piece of silk, which caught the breeze at the right moment, and sent the spider INSIDE OF MY SHIRT SLEEVE!

Me: "It's in my sleeve! It's IN MY SLEEVE!"

Ryan: "Calm down, I'm getting it."

Me: "Calm down?! CALM down?! CALM DOWN?! It's IN MY SLEEVE!"

As you can see, Liz didn't want to waste a single moment and caught it all on film. Unassured that Ryan would be able to save me (I could feel the spider crawling on my arm a half step ahead of Ryan's hands), I did what anyone in my position would...I LOST MY MARBLES. Screaming, creeped out and no longer caring who saw what, I peeled my shirt off right there in the middle of downtown Cedar Rapids and shook it violently until I saw the eight legs of grossness land on the ground:

Luckily, I had opted to wear a tank top under my shirt that day, but honestly, it wouldn't have mattered to me in that moment of terror. Again, thanks so much Liz, for capturing THIS for all of the world to see! In her defense, she did step on the spider as soon as it was thrown to the ground, and shortly there after, I stopped screaming.

As if that wasn't enough excitement for all of us, we signed up to do it all over again the next weekend. This time, in a park at sunset. Unbelievably, we think she may have gotten even better shots there:

Ryan singing a love song to me...or a break-up song...hard to tell.

We're kissing and so are our shadows, or as Liz exclaimed, "it's Pinterest in person!"

Holding hands in a field

Trying to be serious, but cracking up instead. In our defense, our photographer told us to "think about dead puppies!" Does this make us horrible people that we laughed instead of cried??

Smooches.

I wonder who that pretty girl is. I should go talk to her...

Heyyyyyy.

Let's pose together next to this really tall shrub.

How do you NOT get on the balance beam if it's right there?!

Doing what the sign says.

"Monkeying" around

This brings me to the high/low light of this shoot: changing in a port-o-potty. It was too light out to change in my car and not get a ticket for public nudity, so into the blue toilet house I went. Keys in my mouth and never putting anything down made for quite the interesting (and record breaking) wardrobe change, but the following shots were soooooo worth it:

Thanks again to Liz at Cloven Photography for making these shoots SO much fun, and for giving us beautiful pictures to help us remember this exciting time in our lives when we're 80.

Colorful Colorado

2012-07-02T17:14:00.001-07:00

Four months ago when Ryan's family suggested a vacation to Colorado, it seemed like a great idea. Four months ago, it was a great idea. Four months ago, the entire state wasn't on fire.

Since we were planning on heading to the Colorado Springs area, Ryan and I had been watching the news coverage of the fire on Sunday night when he got a call from his parents. They were in Kansas at Aunt Michele & Ed's getting ready to drive to Colorado and meet us there on Monday night after our plane landed. They called to let us know that our plans were "slightly" changing...the cabin we were supposed to stay in was not accessible due to the fires, but they had found another cabin in a neighboring town. Okay, we're flexible. Next came the detail that the road Ryan and I needed to get from the airport to the cabin had been closed, making what should have been a 15 minute drive a 2 and a half hour drive. In the mountains. At night. During a wildfire. We debated for several hours whether we would even go, and against our instincts decided that we would, and just get a hotel for the night 45 minutes from the airport on a well-paved 4 lane highway and meet up with the rest of the family the next day.

Monday, June 25th:

After a full day of work and some last minute packing, we made our way to the Quad Cities airport about an hour and a half from home to begin our journey. Once we got to the airport, we both got really excited and were so happy that we decided to join the rest of the family in Colorado. Here we are waiting for our first of two flights:

This is the only picture that you will see from Day 1, because somewhere around 15 minutes before our second flight, I became violently ill and spent the next 3 hours with my face in a barf bag and/or on the side of the road until we finally made it to the safety of a comfy bed, some 7Up, and a good night of rest.

Tuesday, June 26th:

Rested, no longer puking every 5 - 10 minutes, and still convinced that we could salvage this vacation, we explored our small town of Canon City and waited for the rest of the crew to get there. We had to entertain ourselves a bit longer than expected because the rest of the family called to let us know that they had taken the scenic (read: gravel on the side of a mountain) route and had gotten a flat tire. They also used this conversation to let us know that our new cabin had no air conditioning during this week of record breaking Colorado heat, and that we would be sleeping on a couch and a futon. Awesome.

A few hours later, they finally made it to where we were and we had a really fun afternoon eating Mexican food, riding a train to the Royal Gorge, and walking across the bridge:

Mama Sloan, Papa Sloan, Ryan, and I

Rachel, Aunt Michele, Noah, Uncle Ed

By 8pm that night, we were all pretty tired so we grabbed some dinner and headed back to the cabin and were all in bed by 10.

Wednesday, June 27th:

After a warm, but otherwise good night's sleep, we all got around, had breakfast, and started planning our day. We saw a fox and a deer, took some cute photos, and the boys mapped out the best route for us to take to Cripple Creek for a day at the Gold Mine & town:

Ryan and I had been watching the news coverage on the fire all morning and suggested that we pack our suitcases and load them in the cars just in case we had to leave in a hurry. Laughed at and told how ridiculous we were being, we caved to the peer pressure and agreed to leave our belongings. Our first stop was to get me some caffeine, and then we made the gorgeous drive to Cripple Creek:

Once there, the rest of the family took a tour of the gold mine, while Mama (not a fan of enclosed spaces, like mine shafts) and I (not a fan of dirt) took ourselves to the Heritage Center where we learned about the town, the wildlife, and the dinosaur bones that had been found there:

After the tour was over, the family drove over to get us...and tell us that our cabin was under a mandatory evacuation and that we had to drive back immediately and pack up. Nobody ever listens to the pretty ones :). In a rush, we all piled in and made our way back to the cabin. When we had left that morning, we could vaguely see some smoke on the other side of the mountain. When we came back for our things a few hours later, this is what we saw:

Safe, packed, and thankful that only our vacation plans had been ruined as opposed to the hundreds of people who had to watch their homes burn to the ground, we made a plan to separate - Aunt Michele & crew to the hotel where Ed's work conference was, and us back to Canon City where Ryan & I had spent Monday night - and meet up again the next morning. During our drive, we noticed some rain clouds moving in and were so excited for the relief that it might mean for the firefighters. Until it hit. On a mountain. During an evacuation.

While I freaked out and prayed for what I was sure was the impending tornado to just kill me quickly, Ryan seamlessly navigated the storm, the traffic, the side of the mountain, and the conflicting directions he was getting from the backseat helpers. He was amazing!

Two hours later, we were safe and sound in one of the last remaining hotel rooms in the area, and we set out for some dinner and a drive. Not quite ready for bed yet, Ryan once again showed off his awesome driving skills and took us up Skyline Drive, a one-lane dirt path on the side of a mountain with some stunning views:

Thursday, June 28th:

This is the day that the vacation started to turn around for Ryan...he was about to go white water rafting with the family, sans myself and Mama again. While the rest of the group was unnecessarily risking their lives, Mama and I hung out in the hotel and talked about the upcoming wedding, when Ryan and I would be giving them grandchildren, and various topics Aunt Jeanie had told her were on my blog. Side note: this blog may or may not become private in the near future so as to keep my place as well-liked future daughter-in-law.

After their safe return and group lunch, we again split off from Aunt Michele and Noah for the evening. The Sloans and I grabbed some dinner and a photo op:

Going for the trifecta in Amazing Driving Skills, Ryan drove us the back way to the Royal Gorge bridge. While the bridge was closed, we did get to enjoy some spectacular views, and because no day on this trip would be complete without one, a near death experience when some wildlife decided to run across the road in front of us. Ryan navigated us safely through the herd, and they were kind enough to hold still for a few minutes after jumping the fence so that we could get a photo:

Friday, June 29th:

This day was my kind of vacation! While we would be moving into our 4th dwelling of the trip that evening, there was no evacuating, no nature, and no near death fiasco. And there was a pool! Aunt Michele invited us over to their luxury resort, rented a cabana, and let us relax all afternoon. I tanned, I swam, and at one point I was even talked into going down the deceptively fast and scary water slide. The boys went first so as to show me how easy it was:

Noah:

Ryan:

Me:

(I'd like to point out that while I may have screamed my head off the whole way down, I managed to keep every hair on my head dry and in its rightful place!)

After drying off, Ed joined us while on a break in between meetings and we snapped a whole family photo, courtesy of our cabana boy, Vladislav.

And a Sloan family photo after dinner at the Broadmoor:

Saturday, June 30th:

Since everyone else drove to Colorado, they had to leave early Saturday morning, leaving Ryan and I by ourselves until Sunday night. We said our goodbyes and set out for our weekend. Did we share a romantic breakfast? Go for a quiet drive? Order room service and lounge in our pajamas all day? Nope. We went to the gym. The gym with the broken air conditioner. In 102* heat. At 11 am. And we did cardio. In the gym with no air conditioning, right next to the window with the sun beating down on us. Don't ever tell your fiance that you want to lose 10 lbs. before dress fitting. He will somehow convince you that working out ON VACATION is a good idea.

Having preemptively worked off our lunch, we drove to downtown Colorado Springs and discovered what very well may be our new favorite restaurant on the face of the earth, PB & Jellies. An entire restaurant based on gourmet homemade peanut butter and jelly combinations. If Ryan hadn't already proposed to me, I may have been at risk of losing him to this place. I had a "Go Bananas" (white chocolate peanut butter with bananas), and Ryan had a "Young Elvis" (Crunchy peanut butter, honey, bananas, and bacon). And because that wasn't nearly enough calories for us, we split a peanut butter and jelly shake! If you're ever in the area, this place is a MUST!

Having gluttonized to the best of our abilities, we headed to the Olympic Training Center to walk off some of that peanut butter goodness. This is also a must see - they have a huge campus that you can spend hours on, a gift shop, and a free tour guided by one of the permanent resident athletes who live and train there. Our guide was Jason, an Ohio State alum who is training in Fencing. He said they train 3 - 4 times every day, and that he loses about 5 pounds of water weight per every 2 hour session. We did not tell him about the peanut butter and jelly deliciousness that we had just consumed for fear that he would make us work out with him. We did spend a couple of hours there, and worked off at least a few of those calories in the midst of our shenanigans:

Sunday, July 1st:

Our last day in Colorado started off with yet another morning work out (I feel like this should earn me some ice cream or something!), three attempts at re-packing our suitcases, and church at New Life. What an awesome experience that was! We had a special treat and Kari Jobe was in town and helped lead worship. The whole team did a fantastic job of balancing a Sunday morning service while addressing the fires, victims, firefighters, and talking about how to help. They had already given away 2 semi loads of supplies and had 2 more on the way. It was pretty incredible to see a church in action in the midst of a crisis, and I was so touched that I bawled through about half of the service.

After church and lunch, Ryan hit the batting cages to get some practice in for our church league softball team. He has pretty great form if I do say so myself!

We (okay, I) decided that it was too hot for miniature golf so instead we drove up the highway that had been closed until that afternoon to where our cabin was. I was almost brought to tears again as we passed too many signs to count thanking the thousands of firefighters who had been working around the clock all week trying to save the towns. Some were professionally done and some were hand made, but all were sincere.

Now safe and sound at home after an exhausting day of delayed flights that ended with Mike from American Pickers nearly smashing Ryan's toes with his luggage at Baggage Claim, we are thankful for our time in Colorado. While the fires somewhat messed up our vacation, we still managed to have a great time together with a lot of laughs, and we were very aware the whole time that hundreds of people no longer have homes, or were displaced for an unknown amount of time. Many people were only given 30 minutes to get what they could before they had to flee. We found several businesses around town that were accepting donations to go to the victims as they rebuild their lives, and we felt compelled to contribute. If you do as well, please visit the Colorado Springs Red Cross website. I'm sure any amount will be appreciated.

"Yes!" (And a few other phrases...)

2012-06-18T08:42:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, my life changed forever. Yesterday, I said "yes" (and some other things that we'll review in a bit) to marrying the love of my life and my best friend. Yesterday was without a doubt one of the best days of my life, and it all started out so routinely...

On any given Sunday, Ryan and I usually go out to lunch right after church, and like every other Sunday, that was our plan this weekend. Early Sunday morning, he sent me a text saying that he was exhausted and since we had to be at my sister's house at 2 for a Father's Day celebration, could we do dinner instead. More specifically, he said "I have a proposal to make. Can we not do lunch after church and then I will take you to a nice dinner?" He told me flat out that he had a proposal to make, guess I should have caught on!

Church and the family gathering and even dinner were all very routine, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I didn't even question the fact that he kept getting up at dinner to use the restroom...turns out that he had the ring in his left pocket and at dinner, I sat directly on his left side and kept putting my hand on his leg. Worried that I would feel it and start asking questions, he went to the restroom to change it to his right pocket safely out of my reach, and then had to switch it back to his left before we got in the car so that I wouldn't find it on the ride home. Poor guy must have been so stressed, but he played it incredibly cool.

Once home, at the bottom of my steps, he stopped me and said, "Heidi, I need you to put your purse down and close your eyes...your mom and dad and I all have a surprise for you." At that point, I was beyond confused...why would all 3 of them have a surprise? Why did I have to leave my purse? What could be happening? I quickly remembered that I LOVE surprises and stopped the line of questioning so as to figure out what awaited me at the top of the steps. He held my hand and walked me up what felt like 300 steps. At approximately step #289 (or 11, it's hard to say), he told me to wait right there with my eyes closed for just a second. After a brief pause, I heard his voice say, "Okay, keep your eyes closed, but you can keep walking." Umm, hello? I'm on steps in heels with my eyes closed...this is an accident waiting to happen! I reminded him that I was temporarily blind and not sure where I was on the staircase, and he rushed back to help me up the final few steps.

On level ground again, he walked me into the loft area, and told me to open my eyes. Standing in front of me and holding my hands, he brought me to tears with the sweet words he spoke about our life, our love, and our future, dropped to one knee, and asked me to marry him. I was so overwhelmed with surprise and joy that I didn't respond as eloquently or as gracefully as I had hoped that I would. I think I screamed "YES! Of course!!", asked him "Really honey?! No, seriously...REALLY?!!" about 5 times, and then, in a moment that I'm sure I will never live down, "Thank you!" Yes, I said "thank you" after he asked me to spend the rest of my life with him. I spent $30,000 on a Communications degree and I came up with "thank you." What? It's the polite thing to say!

Not having any grasp on my bearings, I hadn't noticed that my mom and dad were standing witness to the whole thing (and snapping photos), nor had I even looked at the ring. Luckily, he had the presence of mind to take it out of the box and remind me that there was another step to this process.

After saying 'yes' (and 'really', and 'thank you') and putting my stunning ring on (it was EXACTLY what I would have picked!!), I turned to my left and saw that he (or more specifically, my mom and dad, at his request) had turned my kitchen island into a cinammon proposal with my all time favorite candy, Hot Tamales.

Crying tears of joy, sweating profusely (attractive, I know) because of the rush of emotion, and shaking uncontrollably from all of the excitement, we sat down and started making the slew of calls to family and friends. Mom diligently documented the whole process. I'm not exaggerating when I say she photographed nearly every call we made. I'll spare you the other 44 of them.

Then the groom-to-be stepped in and took a few shots of me with my folks, his trusted accomplices. They had known about this since he took them to breakfast last Friday (where dad proceeded to warn him that he was getting a "hard-headed woman"...thanks, papa...), and while they said it nearly killed them, they managed to keep it a secret from everyone until the big moment.

Color mostly returned to my face, heart still racing, and shock somewhat present, we took our very first self-shot picture as an engaged couple:

I'm overwhelmed with emotion still today as I write this. A year ago, I didn't think that I'd ever get married. Partly because I was so independent, but mostly because I didn't believe that a man and a love this great really existed. I'm brought to tears every time I think about the fact that he could have any woman in the world, and for reasons unknown, he chose me. He has completely transformed my world for the better, and for someone who never thought she'd get married, I can't wait to be called his wife.

And while I may get teased for it for the rest of our lives, I'll say it again. Thank you, Ryan. Thank you for loving me, for making me laugh every day, for all of the ways that you show me how much you care, for being my best friend in the entire world, and for choosing me. I promise to spend the rest of my life trying to be the woman you deserve. I love you more than I thought it was possible to love someone, and I couldn't be more excited to spend the rest of my life being yours.

Baseball, BBQ, Bikes, and Baby Geese

2012-05-11T14:20:00.001-07:00

I know it's been a while. Here's the situation: I have been thinking for months of something that I could blog about that didn't center around the boyfriend, because I refused to be that girl who could only talk about her significant other. In an effort to be creative and only blog about things that happened without him, I had to take a little hiatus. Mostly because everything interesting in my life these days does include him, and LITERALLY nothing blog worthy seems to go on when we are apart.

So from this point forward, I'll just be known as the used to be funny/interesting/entertaining girl who now can only seem to talk about how amazing her boyfriend and his family and friends are. I've accepted it, and now you have to, too.

Last weekend, said amazing boyfriend took me to St. Louis/Southern Illinois for the weekend to see his family and to meet some of his college friends who I had been hearing about for the last several months. Our first order of business was an afternoon Cardinals game. Always one who likes to be cute, I enlisted the help of my sister and had this fun shirt made for the occasion:

Looking adorable in my supportive girlfriend attire, we made our way to the stadium and found our super awesome seats:

No adventure of mine is complete without a photo-op, and my aforementioned amazing boyfriend has learned to be incredibly tolerant of my paparazzi-esque snapshot taking. As a symbol of my appreciation for his participation, I try to keep it to a maximum of 5 shots per activity and with mugs this cute, we usually only need 1:

So with that out of the way, and sunblock thoroughly applied, it was time to settle in and watch some baseball! I lucked out and the seat in front of me was empty so I got to sit like this all afternoon:

And now my feet look like this:

Apparently I wasn't as thorough with that sun screen as I had previously thought!

Sufficiently burnt to a crisp, tired, sad from a Cardinals loss, and starving, we headed to see his family at his mom and dad's house. Like any good mama, his mom had a beautiful spread of delicious food waiting for us as soon as we walked in the door. I didn't take any photos of dinner, mostly because I knew I would be embarassed to admit how much I ate - while we miss them dearly, our waistlines are very thankful that both of our moms and their yummy cooking are kept at a safe distance for most of the year! I did snap a few shots of us with the folks and one with Ryan's Nan, too:

Family time in, we headed back to St. Louis for my first introduction to the infamous Pod 6 crew (at least the first time in mass numbers) from Ryan's college days. We had some BBQ (well, I had some spinach/artichoke dip and luckily had a fellow vegetarian girlfriend of a Pod 6 member there with me so I didn't get judged too harshly for passing on what I heard were amazing meats.) and then spent the rest of the night listening to old stories, getting to know everyone, and laughing a whole lot. While I have been informed that nobody ever really passes the test, I at least think that I have lived to see another Pod 6 outing, which I am counting as a win.

As always, the visit was much too short, but we left feeling very loved. We even managed to come home with some loot. Ryan scored some new shirts and I got a cardigan, jewelry, and my very own bike! Ryan's dad had bought a bike and fixed it up and gave it to me so that I could ride around the trail at my house with Ryan. (Sidenote: aren't his parents AMAZING?! They are so, so, so wonderful to us!) Once home, we could hardly wait to try it out, but since it had been well over 10 years since I had been on one, didn't have a helmet yet, and let's be honest I'm wobbly on my own 2 feet, I needed a few practice laps around the parking lot:

Sturdied, (well, sturdied enough to not kill myself) we headed out to take our first few laps around the pretty trail that is my backyard. During our ride, we noticed that the Canadian Geese that live here had recently had babies and were out and about with their cute little yellow balls of fur. We admired them from a respectful distance and went on about our ride. Three-quarters of the way into the first 2 mile lap, we noticed that one group was not really moving across the trail quickly so we slowed down thinking that they would keep moving and we could be on our way. As you can see, it was feeding time, and Mama or Papa Goose was not real interested in herding the little ones to a new spot, opting instead to stop in the middle of the road and stare us down like a ninja duck:

Ryan tried to reason with me and insist that we are much larger than they are, and we're on bikes so we could continue on our way and probably wouldn't be chased by them. 'Probably' wasn't quite enough insurance for me, as I was slow and wobbly on the bike, had no helmet, was dangerously close to fish-infested water, and was having flashbacks to the cat/pepper spray incident of 2010. So being the good man that he is, Ryan gave into my fear and turned around to ride home the long way in order to be certain that I not get eaten by any animals who are 1/10 of my size.

And that concluded our weekend adventure. To family and new friends: thanks again for all of your hospitality and kindness, we really appreciate you! To the geese: I have a helmet now and only look half drunk while riding the bike, so BRING IT! Stay tuned for what is almost a certain 'How I Was Almost Killed By A Goose' post...

Fundraising Defined

2012-02-15T08:37:00.000-08:00

In light of the many 'What I Actually Do' posters floating around Facebook and my lack of graphic design talent (and also my newfound inability to think of ANYTHING interesting to blog about that doesn't involve my Cute Guitar Guy), I made my own de-constructed take on the world of being a fundraiser:

What My Friends Think I Do:

What My Mom Thinks I Do:

What Society Thinks I Do:

What Donors Think I Do:

What I Think I Do:

What I Actually Do:

D-Day...oops! I mean B-Day Extravaganza '11

2011-12-13T15:34:00.000-08:00

Birthdays are a big deal to me, so for Cute Guitar Guy's 32nd, I had big things planned for him. I am a planner by nature, so the details were mapped out weeks ago to make sure that every aspect was perfect for him. What is it they say about the best laid plans again??

Tuesday, November 15th at approxmately 5pm: Knowing what a huge Southern Illinois basketball fan he is, I ordered Ryan 2 Saluki shirts and tickets to a January game against Northern Iowa. Basking in the glory of such a well thought out gift, I put aside planning the remaining details of his birthday and got ready for our date that night.

Tuesday, November 15th at approximately 8pm: Ryan starts talking about college basketball and how sad he is that Illinois isn't playing Iowa this season in Iowa City where we could see them. Then he started talking about how that was okay, because Southern Illinois is his real favorite. With a sigh, he said, "SIU actually plays at UNI this year, but I'm not getting tickets. Last time I went, 2 friends from home went with me and the SIU coaches spotted us in our Saluki gear and gave us court side seats right behind the bench. It was AMAZING, and since I know I can't get seats like that again, I would just rather not go."

Awesome. 1/3 of the gift I just bought him THREE hours ago has now been specifically vocalized as something he doesn't want. Don't panic, Higdon. You have almost a month left to plan the rest of his special day and can make up for the crappy gift with the celebration.

Wednesday, November 30th: He loves movies, and had been talking about seeing 'Moneyball' since we saw the first preview. We hadn't gotten around to seeing it yet, so I decided that this would be a good activity for us to do on his birthday. Birthday Extravaganza '11 is back on track! He's been talking a lot lately about how much he'd like to see SIU play, so I'm even feeling pretty good about his presents again. Yes, this will be a fantastic day for him!

Wednesday, December 7th: Phone conversation while I was on the road for work:
Ryan: "Man, Northern Iowa is on tv. I don't want to watch that crap. They're terrible."
Me: "You don't want to watch Northern Iowa because they're bad? What if they were playing a team you loved?"
Ryan: "No, they're terrible. I wouldn't watch them even if I had free tickets to see them play Southern Illinois. Besides, the only time I ever saw them we had courtside tickets against SIU and you can't really top that."

...and we're back to knowing that he's going to hate his gift...

Friday, December 9th at approximately 6pm: I made a special trip to the store to pick up his favorite ice cream, Ben & Jerry's Strawberry Cheesecake, to hide in my freezer and have for the cake and ice cream portion of his birthday. For the cake portion, I would be picking up a gourmet peanut butter cupcake for him on Monday morning. So pleased with myself, I hurried home to hide the frozen goodness and get ready for our date.

Friday, December 9th at approximately 8pm:
Ryan: "I HAVE to get serious about my diet again, starting right now. NO CHEATING!"
Me: "But you can cheat on Monday for your birthday, right?"
Ryan: "Well, a little. I can have a steak at dinner, but I can't have anything high in carbs. And absolutely no ice cream."

Saturday, December 10th: While at dinner, he asks me if I want to go see Moneyball tonight instead of just going home. I answered with a simple "no" because that's already on the secret agenda for Monday! He said, "Yeah, you know, I've been thinking about it, and I don't really want to see it in the theater that much. I've had plenty of chances the last month and didn't go. I'm actually glad you said no, because the more I think about it, the more I would really rather watch it at home once it's out on dvd. I'd enjoy it a lot more that way." Fan freaking tastic. T minus 48 hours and he has unknowingly told me how he is going to hate EVERY piece of his birthday that I have planned.

Sunday, December 11th: After a 'North Woods' themed Christmas (see matching flannel below) party for church staff and their significant others (where our African pastor's wife mistakenly called me Ryan's wife, and then the African pastor corrected her by calling me Ryan's fiancee...both of which left Ryan literally speechless and stuttering to deny both titles --- looks like Santa will not be bringing me any bling this year!), we came home to watch a movie. He mentioned how excited he was for his birthday the following day, and I mentioned how he was going to hate everything I had planned, as I had been saying all weekend. On the verge of a meltdown, he hugged me and said, 'Heidi, please stop stressing about my birthday. The fact that I have you makes it a great birthday already, so take off your event planner cap for just one day and enjoy the moment with me.' Insert collective 'awww' here.

Monday, December 12th: Here it was. The movie-he-doesn't-want-to-see-before-the-ice-cream-he-can't-have-and-presents-he-will-hate-day. Can't wait. My last hope was the gourmet peanut butter cupcake. After an hour long butter cream shortage fiasco, I made my escape with the SOLE peanut butter cupcake they were able to make. Perfect and pristine in its travel box, I hurried home to hide it in the fridge before our big outing.

He came over around 1pm with a Chris Young cd for me that I have been wanting for weeks (doesn't he know how birthdays work? He gets the presents, not me!), and I wisked him away to the theater to see Moneyball (which we both loved) and then came back home to change before dinner. Having starved him at lunch time so that he would be hungry for dinner, I told him he could have 1 of his 2 surprise treats as a snack. I took the cupcake out of the fridge and said to him "You can't look yet - your surprise treat needs to thaw for a minute or two before it can be eaten." Having thought that I clearly explained myself, I went to change into my outfit for dinner. I emerged from my room 5 minutes later to hear him say, "That cupcake was delicious!" Believing that he was just teasing me, I said, "Yeah right", to which he showed me the wrapper and said, "Seriously, it was." He ate the cupcake before I could put candles in it and while I was changing clothes?!

Me: "You ate the cupcake while I was changing?"

Ryan: "Yeah. It was delicious."

Me: "You ATE it? Without candles? While I was changing in the other room?"

Ryan: "I didn't know there were supposed to be candles."

Me: "You're 32, Ryan. How did the last 31 birthday treats look? Did they have candles??"

Ryan: "Well, yeah. But you said it was thawing and then I could have it."

Me: "Not without candles! You don't eat birthday treats before you blow out candles!"

Ryan: "Oh."

So, while I would love to show you a picture of his beautiful gourmet cupcake that I had to wait 45 minutes for and narrowly escaped with the last drop of buttercream the store had, I can't. Because he ate it. While I was changing clothes and before I could put candles in it. I left him unattended for FIVE minutes and he ate the cupcake. Unbelievable.

Changed and one of us held over by a cupcake, we headed off to dinner at his favorite (and my new favorite) restaurant, Granite City:

Luckily, because I am a planner, after a scrumptious dinner, I still had the ice cream before presents. Lesson learned, I immediately put candles in and made him pose before blowing them out, making his wish (yes, he did it backwards --- SERIOUSLY, he's 32! He should know how this works by now!!), and opening his gifts.

The final piece to the evening was his presents - the Southern Illinois shirts and tickets. I was so nervous about his reaction, that I didn't think to snap pictures of him opening his gifts, but I am happy to report that he was totally surprised and genuinely excited. All is well that ends well.

Thank goodness that I have a whole year before I have to start planning another celebration with presents for that man! Well, unless you count Christmas. In less than 2 weeks. During which we will be at his mom and dad's house in a town of 3,000 people and no Starbucks within a 20 mile radius. Stay tuned.

And for anyone who isn't totally clear, you DON'T eat your birthday treat while your girlfriend is changing clothes and before there are candles in it!!

Why I Hate Bambi

2011-11-30T18:06:00.000-08:00

I hate Bambi. And I don't even feel bad about it. Until 48 hours ago, I was the person who always felt bad for deer; you know, what with the always getting shot at and such. And then one decided it would be a good plan to run out in front of me and cause me to hit it at 65mph, killing my beloved (and recently paid off) car, Feivel.

Okay, in fairness, Feivel killed the deer too, but the deer started it!!

Here's how it went down:

As I was driving home from a work meeting to discuss starting Bingolicious in Dubuque (Drag Queen Bingo in a VERY Catholic town to support Planned Parenthood...yeah, seriously. That's how I roll.), I was obsessively scanning the ditches for deer because I'm terrified of hitting one. About 20 miles from home and 10 miles to the city limits and out of imminent deer-hitting danger, I started up a hill in the right lane (because I know how to drive and if you aren't passing, your happy little butt shouldn't be in the left lane!!) and then BAM! I saw it as I was hitting it --- a huge deer in a full speed run across the highway directly in my path.

There was no time to do anything but scream, which really helped me to follow the rules of not swerving or braking. There was a loud thump, and over the deployed airbag in my chest/face, I watched the deer fly up the hood of my car towards me as the metal crumpled like a sheet of paper before miraculously flipping hooves-over-head off of my poor Feivel and onto the shoulder. Meanwhile (still screaming), I somehow managed to steer the car over to the shoulder while there was a little visibility left through the now smoking heap of crumpled parts that used to be my prized possession of a car.

Freaked the FREAK out, I composed myself enough to check for bleeding, grab my phone off the charger (I will never again drive anywhere without my phone on the charger. After the impact, it was the only thing in the car besides me that was near its rightful place.), pick up my purse, and get the heck out of the smoking vehicle. With one foot out the door, I couldn't figure out why the car was still moving. 'OMG!', I thought, 'the brakes aren't working! What do I do? What do I do?!' Turned out I forgot to put the car in park. Once I figured that part out, the rest was a bit of a blur...

Standing in the glow of the one remaining headlight, I called my sister Tammy and she somehow pieced my jumbled words together and told me to call 9-1-1 and that she was on her way. Meanwhile, a very nice woman stopped to see if I was alright, complimented me on the size of the deer that I killed (only in Iowa!), hugged me, told me I did everything right except that I got out of the car (ummm, hello?! It was smoking!! When I told her that was why I got out, she asked me if it was the radiator making the smoke. I just stared blankly at her, looked down at my Vera Wang dress and high heels, and gave her a minute to piece together that I am not the kind of girl who even knows what a radiator does, let alone have the ability to determine if it is smoking or not. Turns out that it was the radiator and it was safe to get in the car, but I refused so we stood way off in the ditch away from the road.), and waited with me until the police officer arrived.

Enter Officer Smell Good. No, I didn't flirt or slip him my business card (Cute Guitar Guy really did a number on this girl!), but I did tell him he smelled good. Straight to the point, he told me that I did everything perfectly and that had I hit my brakes, Bambi would have come through my windshield and I'd have had a 400lb dead deer in my face. He said he had never seen a car so little hit a deer so big without spinning, flipping, or ejecting someone. Comfort not exactly his strong spot, I see. After making sure I was physically okay, he helped me grab all of my necessary papers and sat me in his cruiser with the heat on blast to warm me up while he wrote his report. This didn't take terribly long...

Yes, that's his entire report. 'Car vs. Deer', the highway, and the mile marker. Apparently Officer Smell Good is a straight to the point kind of guy. Supplementary information for this conclusion to be found in subsequent paragraph below.

Moments later, sister Tammy arrived to save me and nearly ran over the dead carcas of deer. For the record, it would have deserved a second hit. After hugs and kisses and sweet reassurances that I didn't do anything wrong, and making sure I didn't breathe in too many fumes from the airbag (could she BE more of a mom?!), she helped me unload my belongings into her car and was such a huge help answering the frantic calls from family members who I was in no shape to coherently speak to. At one point, she must have handed my phone back to me, because I vaguely remember the following conversation:

Me into the phone: '...(sob)...It...it...it...just...(sob)...ran...(sob)... (all one word) rightinfront...(sob)...'
Tammy: 'Honey, who are you talking to?'
Me: 'R...R....(sob)'
Tammy: (reaching for phone) 'Honey, WHO are you talking to?'
Me: 'R...Ry...Ryan...Do you need to talk to him??'
Tammy: 'No sweetheart, I just need to know who to call to translate for when you're done.'

By some miracle, he actually understood most of what I said and after I shot down his insisting that he come get me, he conceded to leave me with Tammy under the agreement that I called him as soon as I was home so he could come over and comfort me.

Paperwork done and tow truck on its way, Officer Smell Good gave his condolences on the car and wished us a good night. I had told Tammy that I was pretty sure the car was totaled, but being the good sister she is, she tried to get some hope from the man on the scene:

Tammy: 'Do you think the car might have any chance of being fixed?'
Officer Smell Good: (LITERALLY laughing out loud) 'No.'

Well, guess that settles that.

Fast forward through lots of hugs, some tylenol for the pain (those airbags are no joke!), and several texts checking on me, Sister brought me home and dropped me off knowing that Cute Guitar Guy was on his way to take his shift on the Heidi Is An Emotional Wreck tour. Less than 10 minutes later, he was standing in my kitchen hugging me and telling me how beautiful I looked (I didnt even have to teach him that trick - he just knew it!), even though he had been fighting a 100+* fever for 7 days and was in no shape to be anyone's caretaker. He managed to convince me to change into my pajamas, put my hair in a pony tail, and snuggle up next to him under a blanket on the couch. Sick, dehydrated, and exhausted, he spent the next three hours catering to my every need and being the sweetest support system ever until I was settled down enough to sleep.

Sore, shaken, and sad, I spent my lunch hour today cleaning out and saying goodbye to Feivel. I was so proud of how well I was keeping myself together until I saw this on my visor:

"A guardian angel to watch over you"

After seeing the wreckage again in the daylight and having a couple of days to process everything, I have never been more convinced that there was indeed a guardian angel watching over me Monday night. In fact, I'm sure there were a few. So a VERY special thank you goes out to Uncle Buzzard Beak, Miss Helen, Momma Kaye, Bobby, Grandmas, Grandpa, and Uncle Larry for whoever was on duty. Not to seem ungrateful, but for all future near-untimely-death incidents, I'd appreciate you just moving the deer (or whatever is about to kill me) completely out of my way instead of letting me hit it. It would save me a lot of hassle. Just saying.

Another big thank you goes out to Feivel; for the adventures, the endless top-of-my-lungs singing during the adventures, and for protecting me so well when all logic says there's no way you could have. You will be missed!

The Cute Guitar Guy & The Self Absorbed Hottie

2011-11-02T10:23:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, I found myself freshly moved to Cedar Rapids and looking for a new church, so I enlisted the help of Google and created a list of 5 churches in my area that had a contemporary service (I love Jesus as much as the next gal, but I'm going to need a drum set during worship songs to keep me awake) to start trying out. My intention was to try each church at least once before narrowing it down to 3 to attend again, and start to choose from there. After all, this is my faith we're talking about, and choosing a place of worship is a big deal that should have some serious thought put into it!

My first stop was a Methodist church about 10 miles from my apartment. A far cry from the modern, state-of-the-art Vegas church that I was still trying to find here in the land of corn & cows, but charming nonetheless. It was a small congregation filled with mostly parishioners in the 40+ age group, so I didn't immediately notice anyone to sit by and make friends with. As I found a seat in a middle pew and politely smiled at the new faces around me, the praise band made their way to the stage, and there he was --- the cute guy in front with the guitar and no ring. Bonus points reinstated.

He never said his name, but for all 4 songs he never took his eyes off of me. This is going to be record time for me, I thought. 1 week in the city and 1 visit to this church and I've already got an admirer. A cute one. Who plays guitar. Without an introduction to know his name, I shall refer to him as Cute Guitar Guy. I watched him throughout the whole service, and watched the crowd, too, carefully scanning the faces of the 20 - 35 year old ladies to see if anyone was making eyes at him. While I noticed a few admirers of his, he never sat by any of them or even looked their direction. Nope, he only had eyes for me that day, and I was basking in the fact that he couldn't look away from my cuteness even for a moment.

I left quickly after service was over that day, so as to not look too available. Leave him hanging, I thought. This was now my church; no need to shop around. I'd be coming back the next week to be adored by him some more. Jesus is fine with me picking a church because there is a Cute Guitar Guy, right??

Fast forward a couple of days, I thought that I would step out of my comfort zone and call the Young Adults director at church to get involved and meet some new people. I spoke to a very nice man named Ryan with a slow Southern drawl, and decided that if Cute Guitar Guy didn't work out, this Ryan character would be next on my list. --- Sidebar - yes, I know, I apparently only like men named Ryan or Matt. I had recently dumped Matt #3 (Note to self: when dumping someone, make sure that they don't operate a train that runs right next to your house, where they can lay on the horn for extended periods of time at ungodly hours.) and this would be Ryan #2.--- After a 30 minute chat about a wide variety of topics, I told Ryan that I had to get back to work, but would wait to hear back from him about the next Young Adults gathering. He told me to be sure to find him after service that week, and I said I would and hung up, before realizing that I had no idea what he looked like. Oh well, I can always use that as an in to talk to Cute Guitar Guy --- just ask him who Ryan is. Damn, I'm good at this boy hunting!

That Sunday, dressed in an even cuter outfit than the one before, I saw Cute Guitar Guy yet again leading the praise band and yet again making googly eyes at me. Then the woman next to him started speaking, and in the cutest Southern drawl you've ever heard, introduced herself as Ryan's 'momma' and thanked the church family for being so good to him after he moved here 2 years ago from their hometown. Hmmm. So that's Ryan. Good news: Ryan with the Southern drawl is Cute Guitar Guy. Bad news: This cuts my list of suitors in this church in half.

After a brief introduction after service, Ryan/Cute Guitar Guy promised that he would be calling me later in the week to talk about Young Adults. We said our goodbyes and as I got in line to greet Pastor, Cute Guitar Guy's mom and dad stepped in line right behind me. After a nice 5 minute chat, I decided that I loved his mom and needed to put her in my pocket to keep forever. Or at least that she needed to be my mother-in-law.

A few days later, my phone rang with a local number that I didn't recognize, but answered anyway. It was Cute Guitar Guy! Certain that he was calling about Young Adults, I asked him when the get together would be, and he answered with, 'actually, I was calling to ask you to dinner this weekend.' Mmm hmm. I knew he had been checking me out! I happily accepted, and the rest, as they say, is history. Well, except a few minor details. I will summarize them briefly below:

Date #1: Dinner at a cute pizzeria, great conversation, and a goodbye hug. That's cool. I can respect a man who doesn't kiss me right away, though I definitely would have let him.

Date #2: Baseball game and a hug. Had a great time, and like how sweet he is. I'm sure he will kiss me next time.

Date #3: Movie at my house, dinner out, and a long drive around town. And a hug. Not even a hand hold on the couch during the movie, but that's probably because he didn't want to be too forward. Tomorrow, after the family BBQ I'm taking him to, it's makeout central for sure!

Date #4: Family BBQ at my sister's house; he survived 16 Higdons/married to Higdons, 3 games of bean bag with me, and played guitar around the fire with my nephew. Oh yeah. Tonight's the night. For a hug...

Date #5: Iowa vs. Iowa State Football game watch at a local bar. Hung out for 6 hours, talked, laughed, and hugged when he dropped me off. I'm thinking I might be in the friend zone at this point.

Date #6: BBQ at Pastor's house for church staff and their families. I'm pretty sure I passed everyone's judgement, except for maybe the 4 year old blonde girl who asked me why I kept sitting by Ryan and when I was leaving. Yes, yes, this was the night for sure. When he dropped me off, I got an extended hug with 10 seconds of our cheeks touching. Sigh. I'm from Vegas --- people get MARRIED in 6 dates or less. I'm hot. WHY isn't he kissing me?!!

Mid-week between dates #6 and #7: Me to Cute Guitar Guy: 'I can't hang out tonight. I'm sick.' Cute Guitar Guy: 'What's wrong?' Me: 'I think I have Cute-Guitar-Guy-won't-kiss-me-itis!' --- What? God helps those who help themselves!

Date #7 (SEVEN. As in 6 more than 1): Movie, drive around the neighborhood while a rabid raccoon was blocking my door, and hands down the most amazing first kiss I've ever had (and there have been, ahem, a few...)!! Halle-freaking-lujah, the boy made a move!!

Date #8: Football at home...with his friend...so no kissing. He makes me wait SEVEN dates and then on 8 we're entertaining a guest?! He's lucky he's Cute Guitar Guy. Plain old 'Guitar Guy' would not be getting so much slack.

Dates #9 - 13: Fun, common dates, with lots and lots and lots of kissing.

Date #14: Somehow end up discussing how we got started. I led with 'I knew you liked me when you kept checking me out during service.' Cute Guitar Guy: 'You mean the week after we talked on the phone?' Me: 'No, the first week. You were checking me out the whole time, so I decided to come back the next week.' Cute Guitar Guy: 'Yeah, some of the church staff told me that there was a cute girl in service that week, but I totally missed you. I didn't see you at all that week. But I did notice you the second time.' I'm pretty sure this was the moment he realized that it would be in his best interest to stop talking and kiss me some more...

We're now somewhere around Date #25 and he has thankfully been making up for that epically long era of smoochlessness. All of that kissing severely cuts into my picture taking obsession, so I will leave you with this one from Date #19: Our first trip out of town. See why I call him 'Cute Guitar Guy'?

How To Be A Stalker 101

2011-08-21T08:34:00.000-07:00

I'm nosy. I unabashedly admit it. I am not a fan of drama in my own life, but I LOVE knowing all of the dirty details of someone else's soap opera-esque daily strife. Maybe not the greatest quality to have, sure, but if you're reading this, I'm pretty sure you're in my boat-o-nosiness, so no finger pointing!

This being one of my qualities, I can hardly shame anyone else for wanting to know all of the juicy details of my existence. I have left this blog as public for that reason - I've shared the link with my family and friends, and they are free to pass it along at their discretion. I have readers from all over the world who I will never know, and I think there is something very cool about that. If my silly little adventures can entertain someone halfway around the world, that's a good day in my book.

Being the nosy little lady that I am, from time to time I like to check in on who is checking in on me. Blogger has a handy stats tab on the backend of the site that tells me how many readers I have, what country they are from, what post(s) they read, and from which referring site they used to find me. Here are some highlights (forgive the horrible photo quality - my battery in my fancy phone with a flash camera died and the nearest T-Mobile store in this land of corn is a 2 hour drive, so I have ordered a replacement, but in the mean time I am stuck with my old 'in case of emergency' phone with a pretty crappy camera):

Top 10 Countries Visited From This Month:

Top 5 Posts Read This Month:

Operation Sugar Daddy

Dear Help Desk, You Suck

Who Hires These People??

The ABCs of Men

Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do?

Top Search Keywords Directing People To My Blog This Month:

Oh, that's VERY interesting. Someone has searched some combination of my name and a long ago ex a total of 27 times in the last 20 days that has landed them at my blog. There's another 5 in there that have been for 'Heidi Higdon Facebook' that I can only assume to be from the same person. I'm feeling generous today, so I'm going to give you some tips about how to do this stalking more efficiently. 1.) BOOKMARK my blog so you don't have to search for it every time. It's http://heidichris.blogspot.com/. 2.) If trying to find me on Facebook, why don't you try searching for me ON FACEBOOK rather than google?

At first, these stats really freaked me out and I was thisclose to making my blog private so that people that I don't want to know how or where to find me can't have access to my life, but then I realized that 1.) I have nothing to hide, 2.) I probably am the most interesting thing to ever wander into that person's life, so can I blame them for wanting to live vicariously through me? and 3.) If you can't figure out how to anonymously stalk me or how to find me on the largest social networking site in the world, I probably have nothing to worry about in the way of super smart schemes to track me down.

So with that, happy reading everyone. And remember sweetie, stalking me won't make you attractive.

Boys Say The Darndest Things

2011-07-27T18:26:00.000-07:00

For anyone who follows this blog with any sort of regularity or knows me at all, you know that I have dated some serious winners (If you need to be caught up: case, point, checkmate, and one for good measure) who say some pretty awesome things. So boys, I'm going to give you some help about what not to say. And ladies, unless your man has topped these, maybe give him a free pass today.

Enjoy the highlights of the huge practical joke that is my dating life:

Worst style commentary:

Boy: You know, I love it when you wear jeans. It makes you less pretty than usual and I feel like I have more of a shot with you. And I also really like the just rolled out of bed hair look that you have going on.

Me: You think my hair looks like I just rolled out of bed????

Boy: Oh, I shouldn't have said anything, huh?

Me: Yeah. Never tell a woman she looks like she didn't make an effort.

Boy: But why? You women say you want honesty in a man...

Worst observance of my independence:

"You don't need a man - you ARE the man!"

Worst attempt to encourage a positive body image:

"You're looking really curvy today. I like the extra meat you've got lately."

Worst joke. Ever.:

Me: When my parts start drooping, there will be surgical intervention.

Boy: I hope that you have that fund started already.

Me: Are you implying that I am going to need a lot of cosmetic surgery soon?

Boy: See? I can be funny.

Worst ask for a committment:

"I think you should give me a shot. I'm cute and funny. Plus, it's not like I have a parade of women coming through my living room."

Worst compliment (I think?):

"Some of those hookers were charging $200 and they weren't even cute. You could easily get $500."

Who Hires These People?

2011-07-24T13:31:00.000-07:00

So the IT saga continued as my work Blackberry would not connect to the internet, therefore hindering me from accessing my e-mail, therefore defeating the purpose of me having a Blackberry. After 10 days of trying different things, most of which included taking the battery out and putting it back in (SERIOUSLY! Is that all they teach you at IT school??), Bill* gave up and told me I was on my own. Apparently, this is acceptable behavior at my place of work. Days earlier, I sent a grant application to my GRANTS MANAGER to complete and submit, and she e-mailed me back flatly saying,"I'm not doing this." I was unaware that not doing our job was an option. They should add that to the handbook.

Back to Bill from IT deciding that he didn't want to work on my IT problem anymore, he told me 'you'll have to go to Sprint and see if they can fix it.' Fine. I'll deal with it myself. After getting to the Sprint store and waiting in line for twenty minutes, I'm told that the 'blackberry guy' is at another store across town, but is heading to the store I am at and will be here in about fifteen minutes. I can go wait in the blackberry line behind 6 other customers. If I were running a business that saw customers needing help with a specific product on a daily basis, I might think of hiring more than 1 person per city who knows how to fix said product, but that's just me.

An hour and a half later, as it is finally my turn with the nice Sprint Blackberry technician, I explain the problem and hand him my phone. He looks at the phone, then back to me, then back to the phone. "Great", I think, another idiot for me to deal with today. And then in a surprising turn of events, he said to me, "Ma'am, you don't have an account with Sprint. Your service is through U.S. Cellular. You'll have to ask them for help."

Another hour at U.S. Cellular, it turns out that Bill never ACTIVATED MY ACCOUNT and that is why I have no service. I drive back to work, login to my desktop, and find an e-mail from Bill saying "Actually our service is through U.S. Cellular, not Sprint. My bad. Hope you get this in time." Yeah Bill, I figured that out, and no I didn't get it in time. Know why? Because my Blackberry that you've been working on for a week and a half wasn't freaking activated!!! Can we maybe move that to the top of our troubleshooting handbook??

So technology slowly working itself out, I headed home for a nice relaxing weekend at my sweet new apartment on the water. As I started my day cleaning and doing some laundry, I noticed that it was getting very, very dark inside. So I stepped onto my porch and saw this progression of weather:

10:05am - clouds rolling in

10:11am - wind starting to pick up

10:15am - house-shaking thunder and HUGE winds

10:18am - torrential downpour with bending trees and howling wind

10:32am - storm completely over, sunny skies, ducks back happily swimming in the lake

10:35am -

Good work, National Weather Service. Thank God you and Bill are here.

Dear Help Desk, You Suck.

2011-07-02T09:45:00.000-07:00

I know that I shouldn't criticize something I don't understand, but I'm saying it - I think the IT department in every place that I have ever worked gets paid way too much for doing way too little. When I call the help desk, no matter what the problem seems to be, I'm told to turn off my computer and turn it back on. Flames could be shooting out the back of my monitor and I bet dollars to donuts that their solution would be to reboot. I feel that this is the IT equivalent of a doctor telling me to 'rub some dirt on it and see if that fixes your broken arm.' Thanks, boys.

Given the circumstances of the boxed answer I am so used to getting, I reserve all help desk calls to situations involving fatal errors or denied access. Yesterday I had the pleasure of spending 6 of the 8 working hours of my day on phone with Bill*(names have been changed to protect me from getting the virtual finger from the help desk folks the next time I need their overpaid expertise. But you know who you are!) from IT trying to gain access to the new system that we are supposed to be using.

I may not be a computer genius, but I know enough to know that this isn't a great start to the day when trying to login to a remote desktop:

Again, I had no idea what this meant, but I knew it needed fixed so I called Bill and explained that my parameters apparently needed corrected. Bill seemed nice enough, but it wasn't until after making me restart the computer 4 times in a row and reading him the same error message all 4 times that he decided I might not be an idiot and could have a valid problem. I feel that this call could have been cut by 5 - 5.5 hours if we could all agree that if the problem persists after 2 reboots, maybe we should move on to the next troubleshooting idea, no?

After sufficiently reaching the apparent reboot quota before actual problem solving commences, Bill decided to shadow my screen. Having never met Bill in person, I didn't expect him to know that I am the cutie in the bottom right corner of the picture I use as my desktop background and the other cuties are my friends:

However, I also didn't expect his reaction to be, 'Oh you have 5 daughters? I have 5 daughters too.' Really Bill? I sound old enough to have birthed 5 women ranging between the ages of 25 and 50??? This conversation is not off to a great start.

After taking control of my screen and going through the exact same process that resulted in the exact same error message I had been explaining, I sat silently while Bill talked his way aloud through a whole bunch of technical mumbo jumbo that I didn't understand. Twenty minutes later, during which he repeatedly declined my offers for him to just call me back when it was fixed, he had an a-ha moment and proclaimed 'Oh my gosh - I forgot to give you paramaters to login to Citrix properly! I can't believe I did that. I'll fix it right now and you'll be set.' So the problem was exactly what the error message that I had been reading to you for an hour at this point said? Well who could have seen that one coming???

Another reboot, another screen sharing session, another login, and another error message:

So I'm in - I just have no resources. My internal reaction: 'No problem, Heidi. Bill is a trained professional and will fix you right up.' Bill's vocal reaction: 'Ooooh. That's not good.' Other than a medical specialist, a system administrator is the #2 person I don't want to hear that response from.

Fast forward TWO hours of listening to Bill ramble on some more about what it might or might not be, and yes, several --- 3? 7? 92? I seriously lost count --- more reboots to make sure that the computer fairy hadn't magically fixed it for us, Bill figured out that he had forgotten to give me (and only me out of the 23 new staff rolling over to this system) the permissions required to have resources. Easy fix, he assured me. Give him 10 minutes and then repeat the reboot, share, login process that I am a recently certified expert at, and I would be good to go.

................................Drumroll, please................................

Wah- Lah! A real, remote desktop with access to my home desktop in the top left corner. Fantastic! I have access to e-mail, the intranet, timesheets, the database --- everything a fundraiser like myself would need!

Bill being the concerned IT professional that he is asked me to login to the timecard. This is what we found:

That's right. 3 Heathers and the wrong Heidi. It has taken 4+ hours to get me into the desktop, and now I don't exist in the payroll system? Bill said he would look into it as soon as we established that everything else worked.

Back to the desktop, I notice that not only do I not have a shortcut to the database, but of my 4 icons, the only 2 that work are the payroll system in which I don't exist, and this one:

This icon takes you to appointment scheduling and patient records. The problem? I am a fundraiser, not a clinician. 'Bill? Why do I have access to clinic stuff, but not to anything pertinent to my job?' Bill: 'Oooh. Looks like I gave you the wrong desktop. And uh, ummm..hang on. JB! JB! Can I get a consult over here?' Next came muffled whispers between the two, and then Bill cleared his throat as if preparing to tell me that they had forgot to tell me I was fired and I don't actually work there anymore before he said, 'Yeah...I gave you the completely wrong accesses and we don't know how to fix it without deleting your profile and rebuilding it. And that's going to take a while, so sit tight and I will try to get it fixed. How about I call you the middle of next week to update you?'

No problem, Bill. I'll just come to work with the inability to log my payroll, access donor records, enter donations, or do anything required in my job description, but never fear - I can color code my e-mails and if I get bored, I might schedule a few IUD removals for myself. Give me some gloves and those tong-like things; I'm sure I can figure it out.

Bad news: I don't exist in the work system, have no access to anything important, and apparently sound like a 70 year old woman on the phone. Good news: When this gig goes south, I'm pretty sure I can start a new career as an IT administrator. Or a nurse practitioner.

Heidi - Can I See You In My Office, Please??

2011-06-27T07:19:00.000-07:00

Recently, my company has 'merged with' (read: been acquired by) a larger chapter and beginning on July 1, there will be some changes. Being as such, our new Human Resources department made a 3 hour drive on Friday to meet with us and go over the changes.

Things were pretty run of the mill; medical/dental/vision coverage, don't sexually harass your co-workers (I'm going to have to make a note to myself on that one), wear appropriate clothing, notify your supervisor when you will not be coming to work, yadda yadda yadda. I was on board with everything until we got to this all important page of the handbook:

Ahh yes, one of my favorite subjects. Let's take a look at our list:

Anyone else notice anything missing? Because I can't seem to find 'Day After Thanksgiving' on here. I asked if it was a typo, and was reassured that no, that was an accurate description of our holiday time. Seeing the impending hissy fit about to happen, the HR Director told me not to fret, because we get our birthday off so it evens out. Ummm, no. If I am home on my birthday, who will shower me with love and adoration and presents? When will my office be decorated? THIS is what my birthday at work should look like:

He said that if I really wanted to come to work on my birthday that I could have any other day in that month off as my designated birthday day off. Light bulb! Oh, I'm getting the Day after Thanksgiving off!!

This is how I proceeded to fill out EVERY piece of new hire paperwork (20 - 25 official documents) that I turned in at the end of our 5 hour meeting before HR had to drive 3 hours home.

My guess is that they won't notice until today, so I am taking a personal day to allow them to cool off before what I can only guess is an upcoming one-on-one HR meeting...

I Will Never Be The Crazy Cat Lady. Crazy Shoe Lady? Maybe.

2011-06-26T13:36:00.000-07:00

After relentless teasing from my family and friends about how many shoes I own, I set out this morning to sort through them and donate any of them that I felt I could live without. After hours of deliberation, I came to the conclusion that I may have a slightly unhealthy relationship with my footwear because I just couldn't bring myself to part with any of them. They're like family --- even the ones that you don't particularly jump for joy over, you can't just give them away.

And it's not like I have that many. All in all, they total 18. That's not even one pair per beloved Duggar kid. They all comfortably fit in one closet (okay, two closets, but they're small closets!):

I know it is tough to decipher each pair's individual charm and place in the family, but I really do have a purpose and occasion for each.

Beginning with the back row:

Snow Boots

Why I need them: For the snow. Duh. And yes, those are 3" heels --- I'm 5'1", if I fall down in the

snow drift, nobody will find me until April if I'm not wearing these. Safety first kids.

Motorcycle Boots

Why I need them: What else am I supposed to wear when someone with a motorcycle finally asks me out?

Power Business Shoes

Why I need them: Nothing says 'I mean business and am serious and professional, but have just enough sparkle to make you happy that I am about to charm you out of all of your money' like these babies.

Vera Wang

Why I need them: They're Vera Wang. Enough said.

Faux Snakeskin

Why I need them: I have a matching purse.

The Most Comfortable Pair of Carrie Bradshaw Approved Heels Ever

Why I need them: After the torture that I put my feet through on a daily basis, they deserve a comfortable pair of heels to slip into. It's not for me at all, just thinking of my toes. Also, they're fabulous.

Vera Wang #2

Why I need them: They're Vera Wang. They keep my other Vera Wang pair company. And they've made a cameo on my blog already. That cements their place in my home.

Stripper Heels

Why I need them: Don't judge them! Sure, a pole, excessive glitter, and perfectly kept soles are probably their only potential in life. But is it their fault that they're hot and make my calves look even more amazing than usual? And besides, who doesn't want money thrown at them??

Jessica Simpsons

Why I need them: They're shiny and purple and honestly, hasn't Jessica been dumped enough??

The Twins

Why I need them: They spice up a plain black dress, make jeans look dressy, and get me more compliments than any other pair I own. Why do I need 2 pairs? Look closely. They're fraternal.

Family Feud Starters

Why I need them: I have a shirt that matches perfectly, and it took me 2.5 years and countless failed kidnapping attempts to convince Whitney to sign over custody to me, whose feet actually fit into them.

Brown Faux Snakeskin

Why I need them: They're brown. That makes them different.

Painting shoes

Why I need them: Sometimes my friends buy houses and need help painting the big, mid-level sections of the walls that are far away from edges and outlets and anything that could possibly be messed up. Bonus: they already have paint splatter on them so they can't be ruined. Hmmm...I just realized I don't have a pair in black...

Life Savers

Why I need them: I crossed the Nike half marathon finish line in one pair, and the other supports those who are also running as a part of TEAM. They're finding cures for cancer. Do you REALLY want me to get rid of them and let cancer win? Also, after hearing my father tell me for the first 18 years of my life that until I buy my own shoes, I have to untie them before taking them off, I love slipping them off still tied and being able to say "I bought them, I get to take them off how I want." It's the little things in life.

Flip Flops

Why I need them: Just for proof that I own them and that every once in a while, I can actually be seen at my natural height.

Over The Top, Impractical, Way Too Expensive Designer Heels

Why I need them: I don't. But I want them. Just one pair of luscious, over-priced, mouth watering heels. I have decided that I will be treating myself to a new man in my life; the only question that remains is: will it be Christian or Jimmy? Who do you think my closet is missing?? Maybe if I find that Sugar Daddy, I can have both :)

Operation Sugar Daddy

2011-06-21T19:48:00.000-07:00

Upon careful thought and consideration, I have come to the conclusion that I'm too pretty to work. At a bare minimum, I'm too pretty to work full time. So, in the words of my dear friend Rachel (she's very wise - check her out), I need to find a man to bank roll my rock and roll lifestyle. With my 20s on a downward spiral heading into 30 like a freight train, I figured I should take advantage of my youth and good looks while they are still around.

I know that this must sound a little overindulgent, but follow me here. I bring a lot to the table, and am willing to negotiate the terms of our arrangement. My staples are as follows: provide my basic needs (food, shelter, gasoline, etc.), 1 Diet Mountain Dew or Starbucks per day, 6 vacations per year (4 to Phoenix/Las Vegas where only a plane ticket and spending money are needed, 1 to Boston, and 1 tropical locale), and $200 per month wardrobe allowance; of which any remaining balance may be carried over infinitely. Keep in mind that I am willing to work part time to help with these expenses.

Ideally, I would like to stick to the terms of a traditional Sugar Daddy/Trophy Girl relationship: woo me, buy me nice things, take me out on the town to show me off, make a weekly or semi-monthly deposit into my checking account, and then go home to your house that is separate from mine. Here's where the negotiations come in. I'm willing to settle down and become a trophy wife with the added conditions that I get at least a 2 carat ring, my last name is hyphenated, bump that wardrobe allowance up to $350 a month, and I'm going to need 1 additional state side vacation of my choosing per year.

Sounds like a nice deal for me, I know, and I'm sure you're wondering what you get out of it, so I have taken the liberty of compiling a list of reasons why you should scoop me up and take care of me for the rest of my life. This list is by no means meant to be exhaustive, and if you have any stipulations not seen below, please feel free to inquire about my willingness to provide. Thank you, and I look forward to meeting you and your AmEx in the near future.

10 Reasons Why You Should Be My Sugar Daddy:

1.) I look great in formal wear
Have a fancy business dinner to be at? A charity gala? Best man in your brother's wedding? I can rock a ballgown in any color.

2.) I am excellent with babies and small children
Don't get any ideas - none will be housed in my uterus, but if you come with them in tow, I can probably keep them alive.

3.) I'm not afraid of a theme party.

Cowgirl, sock-hopper, 80s cutie, some ill-advised college era 'bros & hos' parties that I won't post here, but I'm sure there is evidence of...

4.) I can hold my liquor.

My first three loves are: tequila, tequila, tequila, but I can down a Blue Moon like it's my job!

5.) I'm a good hugger.

Handshakes are so formal. Whether you hug back or stand straight as a board, I'm getting my loves in!

6.) I give good back rubs.

7.) I'm sporty.
Whether I'm running 13.1 miles, showing off my championhip miniature golf form, or dominating the batting cages, I'm basically awesome.

8.) I believe that variety is the spice of life.
You will never see me with the same hair style twice.

9.) I'm always ready for a photo op.

Catch me off guard when there is a camera around? I dare you to try.

10.) I'm hot.

Let's face it. I'm not going to look this good forever, so you should probably get me while the getting is good. Go ahead, gentlemen, let the fighting over me begin...

My Inappropriate Family

2011-06-14T19:59:00.000-07:00

While attending my oldest nephew's high school graduation party, I overheard him give a blanket apology to each arriving guest about his aunts and our behavior when 'more than 2 of them get together' and I was completely shocked! Us? Inappropriate? Never.

His Grandfather, our father, who thinks it is perfectly acceptable to show up to my place of work half-naked and stand in the middle of the street talking to my BOSS with no immediate concern for putting on his clothes and then LOUDLY proclaiming to all of my co-workers that this building used to be a medical office where he used to have his prostate checked? Sure. I could see issuing an immediate apology for him. But the Higdon sisters?? We are classy ladies.

Is shopping inappropriate?

Or dancing?

How about staying hydrated? What's inappropriate about that?

Here we are siezing a couple of wholesome family photo ops:

What could be more innocent than a massage and a piggy back ride?

Hmmm. I'm beginning to see his point. So maybe we're a little over the top. Don't hate us because we're beautiful!

Dear Skyler,

We're sorry. You should probably stop inviting us places :)

Heidi:1 Blizzard:0

2011-02-02T17:24:00.000-08:00

That's right, Mother Nature, I am calling you out. Sure, you had this West Coast city girl worried a time or two, but I'm a HIGDON! You may win the battle, but I will win the war!

In yet another 'you're not from around here, are you?' situation, I have survived my first blizzard in this place that they call God's country. After the most horrifying 2 mile drive to get home from work on Tuesday in 6 inches of snow and 40mph winds creating total whiteout conditions where I had to drive with my windows down just to see ANY glimpse of where the road ended and the ditch began, I relished in the warmth and safety of my home and prepared to enjoy Snowmageddon 2011.

Here I am, making winter look good, after putting Feivel in his garage and before beginning the trek to my front door:

Once inside, I decided to document just how much snow we were about to get. This is the accumulation on my porch as compared to my screen door at 3:30pm on Tuesday, February 1st, 2011...4 hours before the 'bad' part of the storm was supposed to hit. At the time, it didn't occur to me to start shoveling (not that I own a shovel anyway) so that I could have a path in the morning.

Fast forward to 7:00pm, still not dawning on me that this could be a potential problem:

Some of me enjoying the fun and practicing to be named Snow Queen:

Then came the serious part of the storm, probably around 9:00pm --- 50mph winds, 3 - 4 inches of snow an hour, lightning, and thunder:

After staying up until midnight watching it pour, I snuggled into bed anticipating a lovely night of sleep before my first ever snow day. I don't know what the big deal is, I mean, yeah there is snow and it's windy, but it's not THAT bad.

6:00am Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011:

Uh-oh. Yeah, that's a 4 foot snow drift against my door. THIS is the moment it occured to me that I should have been keeping a path clear last night instead of curling up in my window seat and being a passive spectator. Alright, Mother Nature, I may be down, but I am NOT out. I could open my screen door about 3 inches before it hit a wall of snow that felt like cement. After 10 minutes of trying to muscle the door through the snow (not a great exit strategy, but gives a great cardio burn!), I knew I would have to shovel my way out. And I did:

You're probably thinking, 'How can she shovel from the INSIDE of her house?' and 'I thought she didn't own a shovel?!' I'll admit, I was stumped on these as well for a moment and then I said to myself: I know I have seen a very small shovel-like appliance around here before. Though I have never used it myself, I have seen others use it many a time. Sure, they were working with a soupier type of substance, but it's the same basic idea...

I may not have a shovel, but mom made sure I had a ladle! That's right. I ladled my way out of the snow bank. Beat that, MacGyver!After a very long, very determined effort, here I am celebrating my victory amongst my handywork with my prized tool:

Now, about getting to the car...

I'm an Iowan!

2011-01-11T14:30:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I know it has been a while since my last post...no, I didn't get murdered by the bad guys, the mean momma cat, or the crazy homeless man living in the alley, though if I did turn up missing, those wouldn't be terrible places to start. Alive and well, I haven't had much time for blogging because I have been busy moving halfway across the country to the land of corn, pop, and Hawkeyes! That's right, I'm an Iowan! I'm not sure who has had a more difficult time adjusting so far; me or the good people of Iowa.

After finally getting my belongings delivered to me at 11pm, 9 days after the scheduled delivery date, and having no television for going on 4 weeks now because the DirecTV people are 'not allowed to get off of our ladders to reach the dish' without a supervisor on hand (next availability of the apparent SOLE supervisor is next Saturday) --- and don't even get me started on HOW they installed the dish so far beyond the reach of their ladders if they weren't allowed to get off of them in the first place!, I have used my free time to compile the following Surviving Small Town Iowa Guide:

Directions:
- Not only is everything measured in 'minutes' instead of 'miles', nobody seems to understand the concept of using street names. Example: Me: "How do you get to the extension campus for the meeting?" Direction givers: "Well, it's about three minutes down the road --- go to the bridge, hang a right until you see Casey's, then go about another minute and it's on your left by the big tree." Did I mention there are about 15 bridges, 3 Casey's, and 9 MILLION trees??!

Currency:
- Bring Cash! My first clue that nobody in this town takes debit should have came when the woman at the water company was typing on a TYPEWRITER, but it didn't. When I tried to pay my bill with debit, she looked at me like I had just stepped out of a flying car and said, 'We don't have those fancy machines, but you can write a check honey.' A check? Who writes checks? Furthermore, who ACCEPTS checks?? Know what address is on my checks? My mom and dad's, because I'm still on my first book of checks that I got when I opened this account when I was 17!
- I've now stolen two different coffees from two different establishments because of this 'no cash, no payment' rule. But get this Vegas people, when you don't have cash, they let you have the coffee anyway and just say, 'get me next time'...seriously! It's amazing!

Time Management:
- If you have an appointment, and need to make a stop anyplace involving interaction with another human being, leave an additional 15 minutes early. People here LOOOVE their conversations. About the weather, their kids who you don't know, your funny license plate, the new law in town about not being able to carry your gun into the town hall meetings at city council (yes, I said NEW law), and anything else they feel the need to chat about.
- Beware of walking into any establishment where there are 'regulars', because the moment they realize that they don't know you, you will be cornered and forced to tell your life story, exchange phone numbers, and come to dinner at their house next week.

Winter Driving:
- When you leave for work before the snow plows have come through and you can't see the road beneath all of the snow, you get to make your own lane.
- Once the plows do come through, you are only allowed to park on one side of the street or else receive a ticket for 'blocking an emergency snow route'. Which side of the street you are allowed to park on depends on the street, and the only way to find out when and where and if your street is becoming an emergency snow route is to watch the news (which is difficult without tv, thanks again, DirecTV) or listen to the radio until it 'comes up' in the broadcast.
- When driving through the hilliest hill town made of hills on top of hills in totally snow-covered roads to get to a work meeting, the official recommendation for keeping control while traveling downhill on a 93% grade is to clench the steering wheel as if you are actually trying to strangle someone, lightly ride the brake pedal, and pray.
- After driving back and forth all day questioning what is ice and what is just wet as you travel 10mph in town (35mph zone) and 40mph on the highway (55mph zone), you will finally realize that you can tell the difference and the moment you increase your speed from 15mph below the speed limit to 10mph below the speed limit, you WILL hit a patch of ice. And you will scream. And then you will drive the rest of the way home at 20mph below the speed limit.

I have your number, and I'm not afraid to use it!!

2010-06-19T15:35:00.000-07:00

So after telling my apartment complex that I am moving on Monday to a place where I feel safer (YAHOO!!!!!), they conveniently informed me that we have courtesy patrol and I can call any time. What? Courtesy Patrol? What does that even mean? Apparently, it's an ARMED security guard that I have known nothing about for 3 years!

Later that night:

'Summerlin Police, how can I help you?' Me: 'I hear people outside! They're making a lot of noise. I think they're breaking windows! Please send someone quickly!!' Them: 'I have an officer on his way.' Oh you're not getting away this time, bad murderer guys! I'm prepared tonight. Pepper spray and baseball bat in hand, I'll hide under the window so if they run away this time I can get a description.

I see a flashlight! Help is here! Hooray!! Hmmm. Why isn't there the sounds of a struggle? They couldn't have possibly given up that easily. Perhaps they shot my hero officer with a gun with a silencer and they are fleeing before backup gets here!

Being the concerned citizen, I very cautiously and quietly cracked the window to see if I could hear which direction their footsteps were headed in. Much to my dismay, all I heard was casual conversation. Hero Officer: 'Summerlin Police.' Bad Murderer Guys: 'We didn't call the police (Really? Didn't turn yourself in? Shocking...).' Hero Officer: 'Apartment 2229 did (Way to throw me under the bus!) - they heard a lot of loud noises and thought you were breaking in.' Bad Murderer Guys: 'Oh, sorry about that. We didn't realize we were being loud. We just signed our lease today and are moving in at night because it's 110* during the day and we were trying to not overheat.'

Welcome to the neighborhood, gentlemen. Note to self: bake 'I'm sorry' cookies!

Approximately 24 hours Later:

'Summerlin Police, how can I help you?' Me: 'Hi, this is Heidi in #2229. Well, I'm not in #2229 right now. I mean, I live there, but right now at this moment I'm not there...' Security Patrol: 'Ma'am! Ma'am! What are you trying to report? Are you okay?' Me: 'Well, yes, I'm fine. Obviously not fine like everything is peachy – otherwise I wouldn't be calling you, but I'm okay. As okay as I can be for nearly being killed on my way into my apartment tonight...' Security Patrol: 'Killed? Ma'am where are you? Is there an assailant near your apartment? Are you safe?' Me: 'I'm in the parking lot. There's not an assailant per se...I'm safe...you see, there's a cat. A mean one. And she won't let me up my stairs. Can someone come walk me up them?' Oh sure, it sounds ridiculous now, but at the time it was terrifying and totally called for!

Besides, it gave me a few minutes to get to know my dedicated Security Patrol officer, Perry, and to apologize for my constant calls. He was nothing short of lovely – reassuring me that I did the right thing by calling, how it's his job to protect me and I'm not annoying at all, and he'd be more than happy to both scare the cat away and walk me up my steps to safety. Perry even said that he would make it a point to come by my unit every so often just to check on things and make sure that I am safe and sound. I, in turn, made a promise to stop calling every night and to be braver.

Yet Another 24 hours Later:

'Summerlin Police, how can I help you?' Me: 'Hi, this is Heidi in #2229 and I hear footsteps outside of my apartment!!! I'm already in the closet with pepper spray, but they're getting closer. HELP!' Security Patrol: 'Ma'am, I will send my guard right over and I will stay on the line with you until he gets there. You're going to be okay. I won't let you go until my guard tells me it's safe. I'm radioing him now. Hold on for just one second.' One, two, three 'Ma'am? Those footsteps you hear ARE my guard...he was just checking on you to make sure everything was okay. He'll stay outside for a few minutes and then will return once every hour. Have a good night.'

Sheepishly looking out the window, 'Hi Perry. Thanks for keeping me safe. Sorry for that whole you know calling-you-on-you thing!'

What? If they didn't want me to call, they shouldn't have given me the number!!!

THIS is why dogs are man's best friend

2010-06-16T23:10:00.000-07:00

After spending a few nights at the Goodman's home, I had to be brave and venture back into my ghetto apartment because I still had a full month left on my lease. My father, the avid hunter and home defender immediately offered me my choice of the virtually endless models of firearms that he owns. Because to my right wing, Fox News loving, old school farm boy father (whom I love and adore more than just about anyone in the whole world), firearms are the answer. I tend to disagree and politely declined his offer. Multiple times. Finally he gave up the idea of having himself a modern day Annie Oakley for a daughter and dropped the gun issue.

But not without finding what he deemed a suitable alternative. Within days of the incident, I was heavily armed with every size of pepper spray that they make (including two cans for each purse I own and an industrial one for my apartment), wasp spray, and a baseball bat that would intimidate Ken Griffey, Jr.!

While these all sound like fantastic weapons for the single city gal like myself, it turns out that I'm not so great in moments of crisis. Enter Mean Momma Cat Who Wants To Kill Me – we'll call her THE BEAST for short. After a few days back in my apartment and a lot of sleepless nights clinging to the phone and pepper spray just waiting to be murdered, I was on my way to work when I heard something rustling in the bushes underneath my stairs. Upon further investigation, I discovered that the stray cat I had occasionally seen around the complex was a proud new momma to four adorable bundles of furry cuteness.

Not wanting to scare her away or make her feel threatened, I immediately ran back upstairs and poured a bowl full of milk, a bowl full of water, and opened a fresh can of tuna and laid them out for her to feast on while I was busy at work trying to cure the world of cancer. Move over, Mother Teresa! I was so proud of my amazing humanitarian spirit and left with an extra spring in my step. Until I returned home that evening and saw that she hadn't touched the amazing meal I had made for her.

Hmmm...maybe she didn't know it was all the way up here on the landing. And after all, she had just given birth and was probably exhausted. I barely have the energy to climb those 15 steps after a long day at the office, for Pete's sake! Sorry sweet, precious momma cat. I shall right my wrong tomorrow morning!

Day 2: Repeat the day 1 menu, except this time put it down on her level so that she can get to it. Yes, that should do. She's going to love me, of this I am certain! Look at me, taking care of the lost souls on this Earth...feline or otherwise. I love that cat and her cute babies!

Day 3: After returning home to the same result of untouched food and beverage I had so diligently provided, I thought maybe she didn't like the menu. Not a tuna fan? Understandable. I'll try New England Clam Chowder. Who doesn't like clam chowder?? I'm a VEGETARIAN and I could eat the stuff by the bucket! She'll surely love this.

Day 4: She hates my cooking! For being a really skinny, abandoned stray cat with babies to feed, momma cat is quite the picky eater! I guess I'll try again tomorrow.

Day 5: That b**** just tried to kill me! Okay, so kill might be a strong word, but she definitely hissed and clawed and lunged at me with her sharp teeth this morning as I tried to get down the stairs and to the parking lot. Listen here, Miss Thang, I live here. I am allowed to go up and down the stairs whenever I feel like it. And yes, while your babies are very cute, I do not want them. Nor do I wish them any harm. Kapeesh?

Evening of Day 5: Apparently you can't reason with a ferile momma cat.

Day 10: After ten days of having to wait her out morning, noon, and night just to get in and out of my home without being attacked, I broke down and called Animal Control. 'Yes, hello, I have an issue with having a very protective mean momma cat under my stairs who claws and lunges and almost bites me every day. I don't want her to be hurt, but do you take them to a shelter or anything?' Woman who gets paid way too much to do way too little at Animal Control: 'We don't catch cats. If you can get it in a box, we'll come for it, but we won't put it in a box for you.' Me: 'But you're Animal Control.' Her: 'Yeah, but we don't do that. Get a box and put her in it.' Me: 'She tries to attack me every day for literally just walking – I don't think she'll get into a box for me.' Her: 'Sorry. Good luck with that.' Click. Really? REALLY??! You're Animal Control. You control the animals. I have an out of control animal. This is clearly your territory!!!

Day 15: This has gotten REALLY old. Spraying water on her just pisses her off, laying a towel over the stairs just gives her added incentive to claw through it and get to my lovely skin, and animal control is still sticking to their 'you get her in a box and we'll come pick her up' plan. So I begrudgingly decided to try one of Papa Higdon's tactics. Late that evening, as I was walking from the parking lot to my apartment, I decided to have my pepper spray handy. I still didn't want to hurt her, but maybe if I just scared her enough, she would make her home elsewhere. As I approached my steps, there she was, laying in the middle of the sidewalk. Someone is getting brave. And just in case I got past her, each kitten was sitting on a step poised and ready to be momma's backup. Great. Just what I need. An army of mean felines. Bring it on, BEAST. Bring. It. On.

Making loud noises and kicking rocks her way didn't phase her. She never broke eye contact. Oh, you're good. But I have something better. As I prepped myself to spray in her general vicinity, hoping to not hurt her too badly, she lunged at me and I being the big brave human that I am...lost my marbles. I screamed, threw the pepper spray into a nearby bush, and took off at a dead run to the safety of my car where I hid for an hour until I watched her walk around the corner with babies in tow so that I could sneak into my house.

So not only is she a food snob, she's freaking vicious! Oh, and also? She's totally a whore. Those kittens are all different colors. I'm just saying...

Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do?

2010-05-02T11:57:00.000-07:00

This is the mostly unbelievable, but entirely true tale of the night I was almost murdered - May 1, 2010. Yes, it was LAST night...

So there I was, laying on my couch watching 'Arrested Development' (soooo funny!) on Netflix on my laptop with the windows open because it was such a nice night when I heard lots of footsteps running up my stairs. At first, I thought they were just drunk and at the wrong apartment because I thought I heard keys, so I got up to go turn a light on and tell them they were in the wrong spot when the attempts to get in turned frantic. I heard one say to the other 'I can't get it...knock it down' and then criminal #2 started hitting the door near the hinges with something (a crowbar? a foot? a machete?) very violently while criminal #1 continued trying to get the door handle off.

I did what any tough girl with my muscle structure would and hid in the closet while I called 9-1-1 as the banging and attempted breaking in continued. It started out as any 9-1-1 call would when you think you're about to be murdered; quiet, frantic, and begging them to hurry. Then it turned hilarious:

Operator: Do you have a gun?

Me: No.

Operator: Do you have any weapons at all?

Me: No.

Operator: Can you get a knife or anything so if they get in you can defend yourself?

Me: (Bawling) No! All I have are forks and they're in the dishwasher by the window by where the bad guys are!!

Operator: Are they still there?

Me: I think they just ran away...I heard footsteps and then it got quiet...

*few more questions, and then what I swear was 30 seconds later:*

BAM! BAM! BAM!

Me: I hear banging again!!!

Operator: I think those are the officers.

Me: (SCREAMING AT HER) You think or you know? Because that's a gamble!!!!

Turned out it was the officers, as confirmed by looking through the handy dandy peephole. I opened my door and to my delight, found Officer Sexy standing on my doorstep armed and ready to murder the bad guys. I also saw, to my dismay, two other officers and a CAMERA CREW!!! My thoughts immediately turned from 'I almost died' to 'Oh Hell NO! I will not sign a waiver...I'm not going to be on COPS! I watch that show to feel better about myself - not to see myself looking like someone you see on COPS!' Let me paint a picture for you: I was wearing track pants, a pink tank top, and bright red bra while bawling my eyes out and sporting an alfalfa/einstein hairdo!!!!! Please friends, do NOT watch any new episodes of COPS for, well, ever. Just disregard the fact that you ever heard of this show. It doesn't exist. It is not coming to a non-network cable station in your home. Never. Existed. EVER!

Back to the me almost being murdered part-

After the initial small talk, the questioning began...

Officer Sexy: Could it have been the delivery guy just knocking to leave the menu we found at the bottom of the staircase?

My actual answer: No, that's been there for a few days; I've just been too lazy to pick it up.

What I wanted to say: Yes, that must be it. I think two guys tried for five minutes to break my door down just to make sure I knew what the weekly special at Pizza Pete's was!!

Officer Sexy: Do you know what they looked like?

My actual answer: No, I was scared to look because I didn't want them to see me.

What I wanted to say: Well, after I invited them in for lemonade, they were warming up and almost took the ski masks off, but I think you scared them off before I could finish my sketch.

Officer Sexy: Do you have any enemies? Anyone who might want to hurt you?

My actual answer: (Laughing) No way! People LOVE me!!

What I wanted to say: I know I'm looking a hot mess now, sir, but I'm usually hot. I can show you pictures when you get through all the business and ask me out already!

So after we got through that (he never asked me out...I knew I should have shown him pictures as proof of my cuteness!), my wonderful friends Christina & Nate said that I could come stay the night with them so I had to pack an overnight bag while Officer Sexy & Friends stood watch.

Usually an overnight stay for me requires 2 suitcases and a carry-on bag, because after all, a girl's gotta have options! However, in my heightened state of panic and rush to get out of there, this is what I packed (in the order that they went into the bag):

* Curling iron
* Worn underwear
* Makeup bag #1
* Makeup bag #2
* Makeup utensils
* Worn jeans
* My Snuggie
* A shirt

Yes, that's right...I prioritized dirty clothes, two sets of makeup, and a snuggie over a SHIRT! A girl's gotta have mascara! I might not have control over being murdered, but I have control over looking good while it happens!! And I don't care what anyone says, I love my snuggie!!!

Long story short - I'm fine, my belongings are fine, and I have some of the most amazing friends ever who took me in and took very good care of me. Thank you, Goodmans! I love you!!!

Confidence Karma

2010-01-18T20:10:00.000-08:00

I've been told more than once by my mother that, 'there's no conceit in this family - because you took it all!' and I've been accused of being in love with myself a time or fifty over the years. That's really not the case - I'm just aware that I'm cute, funny, sweet, hilarious, and all around wonderful. Since when is honesty a crime??

For those of you who mistook my factual observations as conceit/arrogance/being in love with myself, you'll be happy to know that I've been knocked down a peg, or more accurately, THREE pegs. The last 7 days have been a crash course in humility for me, and I'd just like to say - I GET IT, OKAY?!!!

It all started last Monday at an elementary school assembly. I love this part of my job, because I adore kids and I love their innocent honesty in how they see the world. Turns out the thing I love about the ankle biters is also the thing I hate. Ever had a third grader stand up, point at you, and announce to the WHOLE school, 'She's pregnant! I can tell!!' ??? Yeah, well now I have. That kid is lucky it's a felony for me to punch him. REALLY? Pregnant?! REALLY?!! Peg 1. I get it - I'm not a skinny minny. Never have been. I've always been a chubby girl, and I'm okay with that. I love my curves.

Chubby I can handle. But pregnant??! I look like I have another human being growing INSIDE of me???? I'd like to point out that even sitting in the first picture, my roll is minimal, and that in the second (taken at Christmas) my stomach is still flat enough that you can see my innie belly button. Just saying, kid. Just saying.

After a few hours of sobbing and having the good folks who I work with assure me that I, in fact, did not look like I was about to give birth, I decided to pick myself up and have a better rest of the week. That lasted until Wednesday around 4pm. I had yet another assembly - and I'm happy to report that nobody asked me when I was due. I'm not so happy to report, however, that I may be permanently banned from the property. After all of the logistics were taken care of, I was headed to my car in my new 5 inch heels (gorgeous!) and it was starting to rain. Living in Vegas, rain is a cause for celebration, so I was admiring the clouds and must have stepped off the sidewalk. Next thing I know, my purse is flying, my feet are going one way, and my body is going the other. It's hard to be hot when you're laying, sprawled every which way, in a disgusting combo of dirt, gravel, oil, and rain water, and may have (read: definitely, loudly) just let a few profanities slip. Were there kids and parents all around? Yep. Was I RIGHT in front of the office? You know I was. Did I mention that this was a CHRISTIAN school??? Peg 2. In my defense, I'm pretty sure God and Jesus were mentioned in between my string of curse words...

This brings me to today. I had a lunch date with my favorite Jeanna Louise Marie, and I was so excited to see her and catch up. I got all cute; used my new makeup, wore my recently tailored jeans (thanks mom!), and was hot to trot in my red high heels. I arrived, sat down, and started chatting. Everything went well until it was time to order. Our waiter looked at me, asked for my order, I gave it, and then he turned to Jeanna, and said - and I quote - 'and for the lady?' AND FOR THE LADY??? What the Hell am I? The tramp??? At first I was flattered thinking that he thought Jeanna and I were a lesbian couple; because let's face it - women are a lot harder to impress than men and Jeanna is beautiful, so it was all good that he thought I had landed such a gorgeous date.

Until I realized that this made me the butch one. Peg 3.

Do you know how badly I wanted to say, 'Excuse me, sir, but an 8 year old thinks I'm pregnant. When was the last time you saw a pregnant butch lesbian? Hmmm? HMMM?! ESPECIALLY one this hot?!!' I'm just saying. Pregnant-looking, covered in mud with a twisted ankle, and butch, I'm still a solid 8.5 :) :)