Happy Happy Holiday

Jess on December 28, 2008

Christmas went pretty well. The week we spent ending on Christmas eve with my parents was really nice and I think I’m quite less apprehensive about our future time there as a couple. The day before Christmas Eve, I went out for coffee with Mallory and left Kyle at home so that we could visit more and because Kyle, I think, expected to get some reading done for next semester. He ended up instead spending the whole evening chatting with my mom. By the time I got home, mom decided that she actually is fond of Kyle and is glad that she had the chance to get to know him better.  While I’m still fairly bitter that she never made this effort to get to know him sooner and never trusted my judgement on the man I chose to marry until a few days ago, I was pretty well convinced that she was simply never going to accept him fully as a member of our family and that seems like a greater possibility now so I’m fairly content on that status for the time being.

We bought both of our parents digital photo frames as their Christmas presents.  Both sets seemed plenty happy with the gift and were excited to get them loaded up quickly.  We’re having some trouble getting images from our computer to the cards and may need to break down and buy a card reader.  Also, for some reason, our attempt to transfer photos from my computer to our PC at home resulted in Kyle’s jump drive becoming write-protected.  What’s up, PNY?  Get your self sorted out! So trying to set up gifts for my parents was pretty maddening… but it’ll get better.  When we bought the frames, Best Buy was bundling them with digital frame key chains that are pretty nice so we gave those to my parents and my uncle.  We figured my mom would take the keychain but my dad ended up opening that when mom opened up the frame and he was so excited to have something on which he can carry photos of his children that I think he’ll end up using it the most.  It made me really happy.  I love watching other people’s faces light up when I give them gifts!

Kyle and I had some good gift-opening ourselves.  We got mostly gift cards and some DVD series and XBOX live and a PS3.  I’m so excited for the PS3 to arrive.  I basically want to play Little Big Planet all the time.  Since it’s break, I’ve been playing Animal Crossing for DS basically non-stop.  Kyle makes fun of me for it as it is pretty obviously a game for children that I love.  I want the new Wii version at some point too, though I’m not sure I’ll be as interested in it when it isn’t portable because it’s not really so interesting that I can’t still watch tv or do whatever while i’m playing.

I need to read.  I also need to go through the Nelson again while I’m back in town.  I haven’t been in ages.  Perhaps, I can find a good museum-going friend to traverse through it with me at some point this week.  I have two new pairs of boots and want to redo my whole wardrobe from there up.  I also have new jeans.  A grey-blue pair of skinny jeans at that.  Woo.  I love skinny jeans. That’s pretty much all of my news.

I would like to talk about the Christmas Midnight Mass at the Cathedral but that entry will have to wait.

Soup warms the winter soul

Jess on December 20, 2008

I made soup for Kyle’s parents the other day and liked the recipe so much I’ve committed to eating it all the time. I made it tonight for my parents and they really liked it too, which is astounding as usually they won’t even eat the things that I bring into the house on account of they are crazy and vegetarian and often include words that have been appropriated by english speakers from foreign vernaculars. I’m quite fond of it and would like to recommend it to anyone looking for a sweet, warming break this holiday season:

Red Medley Soup

Combine one chopped red onion, one chopped red pepper, chopped fresh garlic cloves to taste (the recipe says one but I love garlic and use more) in a large saucepan with two tablespoons olive oil. Cook at medium heat until sizzling and then reduce heat to low and cover, cooking for five minutes.

Combine mixture in sauce pan with one drained can of dark red kidney beans, one undrained can of diced tomatoes, four cups of vegetable stock, two tablespoons of long grain rice, two tablespoons worcestershire sauce, one teaspoon sugar and one teaspoon dry oregano leaves in a large stock pot. Stir vigorously and bring the soup to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for fifteen minutes.

Serve soup over long grain rice garnished with grated cheddar cheese, fresh chopped parsley, salt and pepper to taste.

Serves 4-6.

As we use long grain rice in the easy cook packets from uncle bens, we always have plenty left over to serve the soup over. I don’t notice the extra rice at the bottom and am convinced that you could just add more rice to the recipe. I think Kyle and I just like the idea of serving food with hidden rice in the bottom. I’m also pretty sure, after thinking about it during dinner tonight, that the recipe I have intends for you to toss two tablespoons of dry rice into the recipe, not to cook it. This would be massively cheaper as one bag of long grain rice translates into many-a-tablespoon and it would take the microwave out of our efforts.

Access

Jess on December 16, 2008

Winter break and I’m up to my usual antics.  I have yet to start a new book since finishing The Historian but I have been catching up on my tv-on-dvd marathons.  Kyle and I also have been driving a lot, probably too much, and trying to get out to see a movie here and there.

Last week, we left Lubbock on Wednesday and drove to Topeka.  We got in around 7 or 8 and had some Jimmy Johns with my parents before he headed back to send an email to Joe about grades for the class he TA’d last semester.  I spent some time socializing with Mom and dad and then watched Top Chef with him and James who showed up about 5 or 10 minutes in.  It was nice to get to spend some time hanging out, but the night has seemed to be far more devilish in the grand-scheme of things which have dictated my lief as of late.

Thursday we left for Carbondale, spending an hour in Blue Springs to situate ourselves here before heading out.  We spent Thursday and Friday night in Carbondale with friends.  Duran came in and Adam and Kevin let us stay with them.  Ben was there too which made me happy.  I don’t get to chat with him enough, we’re both so busy… but it’s nice to see familiar faces around.  That’s probably my most favorite thing about being home from break.  We went out for dinners at our favorite places—Don Taco and Fujiyama.  The sushi we had at Fujiyama was really remarkable.  Mind you, we’ve been living in Lubbock, Texas for the past several months where I refuse to eat any sushi not made out of processed, cooked fish unless I made it myself… but we were in Carbondale, Illinois where pickings are usually not quite better.  Every piece of fish I had seemed so fresh and yummy.  The rolls were great, and the albacore sashimi was better.  We also went to see Role Models with Adam and Kathleen which was funny.

The only real stress in Carbondale was my mom flipping out about our plans to be in Blue Springs for a few more days before we returned to Topeka.  Our plan is basically to spend full weeks in places instead of three days here and three days there where we feel stressed out because we’re never in one place and we feel like we no more than get settled and already have to leave.  It also cuts down on long driving trips, and with this winter weather, that can be quite the safety precaution.  Anyway, my mom has somehow decided that we hate staying with them and that we are better off just spending all of our time in Blue Springs.  We’re not going to take this route because we want to see our friends in Topeka and it actually is important to us that we spend time with my family too.  It’s just so hard to reason with her.  I pretty much gave up on it.  I told her Saturday as we headed home that we were going to just do as we had always planned and that we’d be home later this week, so we’ll see how that goes when we get there.

I wish she wasn’t so insecure and hung up on issues which she mostly caused herself before the wedding.  She just keeps claiming that she hardly got the chance to know Kyle and his family because we insisted on getting married so soon.  That is true, to an extent, but a lot of that stemmed from mom and dad’s failure to get to know him when he was in town when I was living in the apartment, and his parents had basically the same amount of time to get to know me when we were dating and they certainly made that effort.  And, since we got married, there is no excuse to not get to know them.

I am not sure what exactly mom expected in terms of knowing her future in-laws before the wedding.   I guess, growing up in a small town with my dad where her parents and his parents had always known each other may have made their marriage a little easier in the beginning, but at some point they need to get past that and begin to forge a relationship.  We have enabled this in anyway we’ve found possible but from cancelled dinners out on non-holidays to refused invitations on both Thanksgiving and Christmas, it seems we are making no progress.

More than anything, it bothers me that she always claims that she doesn’t know Kyle or his family and expresses no interest in taking opportunities to do so because it suggests to me that she still doesn’t believe that this marriage is serious.  That hurts because if she can’t figure that out then she’s not really paying attention to what I tell her about how our first several months of marriage is going.  Also, I did not appreciate the assertion she made in her latest email to me: “I just don’t know what happened to the beautiful wonderful little girl I knew all these years.  I feel like you have just turned on me.”

That is all that I have the energy for now.  I’ll update more on the more-entertaining events of winter break.

Days go by

Jess on November 9, 2008

Yesterday was slightly less productive than I had hoped, but I have the database almost completely finished.  Or actually, it is completely finished it just has yet to be described.  I’m excited to have it done.  And to get the project finished.  It’s been such a long journey and I’m probably closest to finished on that project.

I also watched the game with Jenni which was fun.  And Tech pretty well hammered OSU.  If Tech is in the Big 12 Championship, I want to go so badly.  It would be so fun!  But I think Kyle has to stay to administer finals and things so even though we may have tickets its unlikely that we would be able to go.  Plus, my brother is coming down after Thanksgiving to spend a few weeks with us so I’m sure we’ll be busy and having plenty of fun here.

I’m working on things more today and watching Buffy which Jess brought by yesterday before heading to Skooners to watch the game.  I love Buffy so much!  I also really like Marie Antoinette the movie.  I’m watching the end of it now while I have my breakfast (of gnocci, because I’m out of milk and leftovers seem more appealing plus I already had an omelet yesterday).  I think I just like the music and how beautiful it all is.  And it’s such a beautiful study in revolution  from an different perspective.  Mostly, I think I just like the music and all of the fanfare.  And possibly Jason Schwartzmann.

Summer is proving to not be nearly the break I've needed

Jess on July 19, 2008

I’ve had somewhat of a crazy few weeks.  Kyle and I are in the midst of getting too many things sorted out and I basically just feel like I need a break.  First, we now have a couch and a tv which I don’t think I mentioned before.  It makes me super-excited to get moved down to Lubbock, probably even more so, because now I have an idea of how our apartment will look when we get there.  But mostly I’m dreading getting moved down to Lubbock because so far coordinating what kind of trailor we’re pulling and how we’re affording pulling it is sending me into fits of madness that make me doubt my ability to ever become a grown up.  Basically, my parents have had a crappy year.  After an unexpected hip surgery at the end of last year, my parents have had all the follow ups for that fall under their deductible, plus this wedding, and now all the draintiles around our house need to be replaced so our basement quits flooding.  That makes for an expensive time.  And that’s all really stressful for them.  Plus, Kyle and I are trying to orchestrate a move across two state lines (three or four for him, really) and by the time we get that done we’ll have to coast for a few weeks without really having a pay check.  Ugh.  I think everything is worked out now and we’re going to figure out how to come up with the rest of the money for the trailer if we can’t get any more help from my parents on it.  But while that situation was still up in the air, I’ve felt basically ignored by his parents and my parents alike.  I feel like people aren’t really treating me like an adult and I haven’t always felt like Kyle is on my side about it.  But I am hoping that that is all worked out now.

Today, my brother ruptured his eardrum by jumping into the pool while he was working.  I’m hoping it will all be covered by worker’s comp (and it should be) but it was still quite the stress when I was woken up this morning by my mom in a tyrade trying to get ready to take him to the hospital while he drove himself home.  Ultimately, I woke up and put on jeans and took him to the hospital, where I promptly ran into a girl I knew from class while covered in cat fur in my previous-nights shirt without a bra on.  ugh.  So we got that all taken care of and Devon calmed down on the car ride there while I explained that I knew someone who had just ruptured their ear drum and devon seemed to have all of those symptoms.  Turns out I was right, and now the poor kid is laid out on painkillers waiting for his ear to stop aching.

I’m also in the midst of helping square away the details of my bachelorette party (which I think is basically done) and figuring out if I am going to get to have a bridal shower.  Basically, the manager at T-Mobile is a pain and won’t let Tonya off work that day so we’d have to have it at like 10 a.m. which is not ideal and probably makes it not worth having.  I might look in to just inviting more people to the bachelorette party dinner and then going off to party by ourselves.  Sounds like the best solution to that problem right now, but either way, I’m just sort of mopey about all of those plans.

On the bright side, I think I figured out where we’re going to get our flowers and it sounds like we’ll get a stellar deal on that.  I also have an official inspiration photo for our flowers (thanks to indiebride.com).  Kyle and I also figured out who our soloist is going to be (Mallory’s dad) and we’re clicking away at getting the programs complete and the invitations just need to be return addressed and then they are ready to go.  Thank goodness.

P.S. I cannot believe I am at the stage of wedding planning where I send out invitations.  Gracious.

I'm going to miss this

Jess on July 1, 2008

Kyle was in Topeka this weekend and on Sunday we had a barbecue with brandon, reanne, James, Lauren and David.  It was a lot of fun and the food was all very good.  ReAnne brought a pasta salad that was good as I have been craving Kidney beans but they are really too boring to eat or even find a basic purpose for in most of my daily eating… and then I made a German potato salad and a napa cabbage salad with ramen noodles and things in it, mom devilled some eggs and Kyle cooked turkey burgers and hamburgers plus a catfish filet for me.  It was fun getting to prepare a big meal all day which is one of my favorite things and to get to sit around with good friends and eat it.  I hope we can do another before the end of the summer because I really like getting together with people and I think my parents enjoyed it, too.

While Kyle was in town we also picked out tuxedos for the wedding.  The one he decided on is lapelless and I think will look really good on all of the groomsmen.  Plus, I think lapelless tuxedos just look neat and pretty much always  have.  I’m also very glad to have that done.

Another slow week, waiting for the arrival of July

Jess on June 27, 2008

I am in the worst mood for some unknown reason.  I even have reasons to be glad like Kyle is in town tonight and I have a clean room to go home to because I spent all afternoon working on it.  For some reason, there is not enough time in the day and there is too much time until the summer is over and I get to move into an apartment with Kyle who will then become my husband.  Maybe I’ll cheer up soon.

My mom and I are still getting along really well so I hope that keeps happening.  It’s nice.  Every evening when she gets home we sit outside and chat until it’s time for me to go to work.  It’s this sort of getting along that I’m really going to miss when I move away, but I’m sure we’ll keep in touch on the phone and things.

On the brightside, I no longer think that staying at home would bring on bouts of depression which is a big plus because I’ve mostly felt that way for my entire life.  There is a chance that three days without a whole lot of structured things to do is like my critical point where I feel like I have a lot to do without feeling like I have too much time to do it.  We will see, I suppose.

Kyle and I officially move on August 15.  We even have an apartment number already! Yay! 203B!  For some reason, I’ve gotten impossibly excited after figuring out what apartment will be ours.  Maybe it’s related to being able to finish the wedding programs, hah.  I still need to discuss it with him, but I think the plan is for his parents to go with us when we first head down and help us move in the furniture and basic things and then for my mom to accompany us, Logan and the wedding gifts when we head back on Labor Day after the wedding.  It should be a good time.  And I’m excited to get there.

Also, this past week I have been very good with money which is good because I am on a budget.  Go me.

Becoming the crane wife.

Jess on June 21, 2008

Welcome to my new blog at cranewife.org.  I finally bought a new domain last week and I’m excited to finally have it at a launched and bloggable state.  I also made this wordpress theme by myself so that’s pretty cool.  Turns out I’ve missed fiddling with code like html and css a lot.  And I’ve added rudimentary php understanding to my knowledge which is kind of swell.

So I figure I should update this before I get too distracted by my indiebride forums.  Anyway, my mom and I had been fighting earlier this week about the wedding.  Basically, she was upset that it was so soon and she feels like she isn’t getting to do all of the fun planning stuff.  I realized that I hadn’t actually be excluding her from planning like she thinks but actually just not doing too much planning… so the last couple of days we’ve had chats and trips to the store to get some wedding stuff taken care of.  Yesterday we thumbed through the Real Simple Weddings magazine… the only wedding magazine I purchased, btw, so that I could show her some of the things I had thought about and she could get some ideas of what I was picturing in the wedding.  Well, every chapter there are 12 or 15 pictures from an actual wedding that happened that uses some of the design elements the Real Simple people are talking about.  She enjoyed looking at those, and I liked combing through them again and we also came up with a great idea because of them.

Essentially, we both feel like we’re skipping something integral by not really feeding people at the wedding.  That’s all you need to know at the start of this story.  Anyway, so we were perusing through the magazine and came across a picture of a bunch of little folded brown bags which had little menu’s taped on them and were all set up for people to take at a picnic lunch that this couple did.  Mom was talking about how cute it was that they did that and i mentioned that it woudl be really cheap to do sandwiches for everyone and then people could eat if they wanted to and it wouldn’t be so big of a deal.  So we talked about how that would be a good idea and eventually decided that we should do pitas since those are the best vegetarian sandwiches stuffed with mediterranean goods.  The official sandwich menu is hummus/tomato/sprout pitas and falafel/yogurt sauce/lettuce pitas.  And then I want to do a grilled eggplant salad I found a recipe for and some saffron rice.  I’m really excited about this though because I was really regretting not having dinner at the wedding but we can’t really seat everyone so this way people can eat if they want to and not eat if they don’t want to and we don’t have to all do it at once.  Plus.  Falafel.  Oh em gosh.  Yum.  It’s also neat cos Kyle and my first non-date where we realized we probably both wanted to date each other was at the Jerusalem Cafe and we had most of the things we’ll be serving on a sampler platter there.  And some hookah.  There will probably not be hookah at the wedding though, despite how happy that would make people.

Today we went shopping for things we need for the wedding.  We got champagne flutes for the toasts.  They’re being engraved as we speak.  One will say “Jess/& Kyle/August 30, 2008” and one will say “Kyle/& Jess/August 30, 2008.”  That way whoevers name is on top can claim the glass throughout the toasts.  While I think it’s silly to spend that kind of money on what is essentially a cup, I agree that it will be nice to have a momento from our wedding… and we can always toss back a bottle of champagne in those glasses when we celebrate anniversaries for years to come.

We also bought our shoes for the wedding.  Mine are strappy sandals cos I decided that my patent eggplant peep-toe pumps cut my feet up too bad and hers are nice wedges that are actually peep-toe and patent but black.  They should look good with her dress and keep her from needing to hem it too drastically.  We bought  bubbles, and bubbles, and bubbles.  Mostly we got these clear wand bubbles with a “love knot” on top that we’ll use to tie blue ribbon on them…  And then we got some heart-shaped bubbles cos they were on sale and I kind of like to break things up.  We also got bells because I like ringing when the couple comes out of the church and we got these streamer poppers that I really like because they make an awesome photo of the bride and groom and they look cool and require no clean up.  So we have 14.  One for each member of the bridal party plus ushers plus two other people.  Yay.  I am so excited about them.  Also, unlike the photo I linked to, ours do not actually leave the package from which they are released so they have very little litter potential. And ours are all silver, not multi-color, which is also cool. Shiny equals awesome.

I also got Martha Stewart pom-poms because I fell in love with the ones I saw at OffbeatBride and I wanted to sort of decorate the reception site without too much trouble.  So the ballroom will now feature fourteen yellow, blue, and blue-ish green orbs.  I am so excited.

I think that’s basically all of the wedding updates I have.  Not that the updates are few, cos they are many.  I also officially feel like perhaps my mom and I are done fighting about the wedding because we mostly just chat excitedely about it.  Basically 70 days to go!  I can’t wait.  And I can’t wait to start doing everything with Kyle and getting ready for it.  He’s been in Vegas all week judging high school debate nationals and I get to pick him up tomorrow for us to spend some time together so I’m excited as ever about getting to see him.  Fantasticness.

This has been a very excited entry, lol.  I would also like to soon blog about my summer reading.  I’ve been doing well and I just finished Straight Up and Dirty by Stephanie Klein, so I’d like to reflect upon that just a smidge but that won’t happen as I’m supposed to be at work now and that’s not going to well because there isn’t a lot to do and I am unmotivated.

yah, you made me merry.

Jess on February 24, 2008

i’ve been busy, busy, busy, busy.  take, for example this weekend.  friday, i needed to spend all day at the kansas state historical society because i’m a little bit behind on non-interweb research for my history thesis.  i also feel behind on this in general because it’s i am not doing the thesis which i began in 395 which is what most students do… so i would gather that a lot of students are way ahead of where we’re supposed to be while i’m way behind.  a lot of the reason for this is that i’ve simply been impossibly busy and i’m not really in the swing of school because of some snow days and the fact that i only have classes on wednesdays.

so, friday i slept in cos i needed to after two nights of only four or so hours of sleep and then i went to lunch and the library.  i spent three-ish hours on microfilm and then headed to campus to help set up for history day, stopping en route at Livingston’s Bridal which is going out of business and has lots of expensive dresses on super sale.  setting up took about an hour and then we all headed to the bearman’s where we had dinner and i finally asked formally for the children to fill the traditional child roles in my wedding.  after dinner, i headed to work for four hours.  then i came home and tried to get to sleep early (which idnd’t really work out.)

I woke up at 6 to start getting ready to be at campus by 7 or just after for history day.  i spent all of saturday running around and helping out with minor administrative duties of history day.  at that point i wasn’t running anything, i was just like second-level damage control.  but i kept the volunteers coordinated and i think that overall this was a really good history day competition.  in between the morning judging and the afternoon awards ceremony, i headed to barnes and noble to read more DIY wedding books to get good ideas for what i can do more cheaply to subvert the wedding industrial complex.  i then headed back to campus for awards and then ventured home, hoping to get a nap.  the nap didn’t really work out because my mom needed to argue about the wedding again.

i promise you, i am so impossibly stressed out because she won’t just support kyle and my decision to get married now.  she wants us to instead postpone the wedding until sometime in the indefinite future.  this is not going to happen unless for some reason it’s recommended by the clergy.  but the thing is… it’s just driving me crazy this back and forth.  i hate that i don’t even want to be in the kitchen because half the time she’s sane and settled about the wedding and the other half of the time she’s in some crazy rage.  i can’t take it.  and usually i go through life pretending that my relationship with my mom is pretty normal.  i often downplay the things going on at home or wherever to my friends because it’s just easier than trying to explain everything she says or does.  but in the past week she’s just been in a fit screaming at me and treating me like i am a child.  she puts me in ridiculous double-binds, she virtually hates the catholic church, she says terrible things about kyle, and last sunday she basically explained to me that i had already failed at life??a fear that is very real to me right now so it hurt a bit more than when she says things of the sort normally.   i learned at a very young age that it’s best not to take her outbursts personally.  she doesn’t mean them.  she just.  well, she’s bad at expressing what is actually bothering her.  but in the occasional times that she decides to apologize for upsetting me, she’s possibly revealed some of what the issue is.  and i think i get it.  so instead of saying things i don’t mean that are still true, which is my weakness in situations like this, i’ve been trying to just stress while she yells at me how much it is hurting me that she’s not being supportive while i plan my wedding.  and that i really just want her involved in all of the fun things about planning a wedding.

and shes not even doing that, for the record.  i made all the calls about reception sites, i visited the row house, iv’e decided all of the little things about the wedding itself.  it’s not like i’m even asking for help or overburdening her.

so that aside is over.  back to the retelling of my too-busy weekend.

after my failed attempt at a nap, i met reanne at panera for a quick dinner before we went to see a memory, a monologue, a rant, and a prayer… the latest eve ensler monologue series which was performed at washburn this weekend.  it was good, but probably not as good as last week’s showing of the vagina monologues.  and i think it portrayed women as helpless victims in too many situations and never really reached a point where i identified with the woman in the story.  some of the monologues were just effing bizarre. but overall i think it was worth going.

then, i met joey for drinks at buffalo wild wings cos i hadn’t seen him in about a month and a half.  it was nice to see him and i was sorry that our chat couldn’t last longer… but two hours is probably long enough for drinks and shrimp.

today, i need to finish up that outline that’s due tomorrow and i should really write a paper about this journal article called “Men of Columbine” that i sort of disagree with, the documentary “Tough Guise” which I really agree with, and MMPR which i’m not sure fits in with the first two.  Also, i should write a paper about this article called “Talking about Down There” and the Vagina Monologues which I’m already started on, I guess.  Both papers are only 2-3 pages and not due until Wednesday so I feel fine putting them off a bit.  Also, at 4:30 we’re going bridal gown shopping.  Oi.  Wish me luck.

Things on my mind: losing my bi identity as i permanently embrace the world of mono-socio-sexuality, an everburdgeoning fear of the wedding industrial complex which is the scariest place anyone could ever live, and what last name i should have seven months from now??probably an unpunctuated hyphenation, and the imminent arrival of what i presume to be my second rejection letter from a grad school.

sometimes, it’s a wonder i can drag myself out of bed at the morning.  luckily, kyle is wonderful and supportive and engaged in the process of making our wedding happen and preparing for our marriage and i am so happy that he will be in town in like four days.