Frenemies

Have you ever been friends with someone but realized that they kind of seem to hate you even though they're nice to your face and otherwise act like you're friends? Maybe they minimize your successes or quickly point out why something you're excited about is actually stupid. Maybe everything you say in their presence is wrong, or not as {insert descriptor here} as theirs, or just gets an eye-roll. Maybe they even seem to enjoy when you're disappointed or struggling in some way. Maybe they make passive aggressive remarks on social media that they would never say to your face, but still hope you see and realize are about you. They never come to you and say that something you've said or done has upset them. You've probably never even had an argument or disagreement over something. There is no apparent reason for their behavior, and yet it's very obvious that they don't really like you. This is not actually a friendship. I always described this strange relationship as someone having a "hate crush." They just love to hate you. They stalk your life and your business like you're best friends, except their purpose is not to share your joy or cheer you on, but rather to whisper behind your back (sometimes right in front of you), or let you know how uncool/unremarkable whatever it is in your life actually is. Have you ever had this "friend"?

I don't really have an explanation for frenemies. I just don't get them. If I don't like someone, I leave them alone and distance myself from them. The idea of pretending to be friends with a person is something I'll never understand. I've never had the desire to bring someone else down or make them look bad to others. In my situation, with the frenemies I've dealt with (and there haven't been many because I'm pretty selective with who I let into my life), it has always seemed like they were trying to compete with me for some reason. It was as if they were trying to bring me down to highlight their own life. **Newsflash: making someone else look bad never makes you look good! ;)** Things in my life are inadequate or unremarkable while theirs is clearly the best/coolest/trendiest/smartest/etc. Hey, if you need to be cooler than me I am totally ok with that. As a completely non-competitive person (probably why I was never good at sports) I truly could not care less. I look around and I am surrounded by people who are wealthier, thinner, prettier, smarter, greener, stronger, taller, shorter, more artistic,  more trendy, more involved, more cultured, more pretty much anything than me. I have never, ever in my life felt that I was better than someone else. It doesn't bother me. I am beyond delighted with my life just as it is. And yet, maybe that's it.

Frenemies can't stand it when you're happy. Why? Probably has much more to do with themselves and their life than it does with you. I've never done anything to, or even had a problem with the frenemies I've dealt with. I would have been happy to be simple friends with them. Yet, for some reason they most certainly didn't want to be my friend. Anything we had in common they turned into a competition (if you can call it a competition when only one person is competing). Anything we differed on became fuel for why I was so lame.

With a person like that, you can't win for losing. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. Whatever you say is wrong, but you're being bitchy if you say nothing. It is a futile and pointless relationship. In most cases, the second I detect a frenemy I start creating distance and usually drop the person entirely from my life. Sometimes there's a neighbor, or co-worker, or classmate who you know you're going to see face-to-face on a regular basis and so you just have to make the best of it. In that case, I've learned to keep my guard up. I only share certain superficial details about my life and keep any conversation to general small talk. I'm nice when they're nice and quiet when they're not. I do my best to give them absolutely nothing to say about me later. Of course, they'll come up with something if they want to, but there's only so much you can do.

My approach is just to live my life and be happy. A frenemy hates nothing more than to see you happy, and because of that I refuse to let them stop me. Think what you want, say what you want about me. I am happier than you'll ever be.

*than  >:-/

Memorial Day Weekend

What a weekend! For us it was a weekend full of celebrations- a wedding, Memorial day, and our own six-years-in-love anniversary. Yep, six years ago we woke up one morning and just knew that we were officially "a thing." It was Memorial day weekend also, and we spent the day appropriately wandering around D.C. and Arlington holding hands, snapping pictures, and generally being smitten with each other and this brand new adventure we had just decided to begin. Such a great day with such great memories, not to mention the happiest six years of my life to follow :D So we had lots to celebrate this weekend! Here's the recap in photos...

Saturday afternoon we attended the wedding of our good friends Jon and Beth

J was the officiant, so he is presenting them with their official signed marriage certificate

Sunday we had our usual dinner at Nana's (my mom's), but we did a big cookout and it was amazing... burgers, dogs, corn on the cob, beans, broccoli salad, and it's not officially summer without peach pie (not in this family, anyway ;) Somehow we always end up putting together incredible holiday meals. De-lish!

Ready for fun in the sun with her cousins!

Monday we went to J's parents' house in the morning to hang out, swim, and have some lunch. We could not get over how enthusiastic C was about swimming! She was literally trying to push us off of her so we wouldn't hold on to her (in 3 feet of water, so letting go was not an option). I'm pretty sure if we would have had a vest for her she would have been paddling around on her own. Guess what we'll be trying next time? 

Since Monday was also our 6-years-in-luuurve anniversary, we celebrated that and our amazing men & women in uniform with some yummy cookout food :D

It was a little busy, but such a fun weekend. We are so blessed to have such great friends and family that we get to spend so much time with (isn't that the best way to spend a weekend?), and especially blessed to live in America where there are incredibly brave men and women who defend us so that we can enjoy our lives in peace and in freedom. 

Thank you to every veteran, especially those who have given their lives!

[PS- Tomorrow is a big day around here, so check back to see what we were up to!]

Special Lunch!

Today we got to have a special lunch date with one of my very best friends, Andrew (who is also the dad on Planted and Blooming)! He was in town for work all the way from sunny Texas, so we met up with him over his lunch break today for some pizza and catching up! Bebe girl thought he was awesomesauce, and she's right :) Can't wait til next time!

And we have to send a special birthday shout-out to Andrew's firstborn, Lucy who turns 5 today!

We love you, Lucy! :)

My Other Family

There are a very small handful of people from high school that I ended up staying friends with. I mean legitimate friends, not just like we see each other's pictures on Facebook. One of them I married. Another one, who I might have never guessed would still be my friend 10+ years later (much less that we'd be as close as we are), is Andrew. We met in photography class senior year. I'd say we were friends pretty much instantly. We didn't hang out all the time or anything like that, we just got along really really well. After high school we stayed in touch and when we did get together to hang out it was immediately like old times. We always laughed with and at each other, got each other's sense of humor, shared lots of world views, and always had fun together. I don't even know how we stayed close because it has been one of the easiest friendships I've ever had. I'd actually call it effortless. The best friendships are, I think.

One day he brought this girl home from college and she was just as easy to get along with as he was. My friendship with her has been exactly like my friendship with him- simple and effortless, with lots and lots of laughing. What else could you really want in a friend? They rule.

I think like a year and a half ago (?) they moved to Texas. I wasn't happy with them for that, but I am pleased to say that we've stayed friends just the same. Thanks to blogs and Facebook, we keep up with each other pretty well. I was super excited when I found out they were visiting this month and I think we definitely made the most out of their two-week stay. I only regret that I didn't take any pictures of us, just of the kids. Guess I'll have to do better next time!

Our visits went something like this...

We had our first play date at my SIL Jenna's house. Us girls drank coffee and gabbed while our tater-tots chased each other around laughing and squealing. I realized just how amazing my life will become one day when I have an older child to amuse the toddler-aged child. Laura's oldest, Lucy (almost 5) and C (almost...t-t-two!?) just loved each other :)  Then we went out in pouring rain to eat lunch. I'm sure any onlookers thought we were sister-wives: three twenty-something girls with a total of 5 children under the age of 5, two of them less than 1 year old, haha. So much fun though!

Then I went up to Andrew's parents' house last week to hang out with Laura and the girls for the morning. Once again, the girls ran around and played and we got to talk about church, babies, homeschooling, politics... pretty much everything important. Andrew had been out for the morning but came back around lunch time and we all went for cheesesteaks at Frank's (the best food in our little hometown). We put the toddlers at one table and grown-ups + Claire at another, naturally. It was totally fine.. as long as you're not the guy who had to clean up ;)

On Saturday it was the big birthday bash for Molly, and Andrew's nephew, Benjamin. That was a crazy birthday party. There were a ton of kids there, which C loved, and even more adults. We got to see Andrew's parents, and of course his sister who hosted the party. Our friends Calvin & Katherine who we met through Andrew & Laura were also there, as well as Laura's sister and parents. 

 It's totally worth having a brunch-time birthday party so you can have a donut cake.

 C & Molly playing with the dollhouse

 C taking a turn at the pull-string Elmo pinata

 If you read P&B you might know that Molly loves markers, she just loves using them on non-paper surfaces including herself. So hopefully these Crayola Color Wonders will help with that :)

 She was so excited about this dress. How cute is she?

 C having fun with Andrew's dad, Mr. Paul

After the birthday party we went home for nap time, and then my mom came over to stay with C while we went out for dinner and craziness with Andrew, Laura, Calvin & Katherine. Somehow I managed not to take any pictures of us big kids together which makes me kind of sad. But we'll just say that what happened on Saturday stayed on Saturday... and may have involved Sangriaritas.

They head back to Texas on Wednesday and thus begins our looking forward to the next time we get to hang out. Since we don't have an official summer vacation planned for this year, I'm thinking at some point over the summer maybe C and I will fly down for a little TX getaway. That's really about as long as I can stand to be away from those crazy kids anyway ;)

Truant = Me

Yeesh, have I been absent or what? My apologies! It's just that the painting is going so swimmingly (really). I have the entry way, living room, and play room complete and I have cut in most of the kitchen (that takes forever, you know with the cabinets and all). Everything is just kind of a mess though so I haven't done any "after" pictures of the completed rooms because I haven't had time to straighten them up into photo-readiness!

Then there's the kitchen- which I'll be honest, it's not much of a transformation in terms of color. The new color is similar enough to the old one that when looking from the living/play room into the kitchen you could probably mistakenly think the rooms are the same color. You can definitely tell the difference when you look at where I've cut in compared to the color on the walls and luckily I do like the new color better.

However the kitchen is a complete nightmare right now. We have a hutch on one wall that houses some random stuff, cook books, a few small appliances, and the liquor. I hate the hutch. It's beyond Ikea cheap. The fake-wood paper is peeling off of it. It's that cheap. Someone generously gave it to us when we were first moving into our house and at that point we felt like we could use the extra storage. Well... I'm over it. So, in addition to our counters and table being covered in all things that were displaced due to painting, I am also clearing out some rarely/never used items to donate so I can make space for things from the hutch in order to get rid of the hutch. All this shuffling and rearranging has the kitchen looking like a serious disaster area, but I see no point in moving the hutch to paint behind it and then putting it right back. Once it's out of the kitchen it's staying out. So I must find homes for the items that we want to keep so that I can finish painting and send it on it's way. I truly can't wait to be done with all of this simply so things can be back in order!

In other fun news, we are in the process of selecting our new appliances! The Maryland appliance tax holiday is coming up next weekend (Feb. 18-20) and we'd love to take advantage of it. We can only get a refrigerator tax-free, but hey, as the most expensive by a long shot of our three appliances, we're happy to take any break we can get! We've done some online research and feel like we have our brands narrowed down. We also feel like we have a good idea of what we're looking for in each appliance- stainless, mid-grade features, and the whole shebang totaling less than $3k. So far, we seem to be in luck. We've even found free delivery deals so we shouldn't have to pay any extra for that.

Long story short, we have been busy busy busy around here. The main nap time goal continues to be getting the hutch cleared/kitchen painted. Then we'll be setting up our tile installation with some peeps we know who have tile-laying experience but won't charge us more than some beer and pizza to get the job done :)  Also on the radar we have our close and dear friends coming to town on Wednesday for a 2 week visit! That whole family truly is my other family. I'll give you more deets on how we got so close when I blog about our sure-to-be-outrageously-fun time together :) I'm fairly certain there will be play dates galore and there is already a night of partying planned for us and a few other mutual friend/relative couples. I'm so excited I can't stand it! Why did they ever move to Texas anyway?!? Some things we'll never know.

Well, it's getting late here and tomorrow brings a morning of appliance hunting! Try not to be too jealous ;)  I'll try to get back here before long to let you know how that goes!

As they say in Texas, "Adios, y'all!"  (Did I get that right? ;)

Too many topics for one title

I'm considering changing the title of my blog to "What we did this weekend" as I feel like that sums up  the majority of my posts! Kidding on the actual name change, though.

Our long weekend last weekend was a fun one. We had a fun at-home day with J on Friday. We went to the new West Elm store that opened a little ways from here. It was heavenly! Only downside was that the sales staff were a bit overwhelming. We were approached by no less than 6 sales people who not just asked if we were "finding everything ok," but shook our hands, introduced themselves, asked our names, asked what we were looking for, explained that they were taking donations to help St. Jude's Children's Hospital, and offered their assistance if we needed anything. I get that they're a new store and want to be super helpful and friendly, but we're not actually friends. As a shopper, I loathe anything more than a passing smile from a sales person. Let me shop! So this was completely overboard as far as I was concerned. I did not feel like discussing my baby's name, shoe size or how many teeth she has with a chubby girl in an apron working at the West Elm. The store was great though :)

We also wandered into Pottery Barn, a store where I rarely buy things but rather prefer to find inspiration and re-create those things for half the price :) Here are two examples-

 Cranberry topiaries, how easy would they be? I think I'd use a shiny metal pot though to make it more fancy/festive.

Knit pillow covers! So cute and cozy. I'd have to brush up my knitting skills but nonetheless, it's still just a big square. 

I always hope no one is going to get upset that I'm walking around the store taking phone pictures of their displays. They publish them in catalogs and mail them to my house, so what's the difference?

Saturday we went to Nick's birthday party. I can't believe he's 2 already! The scariest part is that it means C's birthday will be here before we know it. She's not even one month past her half birthday, I should calm down. The party was lots of fun though. C had a blast running around with all the little kids there. She was so busy she couldn't even be bothered to eat a piece of pizza, and this girl loves some peeeesa!

She snoozed the whole way in the car and then took a regular nap when we got home. J met up with his parents for lunch, and then we stayed home for a quiet evening. We ended up watching the movie, Horrible Bosses. It's a bit off-color and used more bad language than I cared for, but turned out to be really hilarious.

Sunday morning was quiet. Once football games got started J had some friends over. I went to one of my friend's house to take pictures of her and her family. I had never done an actual photo shoot for other people before, but it went really well. They have a back yard full of trees and leaves so the backdrop was perfect. It was also overcast so the lighting was nice- no squinty sunny faces. Here are a few of them...

It helps that they're all super photogenic. I had a lot of fun taking their pictures, to say the least :)