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TWO!!!
Ryan and I met in the spring of 2007. After a summer of flirting and friendship, we began dating and quickly fell for one another. The more time we spent together, the more sure I became that he was the man I wanted to spend my life with.
One romantic evening, in the late spring of 2008, Ryan surprised me with a dozen of the longest long-stemmed roses I’d ever seen, followed by a lovely dinner, a night at the symphony, and a quiet walk through temple square. After several sweet words and tender kisses, Ryan stopped, reached into his pocket (my tummy was doing backflips at this point), and then…pulled out the lens cap to his camera. While he claimed he “wasn’t doing anything on purpose,” I’m pretty sure he did it to see the look on my face.
After that experience, I was convinced that if he did propose, it wouldn’t be for a while.
The next day, Ryan, took me on a picnic up the canyon at Silver Lake under the pretense of shooting pictures with his new camera. Getting there was like turning back the seasons—down in the valley, spring was in full bloom and everything was green. The top of the canyon, however, was still a winter wonderland.
The scenery was beautiful and Ryan was able to snap some fabulous pictures. After he had finished, we moseyed around the lake and ended up standing on a bridge, hand-in-hand. We had the entire lake to ourselves—there wasn’t another person in sight—and the sun was just starting to dip below the mountains. It was truly a beautiful and simple moment.
At this point, Ryan pulled me in for a hug, and I felt his heart racing like I’d never felt before. Ever. Did I realize he was about to propose? No, no I didn’t. He had so thoroughly convinced me that he wasn’t proposing that my first thought was: The man I want to marry is having a heart attack. I immediately stopped listening to the sweet things he was saying and started examining him—is his face purple? Is he wheezing? Suddenly being all alone on a lake several hundred yards from the car seemed like a horrible idea. I certainly wouldn’t be able to drag him back to the car in a timely manner, and it would take an ambulance quite some time to get up to us. I decided that it was time to go, then and there.
I tuned back in to the sweet things he was saying, waiting for an appropriate moment to interrupt, when I noticed he was reaching into his pocket. That was when it finally it dawned on me—his heart was beating so strong because he was proposing…and I had missed it!
I had to interrupt him and confess why I wasn’t paying attention. After a lot of laughing, I asked him to repeat the sweet things he had said earlier, and he, for the second time, asked me to marry him.
Of course, I said yes.
It was the best decision of my life. This past year of marriage has been even more comfortable and more fun than that first year was. We’ve settled (in a good way) into roles and routines that work for us and we’ve figured out how to play even amid the most mundane tasks (like housework). We’ve been able to have some amazing vacations and really enjoy this time while it’s just the two of us.
Ryan is just as supportive as he’s ever been, amid crazy church callings and stressful editing deadlines. He brings me sunshine every single day, and I couldn’t be happier.
I am so lucky.
Happy anniversary, Ryan.
Bibbity-Bobbity-Bacon
We’ve officially hit September. I absolutely cannot believe it. I kind of feel like my life has been on pause while I’ve been working on my editing project; however, turns out that life has moved on without me. In my head, I still have another month or two to go swimming and play outside. However, in real life, the air has a crispness to it, football season has officially started, and Ryan and I have our two-year anniversary right on the horizon.
In my opinion, the best approach to birthdays/Christmas/Valentines, etc., is to simply have a discussion beforehand on if we’re exchanging gifts and, if so, what the spending limit is. Not particularly romantic, but way better than being plagued by worries of “Did I spend too much? Not enough? Maybe I’ll get just one more thing. Maybe I shouldn’t have gotten that one more thing. Maybe I’ll buy three things and let him choose. Maybe that’s lame. Maybe…” and so forth. This way I can just focus my worrying on whether or not he’ll like the gift. Life simplified.
So yesterday Ryan and I were talking about whether we were exchanging gifts or cards and I mentioned that I’d love it if he did something romantic to mark our anniversaries—i.e., give me two flowers since it was our second anniversary, three for our third, and so forth. Just something smaller that marked the number of years we’d been married.
He thought about this for a minute or two and said, “I’ve got it! Every year on our anniversary, I’ll give you breakfast in bed and you can have an extra strip of bacon for every year we’ve been married.”
While I love the breakfast-in-bed idea, I’m not such a fan of eating 50 strips of bacon on our 50th anniversary.
Let’s try that again…
Me: Ryan, I’m still losing weight from when I was sick.
Ryan: Maybe the scale is broken.
Definitely a good thing
After waking up for the third time due to nightmares and tossing and turning in my losing battle go get to sleep, Ryan “woke up” and the following conversation ensued:
Ryan (very sleepily): Are you okay?
Me: Not really, I had another nightmare. I killed someone and couldn’t get into heaven.
Pause. No response.
Me: But it was just a dream and not real life, though.
Ryan: Oh, that’s definitely good thing.
(Yes, yes it is.)
At this point, he sleepily rubbed my head, turned over, and immediately started snoring. I, on the other hand, tossed and turned for another hour before the alarm went off. After about 30 minutes of not-sleeping, I asked him to snuggle over and comfort me. To his credit, he complied with my request—without really waking up.
The Evil Sludge Returns!
The infamous sludge has returned. Probably. Nobody knows what it was in the first place, so it’s rather difficult to know for sure if it’s returned. WebMd thinks it’s either a panic attack or tuberculosis. My mother/in-laws/random strangers insisted it was morning sickness. Ryan’s diagnosis was rheumatoid arthritis of the stomach. My doctor’s guess was either a spasming esophagus or feverblisters in my throat. (Yeah—I want that diagnosis sheet.)
But I still think it’s the sludge. And since no one else knows what it was, I’m right.
Because the sludge is evil. Only the sludge is capable of producing the situations I went through, like:
- going to the doctor because I couldn’t breathe, panting through a million medical tests, and winding up flat on my back surrounded by six nervous nurses after I failed at getting my blood drawn;
- listening to the Big Boss tell everyone at work that I’m “on the nest” because I’d forgotten to remove my band-aid after getting said blood drawn;
- having Ryan leave work mid-day to rescue a very feverish me from my nauseous hell-hole in my car in the work garage; and
- worst of all, going in for a simple strep test and getting awkwardly questioned by my doctor about my sex life…in front of my father (who had accompanied me to the doctor since I’d left my ability to drive in my work garage).
Ryan’s been super nice throughout the whole thing—he didn’t laugh at me when I couldn’t breathe properly, even though I sounded like a whiny Darth Vader; he went to the grocery store early in the morning and bought practically everything in the store I had a chance at keeping down; and he quite generously let me sleep, ignoring the fact that I was clearly on his side of the bed. He’s truly Husband of the Year.
At this point, I’m feeling better—I guess it was a quick-acting sludge this time. Regardless, I’m rooting that next time will be a regular, more run-of-the-mill sort of sickness.
Can’t they un-decide this?
So after a really late night and a busy morning getting Primary things together, I go to church and learn…they’re dissolving our ward next Sunday, splitting us up among three other wards. And worse, we’re not supposed to know about that until next Sunday. Which means that everyone’s going three different ways and we don’t have a real chance to say goodbye.
It makes me so sad.
Being in Primary has been my favorite calling in the history of church. We have some kids who are a challenge, but they’re all pretty good kids. I love that we talk about the basics of the gospel, that the kids get excited about learning, and that I can feel the spirit pretty much every week. The girls give me hugs all the time, and all the kids wave to me in sacrament meetings and smile when they see me. This is 100 times worse than being released, because I won’t even get to see at least two-thirds of them, let alone hear their awesome stories.
Plus, Primary is the only place in the church where it’s perfectly normal to discuss Jesus, ninjas, and transformers in the same sentence. (Defeating evil ninjas makes Jesus really happy, by the way.)
And, holy smokes, I am really going to miss it.
Sharing is caring
So this past weekend was our annual Hales Family Campout. Grandpa Hales and Uncle Robert came down from Alaska, Karen came from Washington, and nearly every one of my cousins made an appearance. It’ll probably be a while before we’ll all be together again, and we had some great adventures—the gasoline fires, the rattlesnake, the lost toenail, the broken arm—and some great hangout-and-chat time as well.
It was as completely awesome as I could hope for.
It’s funny to see these campouts grow up—when we were younger, my grandpa would drag us up to some far-off area 50 miles away from the nearest flushing toilet. Now, however, my grandpa stays in a trailer and my grandma stays in a near-by hotel. When I was younger, I spent most of the campout playing with my cousins—now I spend it playing with their kids. It’s awesome(ly weird).
My cousin, Amanda, who is a year younger than me, has a two-and-a-half-year-old daughter (my first cousin once removed?) who is pure entertainment. She’d come up to me and say, “Jenn, what’s your name?” I’d tell her and she’d say, “Jenn, would you like to take me on a hike?”
Absolutely I would.
We went on several “hikes” over the two days I was there—looking in the windows of every tent in our camp and visiting the older kids’ “clubhouse.”
After one of our hikes, she jumped up on my lap and we had the following conversation, which was probably my favorite moment of the campout:
Liesel: “Jenn, where is your little boy and little girl?”
Me: “Um…I don’t have any kids right now. Maybe someday.”
Liesel: “What is your little girl’s name?”
Me: “I don’t have any little girls right now. But I like the name Lily.”
Liesel (after a long pause, taking in this information): “Will Lily take all my toys? Tell her to not take my toys.”
Apparently our unborn children are totally awesome bullies. Watch out world!
Wear Something Nice Tomorrow, Okay?
So summer’s FINALLY decided to stick around. My life is 100% more awesome than it was 30 degrees ago. Instead of being stuck downstairs listening to psycho anti-Obama lady, I can go outside on my lunch breaks, spread out a blanket in the shade, and pretend I’m not at work for 30 minutes.
It’s almost always the highlight of my day.
The question becomes, now, what to wear to work. Since I work at an “Old Boys’ club,” the thermostat is almost always hostile towards women—in fact, the office is even colder in the summer than it is in the winter. That’s fine. I wear a sweater to work Monday through Friday throughout the year anyways. And keep a blanket at my desk. Which I wear until the office warms up around 3:00 in the afternoon.
Let’s be honest, I know I can’t wear summer clothes to the office. But I am so tempted to dress for those 30 happy lunchtime minutes—short sleeves without sweaters! capris! sandals! happiness!
And then my daydreams are smashed by our company’s “Dress for Success” emails.
“While it is very tempting to wear your summer dresses, flip flops, shorts, and tank tops, it is never appropriate. While relaxed business attire is acceptable within the stated guidelines, we want to be sure our environment does not jeopardize professionalism and productivity.”
Here I am, working along, waiting for my 30 minutes of sunshine and BOOM! A reminder about how silly our company is. I know it sounds very millennial, but I hate our company’s dress code. It is *anything* but consistent. I shouldn’t have any problem with our dress code! Seriously! I dress like a married Mormon woman! It’s not like I’m wanting to come to work looking like I came from the Blue Boutique. The shorts I want to wear extend well beyond my fingertips.
Last week, I left the house feeling very dressed up for work—make-up on, heels, below-the-knee white capris, and a nicer purple shirt. I was feeling pretty good about myself all day until a coworker (not HR, not my boss, just an average coworker) told me to “Wear something nice to the party tomorrow—not like what you’re wearing today.”
Thanks, lady.
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t see any difference in professionalism between the to-the-knee shorts and the past-the-knee capris. Furthermore, it kills me that these professional-looking knee-length shorts are forbidden (even with heels, even on casual Fridays), but the short skirts are always perfectly acceptable?
And, for another example, the embellished flip flops below are forbidden, while the silly Barbie shoes are “professional” enough for everyday wear and the Adidas shoes are fine on casual Friday. But, no, the leather Roxy flip flops are “deemed inappropriate by the company” and may never be worn.
I guess I should have accepted that common sense is not a fixed part of my company culture. I know, I know, I am the one choosing to work here—and as long as I do, I’ll comply with said dress code.
But I’ll never understand it.
Lions, nightmares, and me…
Lately I’ve been having lots of bad dreams and I simply can’t figure out why.
I’ve had pretty vivid dreams for about as long as I can remember—I usually have several dreams a night and can remember most of them the next morning. (Believe me, this is Ryan’s *favorite* thing ever. I quickly learned that a tired husband does. not. care. what happened in my dreams. He just wants me to get out of bed and shower so he can go back to sleep as quickly as possible.)
But even though I can remember so many of them, they’re not usually that great. If I had to guess, I’d bet this is how they’d divide up:
- 10% wake-up-several-times-a-night nightmares,
- 50% ominous, unsettling dreams,
- 30% random dreams,
- 9% interesting dreams, and
- less than 1% are awesome (fighting evil along side Wolverine and Harry Potter was a particular favorite of mine).
Do you even realize how hard that math was?
Anyway, that’s what’s normal. When things aren’t normal—i.e. major life changes or emotional upheavals—that’s when the heavy-duty nightmares kick in. For instance, graduating college and a disappointing breakup led to several months of nightly nightmares where someone died and it was my fault… Or, when things at work would go bad, it’s dreams of people screaming awful things at me all night long.
I’d wake up in tears several times a night and would delay sleep for hours, just to avoid the dreams.
So why I’m having bad dreams now is pretty bewildering to me. Things are pretty good right now (knock on wood, right?). So WHY AM I BEING EATEN BY LIONS EVERY NIGHT??? Seriously, it doesn’t matter if the dream starts out in a swimming pool or my own home, eventually a lion enters the picture and it’s game over.
Since no online dream interpreters can give me a reasonable answer, I thought I’d turn the question over to you: Can someone please tell me what these dreams are supposed to mean so I can start sleeping in peace again? Also, any tips for taking on a lion with your bare hands would also be appreciated.
Thanks, everyone, for being more awesome than Google.
Wait, who’s ridiculous?!
Okay, just for clarification, that last post was definitely NOT an announcement. 
But since I’m on the subject, while I’m not quite ready for kids yet, I am 100% ready to talk about baby names. While Ryan thinks it’s pointless to talk about baby names before we actually need one, I think it’s pretty normal since I’ve been picking out favorite names since my first Barbie. I have a number of girl names I love, but boy names…really haven’t considered those so much. (This means that I’ll end up with all boys, right? Um…)
Anyway, lately I find myself playing name games with Ryan, when I can get him to play. (For instance, we’ll go through the alphabet—Ryan’s favorites are always Bertha and Hilda—or try out names from books, movies, or people watching, etc.) This Sunday, as sacrament meeting entertainment, we went through the hymn book to see if there were any worthwhile names in there. After pages and pages of Parleys and Orsons and Ebenezers, we came across a name which led to the most brilliant idea of my life. Picture:
- Clark Kent McDaniel,
- Bruce Wayne McDaniel,
- Peter Parker McDaniel, or
- Charles Xavier McDaniel
I’m always looking for boy names that are strong and smart and reliable and have been around forever. These names totally fit those qualifications! This totally counts as personal revelation, right?
I asked Ryan what he thought…and he said I’m completely ridiculous.
AND THEN.
His very next statement, the very next words to come out of his mouth were as follows: “Oh, I’ve got it! Let’s say we have twins—a boy and a girl. We’ll name them Cain and Mabel!”
Who’s really ridiculous here, huh?!
