funkytown

i've been buried deep down in the heaviest of funks for the past three days.

(as if my emo post from yesterday, with clearly very little thoughtful merit, didn't make that painfully clear.)

heading to funkytown for me involves a lot of watching mindless shows like glee, spending too much time on the internet, and being indescribably tired.  inherent in this is a general lack of motivation to do anything, including running, which i started doing earlier this week and did really well for three days until the funk hit on wednesday.

there are various reasons for this funk (that's a lie- there's really just one), and i keep apologizing to topher for my general lack of energy, the heavy sighs that come out of nowhere, and the inability to focus on conversations.

so, apologies for the lack of vietnam trip recapping or various other posts that i dreamed up before i got the blues.

maybe i'll have adjusted by next week, and we'll return to normally scheduled mindless ramblings.

on decision (or, indecision. or, why.)

i've been doing a good deal of thinking.  (it's really cliche to start a blog with "i've been doing some thinking" but i did it anyway.) thinking about how we make decisions and the impact decisions have on our general happiness.

decision making has never been a particularly strong point for me.

clarification.  daily decision making about stupid little things has never been a particularly strong point for me.

topher can regale you with stories of me sitting on the grocery store floor sorting through brand after brand of shampoos.  or having to wait for me to hear what everyone else is ordering for dinner before i could decide.

i like to think my decision making skills have grown in the eight years since we first met.  what i've learned is that i am someone who makes decisions quickly when i am able to inherently trust my own feeling or perception about the topic at hand.  for some reason though, i am also someone who inherently distrusts decisions made completely based on feeling, without any thought given to reason or logic.

so i've become a decision maker who more likely makes a decision when all of the variables are presented to me and i am aware of the possible impacts of the possible decisions i could possibly make.

which is a very low standard to hold myself and my decision making too, obviously.

(sarcasm.)

i think i'm deeply afraid of making that one wrong decision.  that one wrong decision that will alter everything i know to be true. even more terrifying, that one wrong decision that i don't even realize is that one wrong decision.

so i guess i come down on the side of believing in the act of over-thinking.  of considering every possible angle of the potential decision, and considering every possible outcome, and which one i most desire.

because even more terrifying to me are the decisions we have no control over. the ones other people in our lives make, that impact our every thought about what we thought our future would be.  the ones that are completely unclear in the varied sides that were considered, the possibilities that were taken into account and the why that decision was made.  the ones where we're not really sure- that other person did consider all the possible outcomes of that decision they made so hastily.

those decisions that we don't make but that still lead us to hurt, to confusion, to a re-imagining of our future that we weren't prepared for- those decisions are the hardest.  the ones that i mull over for days, trying to understand the why.

and that's all i have to say about that.

and then there was my scotty.

i was in a funk all day today.  i didn't accomplish most of the things that i had said i would, and i couldn't get rid of this feeling of...

petulance.

today, i was petulant.  easily frustrated.  irritable.  smarter than everyone around me, simultaneously angered by my own anger.

today was a day where i was reminded, deeply, of the family members that are in america and how deeply i care about their well-being, health, and nearly most important, their happiness.

happiness.

happiness is meeting the man that will become your husband, and then meeting his adorable, also slightly petulant twelve year old brother.

happiness is wanting to be cool and show off your awesome soccer skills with your future husband's athletic little brother, and subsequently kicking the soccer ball directly at his face, nearly breaking his nose.

and then little brother sharing that story at your wedding day, during his best man's speech.

happiness is a sunday afternoon spent lounging on the couch watching silly movies and getting snuggly warm with your boyfriend on one side and his kind and hilarious little brother on the other side.

and then falling asleep only to awaken and realize that oops, you accidentally slept on little brother, but he's so loving that he just let you lie there, napping away, content to be still while his maybe-future-sister snoozed the afternoon away.

happiness is eating all of the chocolate chip cookies your boyfriend's little brother made and only being really slightly jealous at his baking skills and how they rival yours.

happiness is realizing that a lot of your five year old dreams came true the day that your fiance's little brother became your little brother too, and your little brother he will be until the day you die.

and then happiness is being reminded of how kind, generous, humble, smart, athletic, lovable, and funny your little brother is, and how much you miss his presence in your daily life.

happiness is scott, our little brother.

and sadness is not being able to be there for him when other people in the world forget to recognize how kind, generous, humble, smart, athletic, lovable and funny he is.

sadness is realizing that the second time you've had that sweet-jesus-we-have-to-get-home-to-america-NOW feeling happens when you know your little brother is unhappy. (the first being that time when your grandmother had a stroke and you thought this might be it and you couldn't catch your breath for a few days out of fear.)


eating your feelings is what i did when i declared: because i couldn't make things right for my little brother, i couldn't wrap myself up under a blanket of his kindness and love, i had to make cookies.

chocolate chip cookies, just like scotty makes.

and petulance is when those cookies turn out slightly burnt, but your husband still declares them the best cookies you've made so far in cambodia.

and that's when you realize all over again how lucky you are that your husband is who he is, and his little brother got all of those things that you love most about your husband, and you're reminded all over again that-

happiness is scott, our little brother.

NLN (no-longer-newlyweds)

today is two years.

last year i wrote quite a lengthy post about my thoughts on success in marriage.

last year, i thought the key was having a sense of humor, and being able to not take anything in life too seriously.  

last year, i thought, one year in, that as long as you could laugh off the things that are frustrating about marriage, your partner, life, you can do anything inside that partnership.

this year.

this year, we celebrated not with elaborate dinners involving escargot, or fun day trips to a nearby farm.

this year, we enjoyed pizza from a box (seriously, the BEST PIZZA i've had in cambodia) with jill.

this year, we were invited to dinner with our host family, and enjoyed our anniversary dinner of rice, chicken and soup made of chicken bones.

this year, i spent a wonderful hour reliving the amazing day that was may first, twenty ten, courtesy of our amazing photographers brian and susan. (thank you both, again, so much.)

this year, i realized.

damn, was i right last year.

humor for each other, humor for life, humor for all the things that could make people bitter, frustrated, or angry, really is a great answer.

this year, i'm still just as lucky to have chris as my husband.

this year, i'll happily move out of newlywed-dom to simply married-dom.

bring it, NLN status. we're ready.

seeking an addiction to h-two-oh.

one of the most endearing things about my husband is his penchant to think about my blog, check it, and refer to it when i come up with crazy ideas.

(example given: me: "i'd really like to [insert random idea i'd had]" chris: "i know, i read about it on your blog already. let's do it.")

while bobbing around in the gulf of tonkin in northern vietnam a few weeks ago, chris mentioned an article he'd read that claimed that many american were getting nearly fifty percent of their calories from sugary drinks, and that if we gave up these drinks, the average person would lose ten pounds in a year.

while i can't find that article specifically, i did find a few that discuss the implications of sugary drinks and obesity, like this one from cnn that was published just two days ago.

which of course, has me thinking about that small obsession i have with those small little cans.  you know the ones...

le sigh.

on vacation, i happily enjoyed two cans a day of these lovely, delicious, caramel-hued bubbilicious drinks.  that's about three hundred additional calories each day.

crap.

so i decided: who wouldn't like to lose ten pounds in a year? certainly, this girl wouldn't hate it. (and really, if you add up an average of a coca a day for a year, that's more like twenty pounds a year. eek.)

so.

we're going to give this a little experiment.  i've given up coca cola and coca light (diet coke) before. i've endured the headaches (god, that makes it sounds like i'm an actual addict) and that in itself is a reason to make the official switch from sugary drinks to...

water.

(our medical officer would be so proud.)

a great article written on the cnn blog eatocracy last fall said it best when they noted that some people can enjoy a soda without it being the.thing.you.look.forward.to.each.day. some people don't let out that relaxing sigh- like it's the fix they've been waiting for.

so, here it goes.  officially for the next six months, one soda per week- diet, regular, or otherwise.  no other sugary drinks (like the amazing, delicious coffees readily available here), unless that is the substitute for the one soda.

i'll let you all know how it goes.

anyone else a coca addict who has turned in their badge for other, less delicious drinks?

things of note (or, not so much)

yesterday evening, topher and i ate some lotus flower buds.

surprisingly, they are delicious!  unless you accidentally eat the "sraom" which is quite sour.

the "sraom" is the khmer word for envelope, or outer casing, or shell, or even:

condom.

we also decided on a few things regarding food and nine months (9!) in country:

a. our favorite noodle place is a roadside stand that sell noodles with vegetables, a fried egg, and some beef stuff for eighty five cents.

b. we need to find the best place for fried rice. our regular haunt has fried rice that i do NOT prefer.

c. we need to branch out in terms of places to eat- we visit the same one place way too often, and two or three other places frequently.  we're determined to find some new places.

d. we should really be making delicious things like salads at home.  we (or, i) had this weird thing that we really needed, should be making khmer food at home.  but really, why do we always need to?  we can use the ingredients of cambodia and make food that doesn't involve rice. like salads. we usually avoid them because lettuce/veggies are cleaned. we clean them ourselves = problem solved.  so, more fresh dishes like salads coming our way.

today, on the bus to phnom penh, the girl next to me kept falling asleep and her poor head was swinging to and fro, to and fro and bumping my shoulder.  i think she was embarrassed by that fact, and so she kept trying to lean as far away as possible. but it made me realize how universal it is for us to fall asleep, awkwardly, on public transportation.

and finally, the other night our kids helped me make the batter for the peanut butter cookies, and topher captured that fun:

any good recipes you have for delicious, easy homemade salad dressing? or suggestions for yummy food made with really, really simple ingredients?

and that's 35, folks

when topher and i chose a wedding date of may first, i was partially aware that i was selecting a wedding date exactly one week after my own parent's wedding anniversary.

as a chillun, i lurved looking through my parent's wedding album- admiring those white tuxes with frilly blue shirts, those seventies shags, those peasant dresses, and mostly the excitement that was my! parents! wedding! album!

and this year is thirty five years! cheers to you mama and pops.

established 1977, yo.

curse the fact that i live very far away from that awesome album and cannot share those photos with you.  2014, watch out!