two weddings and a duck call

Well, I started this post yesterday, May 23rd.

For as long as I can remember, I wanted to get married on May 23rd, for no real reason except I feel like May 23rd is always a perfect day weather-wise, and I thought it would sound and look so pretty on a wedding invitation.

I also wanted to marry a man with the last name Darling, so my name could be Laura Darling.  Hence the name of this blog.

Anyway, as it turned out I married a man with an Italian last name on March 8th.  Which is fine.  But I still spent a few minutes on my drive home yesterday thinking about a May 23rd wedding.

And then as I made dinner, Michelle texted me this:


Listen.  It takes a TRUE FRIEND to remember to wish you a happy anniversary on your ACTUAL anniversary, but also to text your on your fake dream perfect wedding date.

And yes, Michelle's identification photo on my phone sure is a picture of her wearing a Kate Middleton mask because OF COURSE.

And speaking of Kate, let's have a moment for the royal wedding.

I know there are people who think the royal wedding was stupid and dumb and a waste of time and I am here to tell you, I am not one of those people.

I'd been waiting for this for MONTHS.  Matt and I have watched the show Suits since the beginning, so I feel like we basically discovered Meghan Markle. I watched the cheesy Lifetime movie and all of the specials in the week leading up to the big day, and when Saturday arrived, I went to a viewing party at my cousin's house with my mom, my aunt, and another cousin.  

We had mimosas and scones with lemon curd and quiche and themed cups and napkins and it almost took the sting away from the fact that it wasn't me walking down that aisle at St. George's Chapel.







It's a good thing the wedding wasn't on the 23rd.  That would have been almost too much to bear.

Anyway, I got home from the viewing party, put on my pajamas, made a cup of coffee, and climbed right back into bed to watch it again.  I cannot get enough.

When Prince Harry and Meghan announced their engagement, I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel a slight twinge of disappointment and think, "Well, it will officially never be me."  Not that I wanted to marry Prince Harry necessarily, I just thought it would be so cool to be a real life princess.  However, it was never going to be me for a variety of reasons, not the least of which I AM ALREADY MARRIED.

And Friday night, as a kickoff to the royal wedding extravaganza, Matt came home with a bouquet of roses.

So he may not be a prince, but I think I still hit the jackpot.



And right now Prince Matt is sitting in the living room, blowing (whistling? calling?) his duck call at the ducks who have made a nest in our neighbor's front yard.  

Meanwhile, I'm in the kitchen bemoaning the status of my droopy eyelids, which in the last few days have been droopier than average.  I come from a long line of people with a similar problem, and my Poppop was even known to scotch tape his eyelids up when he had to go on long drives so his eyelids wouldn't impede his vision.

Not kidding.

Basically, we're spending our evening just like I'm sure Harry and Meghan are.

Except I bet he didn't bring her flowers.

Or a duck call.

he was kicked when he was down

I feel like so much has happened since I last wrote a post that I don't even know where to start.  So I haven't written anything.

It kind of reminds me of when my parents and I got to my sister's apartment last Saturday, exactly 39 hours before she was leaving to move 1500 miles away, and she had not packed one item.  Not one single thing.  What she had done was dump everything she owned on the floor of her bedroom.  And then she didn't know where to start, so she just didn't.

Anyway, in the last few weeks there's been a bunch going on.  Emily graduated college.  And moved to a remote part of northern Minnesota.  There have been some tough things happening in the lives of family and friends and work has just been weird/busy and we've been working outside a lot and then last week Matt came down with a cold.

Now, Matt's tough.  He has had type 1 diabetes for 17 years, since he was 12 years old.  He wears an insulin pump and a continuous glucose monitor attached to his body and takes shots and figures out insulin doses and has bad days and high blood sugars and low blood sugars and lousy physical side effects and yet in the 9 years I've known him with diabetes, not one time, NOT ONE TIME EVER, have I heard him complain about any of it. 

I can tell you with complete certainty that would not be the case if I were the one with diabetes.

I asked Matt if I could write about his cold tonight and he said, "Why don't you write about how I dream of being a farmer in Texas?"

"Because that's not really that funny," I said.

"Well my cold is certainly NOT funny," he said.

His symptoms started last week and after a few days of debating whether or not it was allergies, he self-diagnosed himself with a "chilly," which is apparently not quite as bad as a cold.  By mid-week it was a full-fledged cold and by Friday it had progressed another level, to a frozen.  

Yesterday I tried to keep my eyes from rolling all the way back into my head when he mentioned labored breathing, and today he ran into some unexpected trouble when he took the elevator to his office on the 56th floor and the sudden change in altitude wreaked havoc on the pressure in his head.

The elevator ear pressure put him in a funk and he started in with a little Monday morning airing of grievances session.

May I add a number 18 to the list?

Matt got to this truck in the parking lot after work and found this.  He parks in the train station parking lot on rainy mornings and doesn't pay the $1.00 fee because he doesn't think he should have to pay to park after he already spends $174 a month for a train pass.  Fair enough argument except for the fact that RULES ARE RULES AND SOME RULES ARE ACTUALLY LAWS.

So, tonight I'm basically harboring a fugitive.

I am just waiting for the police to knock at the door.

Except, when they find out he has a cold they may change their mind about taking him into custody.

It's supposed to storm all week, so tomorrow morning I think he needs to take $1.00 with him to the train station.  

And some DayQuil.

what i read in april

Once again it's time for the monthly book post with Steph and Jana.  I have three to share this month.

First up, 2 Ways Your Phone is Changing You by Tony Reinke. 

A few months ago I downloaded an app that shows the amount of time I spend on my phone each day.  Holy cow.  Talk about an eye opener.  Around the same time I noticed a lot of people recommend this book, so I added my name to the waiting list at the library.  It made me think about what I share on social media, why I share it, and what I consume and why.  I deactivated my Facebook for a few weeks after I read it and didn't miss it a bit.  I reactivated it last week and noticed that I'm spending more time on my phone in general when I have Facebook on there.  It's like I waste time on Facebook, then go from app to app just wasting more time.  When Facebook isn't on there, I'm not as tempted to mindlessly scroll from app to app and spend a lot less time on my phone overall. 

So, I'll be deactivating it again this week I think!

For a total change of pace, next I read And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer by Fredrik Backman.  

This was a short novella, and I read it in one sitting.  It's about an aging grandfather, and his connections to his son and grandson and memories of his wife.  It's sweet and nostalgic and a little emotional.  I really enjoyed it.

Last up was Sisters First: Stories from Our Wild and Wonderful Life by Jenna Bush Hager and Barbara Pierce Bush.  

I love the Bush family so I had high hopes for this book, and it didn't disappoint.  Barbara and Jenna shared so many stories, hilarious and touching and unexpected.  I laughed out loud several times and would highly recommend it.

I've been on the wait list at the library forever for Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine and it came in on Friday.  I'm about sixty pages in and so far, I'm loving it!

What did you read this month? Anything I need to add to my list?

the most epic arbor day celebration ever

Now that our kitchen remodel is finished, and with no major projects on the renovation horizon, I had visions of leisurely weekend mornings drinking coffee, afternoons spent reading or gardening or lounging in the hammock, and evenings spent with a glass of wine, trying a fancy new recipe in our fancy new kitchen.

Well.

Let me tell you about last weekend.

Actually, it started early last week.  One of neighbors isn't big on the whole "house upkeep" thing. She is a lovely person when we run into her in the driveway, and she hasn't even held a grudge against us for calling the cops on her granddaughter's underage drinking party last spring, but she doesn't do a thing to her house and her yard is a mess.

We planted about 15 arbor vitae along the property line last year, but the drainage on that side of the yard isn't great, and the soil was so wet that the trees didn't grow at all because the roots couldn't, well, take root.

My next career will obviously be in botany.

We've been talking about other methods to create a privacy barrier, and last week Matt said, "I ordered some trees to plant on the side yard that thrive in moist soil."

Some trees?  Great!  Fine!  Terrific! I figured "some" trees was 10 or 15.

Well, we went to a First Communion party on Saturday morning, and when we got home, do you know how many trees were in a giant box on our front stoop, shipped straight from the heartland of privacy hedges, aka the great state of Tennessee?

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY TREES.

Or, more realistically, ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY 18 INCH TWIGS THAT WILL HOPEFULLY GROW QUICKLY AND IN A ROBUST FASHION.

Anyway, since they were alive, we had to get the trees twigs in the ground quickly.  Matt got to work digging a trench, and I started planting.  At first I thought, "Well I have GOT to write a blog post about this! What a funny little adventure, planting 120 trees twigs!" 

By about tree twig 37 I said, calmly, "Matt, I want to let you know that I am losing my steam and my good nature."

(I was not joking.  Here are the trees twigs.)

But, we plowed through and planted 60 trees twigs on Saturday.  And then I drove my muddy self straight to the Acme and bought us two pizzas and a big box of mozzarella sticks for dinner, I am not even kidding and not even sorry.

We sat in the kitchen and ate our junk food and watched it rain.  And rain.  AND RAIN.  All night long.  The trench Matt dug turned into a downright canal.  I walked outside Sunday to assess the damage and swore I saw a goldfish swimming in it.

Matt tried to "shovel" the water out, but it was an ill-fated pursuit. 

I planted the remaining sixty trees on dry(ish) ground, which worked out because we learned that we didn't have enough for the entire yard and so, Matt ordered thirty more trees  twigs, due to arrive tomorrow.  

I won't lie, I'm secretly thrilled that I am going out of town this weekend.

Matt's on his own to plant the remaining trees twigs and he also decided that he wanted to remedy the poor drainage situation as best he could, and I literally just walked into our living room to take this photo.

It arrived in the mail today and is some sort of a well that is apparently going to be buried in our yard this weekend.

I'll make sure to stock up on mozzarella sticks before I go.

This project may require two boxes.