Ten Years

Today is my tenth anniversary of being married to the Queen and as such, I took the day off of work. It's the right thing to do to spend some time with her. We did what we could to find some time together, and managed to have family watch Sassy Pants, the only one not in school already, so we could go out to lunch. 

Our original plan was to drop off Sassy Pants, eat lunch, and then come back for her, but when we dropped her off, we were informed by the Queen's grandparents that they had lots planned and we had better not come back soon. Ok, so we went to the Spaghetti Warehouse, a restaurant in West Tulsa where we had our rehearsal dinner ten years ago. That location was chosen at the time due to its proximity to the majority of the wedding party and where the church was in Sand Springs.

We had a very pleasant lunch, but were left with a lot of time, and since we were in West Tulsa, we were a bit too far from home to head back to Broken Arrow before going back to pick up Sassy Pants. So the Queen had the idea to go by Ann's Bakery where we had gotten our wedding cake. She thought maybe we could get a donut or pastry or something there, just because of where it was.

We walked in and they had cookies and pastries that looked really good. I asked out of curiosity if they had slices of wedding cake or something to buy since we'd gotten our wedding cake there and wanted to get a piece of cake. To our surprise, they have what they call bar cakes that are just two layer cake in a thin bar shape (hence the name, huh?). But they were reasonably priced so we got one for our evening. We also asked for a couple of chocolate dipped, peanut butter cookies. The girl behind the counter gave us a half dozen for the two we paid for. That was nice too.

There honestly wasn't much else for us to do, so we wasted a little more time wandering a local Wal-mart before we headed back to pick up the 4 year old. We did get fussed at since they weren't quite done making their cookies (which, by coincidence, were peanut butter cookies, but not dipped in chocolate). So we hung out for a little bit so they could finish their cookies, and we were also "encouraged" to bring her and the others back at some point so they could play again. Grandparents are funny that way.

We ended our evening with champagne, some wedding cake, some soft jazz, and talking about the last ten years (or twelve, if you count our courting). It's been a good ten years, and we look forward to many more. In an era of marriages crashing and burning, we're a testament to the solidity a marriage can actually be if you want it to be good. We've had our ups and downs; our agreements and disagreements; and what we've learned is that if two people are committed to each other and have a true desire to make their marriage work, it will. It's when people stop caring and have no desire to be together that it's over. 

But that caring has to be about the other person. One element you have to let go of is yourself. This isn't to say that you can't be yourself, and it also isn't to say that you lose your sense of self either. What it amounts to is a desire to make someone else happy. It's soret of like that saying that your parents and teachers drill into your head: if you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything. 

When it comes to marriage, that's about all it takes.

Another round on the iPod

7,223. That's the number of song tracks on my iPod that I listened from the beginning of the year through yesterday -- some of them more than once too.

Using a smart playlist with the setting of excluding any song played after 1/1/09, I began on January first determined to listen to every song on my iPod this year. I also decided that I would listen to them as albums (at least for those that aren't included in other playlists I normally listen to while driving with the Queen and Princesses). 

So you can see that it took 3 months, 8 days to accomplish this monumental task, but there were a couple of factors that made the process take a little bit longer than it would have otherwise taken. Actually, one big factor that made it take longer.

When I started the year out, I had around 6,400 songs on this playlist. Yeah, apparently adding 800 more songs increased the time a little. Go figure. I also only really listen to my iPod at work, so I can only devote listening time during those 9 hours, but most people at my workplace are used to seeing me plugged in almost 100% of the time.

The only other slowdown factor has to do with the movies on my iPod that I occasionally try to watch. Naturally, that takes away about two hours of song listening, so while not a major factor, it did slow me down a little. Then again, I have movies that I loaded back in October that I still haven't watched.

Maybe I should do that next instead of just resetting the date on my playlist to today. Sure, I've knocked out 37 songs as of right now in listening to the whole thing again, but movies dating back to October... Well, it's kinda hard to watch movies at work, but maybe I'll look into dividing the time up a little better.

A New Addition to the Family

This is something the Queen and I have been discussing for a little while now, and our only hangup has been finding what we were looking for in such a thing. We'd been here and there around town, but nother ever either met our fancy, or we flat couldn't afford it. Yesterday, we finally found one.

I'm talking about a puppy. We wanted a lab or golden retriever, since we wanted to ensure it would be good with the princesses, and we also wanted to get a male so we didn't have to deal with it going into heat periodically. Also, neutering is cheaper than spaying.


On Saturday, Bond sent us a message stating that he had spotted someone with free lab mix puppies in a parking lot, and as the Queen was out with the princesses at the zoo (a location I was reminded of later), I went on my own to check them out. The problem with me going on my own? I'm really impulsive on my own.


Naturally, when I got there, I did my best to converse with the Queen over whether or not to pick up one of the dwindling number of puppies remaining, but the pictures didn't come out well, and she was in the middle on something on her end of the line, so she said to do whatever I thought on it. Heh-heh. You can see where this is going right?


Well, yeah, I guess you can because I gave it away at the beginning...um...yeah.


When I got there, there were three left. I saw one in the midst of the three that I thought would be good. I didn't know whether it was male or female; I just locked onto it, and hoped that the Queen would think they would work for us. As I was standing there, two of them went away, leaving only the one that I originally wanted. Rather clinched it for me, and when the Queen gave her go ahead. I snagged him.

The drive home was interesting. I decided to drive with him sitting on my lap so in case he got nervous and lost control of his bladder, he would pee on me instead of our nice leather seats. I figured I would be a lot easier to clean up, and besides, the car did made him nervous, and he whimpered, so I served to comfort him as well. Turns out, we got home without incident.

The Queen and Princesses got home after I'd had him outside for a little while, and this is what they saw.

Cute, huh?

He's been really good so far. It was supposed to rain last night so we had him inside locked in a carrier, and I natually full expected him to piddle in his bed, but he didn't. His bed was dry when I got up six hours later and let him out. Yeah, he was whimpering, probably due to a full bladder, but at only 8 weeks, and on his first night to not soil his bed was completely impressive to me.

He's a lab/german shepherd mix, which I hear is a good combo of a lab's mellowness and a german shepherd's protectiveness. He's been really good with the princesses so far, so after only a day, I'm thinking he'll shape up to be a good dog.

Got huge paws, though, which means he'll be pretty big. The collar we have on him at the moment is tightened way down, but he should grow into it, if not outgrow it within a year. We did name him, in the tradition of everyone else's aliases, I have one for him. He is The Hunter.