Charlamos

My dear, dear friend Nicole (mi gemela and my Maid of Honor) and I started Monday night phone chats about a month or so ago.

Mondays are perfect -- Scott is away for a few hours bowling and we are both usually free to chat for a while... (only 50 minutes tonight, hehehe).

In our chats we share our weekends and fun, our work and dilemmas. Then there are the secret stories that only we know. The belly laughs at precisely the right moment. The simple understanding of so many subjects without either of us saying a word. It's magical.

And all from a girl that I've seen in person on only 10 separate occasions.
Or, to steal a line from Nicole's infinite words of wisdom tonight, "Most people don't have to cross the equator to find their best friend..." (We met in Argentina during a study abroad in 2005)

It's still amazing to me.

I love our Monday night chats. I hope they continue for decades and decades... or at least til Nicole moves next door so we can do this in person over tea... or wine, perhaps. :-)

The gift of life

I promise not to stand up here on my soapbox for long.

The message is simple: become an organ donor... in fact, donate every single possible thing that can be transplanted upon your death, and you could positively impact AND EVEN SAVE several lives.

I wrote a story on Friday about a local 17-year-old who died from sudden, unexpected heart failure. When she got her license a year ago, she had her parents OK her signing to become an organ donor.

Her death last week was the greatest of tragedies.

But this silver lining is far easier to see than most of the sad stories out there... she saved lives. This young lady gave the greatest gift even after she had taken her last breath. FOUR people's lives will be saved because of her simple decision.

FOUR families are rejoicing tonight.
FOUR people will celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas or Hanukkah this winter.
The news will impact dozens of more people... their mothers or fathers, sisters and brothers, children, spouses, friends, neighbors, co-workers and many more.

That's a lot of good news to come out of something so ugly.

Learn more here.
Or here.
Or check the little box on your drivers license. It's so simple.

By the way, there are more than 104, 800 people on the waiting list for an organ today.
That's a lot of families waiting for some good news.

Have you heard of the new TV show Three Rivers? It's about a transplant hospital in Pittsburgh. It shows each story from three sides -- the transplant team of doctors, the donor and their family and the recipient(s). Scott and I have started watching it (it's on on Sundays) and just two days after writing the story about the local organ donor, they have an episode like this. Mandy Patinkin (from my other favorite show, Criminal Minds) plays a man with ALS (Lou Gehrigs Disease, a nerve disorder) who gets in a car crash that will leave him with very little to no mobility. Not wanting to live that way, he asks about organ donation and wants no more life support. He meets in person families of several people that he can save... a brother raising three younger kids who will get new lungs; a little girl who needs a liver, etc.

Watch especially from 1:00 on. I hope it impacts you as much as it did me.

Now go sign up to save a life after your really long one, OK?! :-)

Making up for lost blog time

I've been terrible at posting for the past week or so.

I've been busy with work, busy with trying to finish these *$%^(! thank-you cards from my wedding 7 weeks ago, putting my house back together after a long renovation process is (semi-) completed, continuing training for the domestic abuse/sexual abuse shelter and hotline all the while being a tremendous housewife, friend and overall sane person.

So let's catch up, via our friend the bulleted list.

* My trip back to SU with Kacey was fantastic! A sign across the main street in the quaint little town read, "Welcome Home." I don't know why that is my first image that I think of when I reminisce about that trip. Maybe because it never was home.
Maybe because my "home" is with the people I love the most. Kacey is most definitely one of those people, so having her next to me when I read that sign was pretty significant.


* I have a love-hate relationship with the large maple tree in our backyard.
It is so beautiful three-fourths of the year -- providing shade to our hilly empty lot and part of our tennis court and looking so beautiful with its yellow, and then red leaves in the Autumn. Just before it dumps all of its leaves in one fell swoop.
For us to pick up.
It took us FIVE hours on Saturday to rake, and we aren't even done!!!


* I'm going to see the ROCKETTES (!) at a nearby venue this Saturday with my dear friend Emily and I'm so excited!
I went to see the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall in NYC when I was younger and I don't think my eyes stopped bugging out for days. It's just one of those special Christmas-season-is-here moments that I treasure.

*Speaking of Christmas, according to the Rockettes' Web site, there are 38 days, 5 hours and 36 minutes as I write this until Christmas Day!
And yes, I'm ready.
In fact, I may have downloaded SEVERAL ALBUMS of holiday music on my iTunes account today. Ella Fitzgerald is currently serenading me with Away in a Manger and I'm loving every second of it.

*Also speaking of Christmas, I may not be able to spend the holidays with my family after all this year because of my work schedule. ::Insert massively disappointed sigh here:: I know Scott and his family will make it a special holiday -- after all, it's our first Christmas as a married couple! -- but, it's still a real disappointment.

I'm looking forward to:
- The Rockettes !
- Holding Thanksgiving dinner here at our house for Scott's parents and grandparents
- Meeting Ashley's sweet boyfriend the weekend after Turkey Day
- Cuddling up by the fireplace with my handsome hubby in our living room as the temperatures drop (ahem, um, if winter weather should decide to come back or anything... it'sbeen in the 50s and 60s!)
- Getting back in touch with family and friends
... and much, much more :-)


Gotta go -- write some more thank-you cards of course! -- have a good week!!!

Where crossroads began

I'm going back to Selinsgrove, PA, this weekend for Susquehanna University's homecoming festivities, but more so for a fun, private reunion with half of the original Crazy Train, Ms. Kacey "Caboose", aka my sanity for three years, the most fun girl to be around and one of the most important people in my life.






We met during Cross Country pre-season camp our first year at SU. I had just transferred from Syracuse and she had just arrived as a freshman. We bonded almost immediately, perhaps at first because we were having such a tough time with the runs and with nagging injuries.

We were collectively called the "caboose" at first because,well, yeah, we were pretty darn slow. Soon, I was given an undeserving new nickname, "Coal Car." We became pretty inseparable. Runs every afternoon and some weekends, parties Friday and Saturday nights and some of your typical fights between semi-sisters.






I don't even remember what the fights were about specifically, but I know two things. One, they were almost all my fault. I was in such a bad place for most of my college years and, well, they say you hurt the ones you love the most. And secondly, every time we had a fight, it hurt me so much to even think about the possibility of losing my friend.

Kacey is so fantastically special.
Like I said, she is SO.MUCH.FUN. I never laugh like I do when I am with her. I miss not having her around as often anymore, but we really make up for it when we do get together.
I've also seen her grow in so many ways. She's become a bit more confident and even a bit willing to put herself out there, to experience things maybe she was afraid to take a risk for earlier in life. And she is in such a happy place now! She definitely deserves it.



I was so happy that she was one of my bridesmaids and a huge beam of support during my wedding preparations. (If it weren't for my false eyelashes, she totally would have upstaged me on my own wedding day, too -- she was just gorgeous with a huge smile on every time I saw her that day!)

Due to a stressful relationship I was in during my years at Susquehanna and its unraveling during my senior year, I seem to have almost blocked out a lot of my time there. I guess you find ways to deal with things, and apparently this was how I "survived."

I have some really special memories of SU, though, and wouldn't you know, just about every single one involves Kacey.

There are the runs we were sent on by ourselves that may or may not have been a trick to sort of get rid of us... I mean, they had names like "prison" and "challenge" (think mental institution, people!).

The training room. AKA Temporary Injury Repair Exercise Shop, or TIRES, where we entertained ourselves with educational routines such as F***, Marry or Throw off a cliff. The nicknames we came up with...

There were the times where we put the "crazy" in Crazy Train... log rolling down hills, peeing on church property, getting lost, "My house is back there," drinking kerosene, "I'm from Jersey," theres-porn-in-the-bathtub, "Are these your sandals? I found them on the street," and many, many more.

There were also the times I may never have made it through without Kacey. I spent one weekend at a complete standstill, unable to move past a break-up of something I fought for and sacrificed for. I sat on the bedroom floor of my apartment, counting socks to see how long the person I loved would be gone, realizing there were too few socks to save a relationship, when Kacey just, without words, sat down behind me and held me and rubbed my back. She just knew.

That's the amazing thing about our friendship, we just know.


I can't wait to see her tonight. I'm excited to add to our list of adventures this weekend and to add to our stack of photographs and memories.

SU, Here we come!!!

What a life, Chochie

My "chochie" (Great Aunt) Marie, passed away yesterday morning at age 91. It's terribly sad to lose anybody, but for our family, it is our matriarch and our last member of my grandparents' generation.

Marie had a massive stroke Friday and was on life support. She never regained consciousness and never suffered, doctors say.

She lived a long, good life and was feisty til the end, spending decades after her husband's death with her daughter and son-in-law in sunny South Carolina.

Scott only met her once -- at her brother's funeral in 2007, actually -- and he loves remembering her HUGE personality, even to a then stranger.

We were sitting at a repast, a customary dinner following a viewing and funeral in the Ukrainian Orthodox religion. There were loads of emotions surrounding me and all of my loved ones that day. Over comes this short little old lady who pulls a chair next to Scott and says, "What's your name?"

Scott answers.

"OK. I'm Marie I'm gonna sit next to you."

Scott laughed and spent several minutes talking to her.

"She's great," he said afterwards.

She was unable to make it to our wedding last month, but sent me a note explaining that she didn't feel up to it but that she was so happy for us. She enclosed bits of advice in her pretty cursive that I will treasure always.

Chochie Marie's daughter told family that in her last couple of weeks, the elderly lady walked around calm and pleasant, explaining once that she had done all she could in life and that she was ready to see her husband and other lost loved ones.
How amazing.

I am unable to make it home for her viewing, funeral or repast this weekend, but I like to imagine that I would have to pick some unassuming cousin's boyfriend or significant other and say loudly, in my best Jersey accent, "What's your name...?"

You are an inspiration and a huge source of strength.
You will be missed.

Til we meet again...
(Please give hugs and kisses to Mommy, Pop-Pop, Grandma, Uncle John, Cuz Nick, and all the others...)

Happy Halloween

Hope your day was deliciously spooky.


What are your favorite Halloween memories or traditions?




Boo-st wishes! :-)

A pretty prance with Proud

Something literally had to hit me on the head to get me out of my self-induced miserable funk.

Albeit a leaf.


It's not how hard you get smacked with sense, but how much of an impact it leaves.

I had taken the puppies out for a pee-break when a huge yellow leaf landed on my head. A chuckle and a glance around and low-and-behold, it was a GORGEOUS Autumn afternoon. I had let it slip past me for a few weeks now. Not today.





I had a couple of hours to take off of my work day today, so that instant became that time off for me.

I grabbed my camera and just me and our greyhound Proud strolled down the driveway and into the comforting breeze as leaves danced along the street.

We went for about 25 or 30 minutes, taking a pause on a bench at an old schoolhouse on the hill to "talk." Well, he went "roo, roooooo, roo" and I blabbed while I scratched his ears.

It was perfect.

The company was great (Roo!) and the foliage is still lovely here.



























































And I just love my Proud Man.

Whiny Wendy

Let me say this:

I am excited to gain a new, bright, AWESOME office through Scott's ongoing renovation project.
I am, however, sick of paint fumes and my MIA husband.

I love my job, I really do. I feel that I am getting better and better at it, especially recently.
I have, however, sold my soul to the paper. And I'd like it back.

I am thankful for all of the wonderful presents we received for our wedding.
But people should know my gratitude is immense. I shouldn't have to write the same message over and over 120 times. And NO(!) I have NOT finished our thank-you cards, despite losing my husband to drywall. I sold my soul, remember?

I am so grateful for friends. I have reconnected with old (not as in age), special ones (bridesmaids, this is you). I have gained fantastic new ones (Emily, Jess). Gotten closer to semi-old ones (Ashley, you're totally in this category!).
Part of me, suddenly, feels like I have this huge disconnect with them now. I don't know what to talk about now that I can't blab about wedding dresses, stepmother's toasts and slideshow catastrophes. We're a married couple renovating our house. And we have nothing to share right now. We're boring. Dull. Tired. Secretive.

I'm actually focused, for the first time ever perhaps, not on the future and definitely not on the past. I'm all present, man. But I think too much. I'm running around in circles and at the top point of that cycle is always a funk.

And seriously, feeling sick for an entire week with NO relief or change of symptoms?! How can a person have no sniffles and no fever and just be blah, achy, tired, tired and TIRED?! What medicine do you take for tired? I'm getting LOTS of sleep -- and I've even napped a time or two. But I feel like crap. My leg randomly went pins-and-needles last night while walking through Lowes (to get items for the renovation project, of course -- for the third time!)... first my ankle, then my shin. It was up to my knee area in the car and when I sat on the couch, it shot up to my crotch. Awesomeness. It was gone this morning, but now I'm just back to the old symptoms -- times about 12 on the horrible scale.

Sorry for Whiny Wendy.
I'll try to bring someone else to the next post. This chick isn't welcome.


** Special thank-you to Jeannine and Ashley for your e-mails today. They were the glorious sunbeams of my cloudy-brain day. I love you both.

To a new friend

Dear Jess --
Thanks for a fun dinner tonight!
Life is far too short to not accept new friends into your life when opportunities -- no matter how random they seem or how late it seems in the grand scheme of things -- present themselves.
I hope this is the beginning of a long friendship with football watching, double-dating and many more get-togethers.
'Til next time... :-)

ME

A day-off schedule, courtesy of my hubby

I have to say this right now -- my husband (I LOVE saying that) is the cutest man in the whole world. We just have been getting better and better, literally by the day. I'm quite content.

Anyway.

I woke up this morning -- another day off for working this weekend!!! -- and found a "schedule" for my day on the kitchen counter.

It included items like...
... Sleep until 10:30.
Have hot cocoa.
11:06: Relax
2:00 : Take nap.

And some "pook-ing," but that's a whole other topic. :-)

I just thought the little Post-It was the cutest way to start my day.

So, I'll have to follow some of his "rules," namely the relaxing part before adding in some laundry and thank-you cards this afternoon.

Then, tonight, it's dinner (aka Mexican fun muhahaha) with Jess!

Have a good week. :-)