When asked about her trip to Indy to shop for bridesmaid dresses, one of my brides, Sheila, responded with this:

“Owing to the threat of snow, we postponed the trip to Martin Luther King Day Weekend (1/13 – 1/16) when the stress of Christmas has passed. As a result of this decision, it did not snow. Apparently, I control the weather.”

*snort*

I needed that.

95. Go to a movie solo

I went and saw Rent this weekend.

Honestly, I was a little wary of going to see this movie because I love the stage play so much. I love the energy, I love the music, I love the story and I didn’t know how it would translate. As it turns out, I was silly to worry – it was AMAZING. It was breathtaking and stunning and beautiful and true to the original and sooooo worth going to see. I want to go see it again to take it all in again.

Interestingly, I went into the movie not expecting to change my opinion on certain songs – I figured that if I liked it on stage, I would like it in the movie and vice versa. For the most part that held true but there was 1 song that I was neutral on in the stage version that I LOVED in the movie – I’ll Cover You. What an amazing song – especially the reprise at Angel’s funeral. It never touched me in the stage version like it did on the big screen. Of course, I love Jesse Martin so that probably didn’t hurt the situation.

Rosario Dawson does a fantastic Mimi, I wasn’t sure what to expect but she blew me away. The rest of the cast was the original cast from Broadway in 1996 and they were, of course, amazing.

Never forget that we have an amazing 526,600 minutes to spend in a year.

When embarking on this journey to complete 101 things in 1001, I had 1,441,440 minutes. Just under 3 seasons of love. Pretty cool and something I should take more time to appreciate.

An old friend of mine from a different lifetime (Back when she was Kerri Keaton and I was Emilie Curtis) has started an invite design company called My Goodness.

Kerri is cute as a button and her designs match. She has a great eye and will certainly be able to come up with something fabulous for you.

Go visit and tell her Emilie says hi!

49. Build up a 3 month emergency fund in savings

I forgot to mention this but with the deposit made to the ING Emergency Fund account on 11/18, I can officially mark this as completed!

(I love ING. The current interest rate is 3.75% APR on their savings accounts. Highly recommend!)

Short version of the last 7 days:
*Moved to Lexington – sort of.
*Hubby threw his back out.
*Our previously friendly Explorer turned into Christine.
*Went to my husband’s Christmas party and swapped stories about being a “construction wife” with the other “construction wives.”

Short version of the last 7 days – but longer:
*Moved to Lexington – sort of: The movers came to the house in Ohio on Monday and Tuesday. We met them in Lexington bright and early Friday morning. Got everything into the apartment and storage unit but WOW, I forget how much stuff we have. In the last 3 years, we have gone from a large house in Dallas (2100 SF) to a medium house in Cleveland (1400 SF) to a small apartment in Lexington (1000 SF). This means one room in our 2 bedroom apartment is stacked floor to ceiling with boxes. This means living out of said boxes and trying to figure out where the heck they packed the Tums and the DVD of Bend it Like Beckham. (Oh, I say sort of because I am going to be living in Cleveland until February. But all my stuff is in Lexington. Like my husband and my dog and my Tums and my Bend it Like Beckham DVD.)

*Hubby threw his back out: Randy has a bad back so all the driving he has been doing + the unpacking and general rearranging of boxes we did on Friday and Saturday + the stress of moving = Randy in pain. He is contorted into a shape vaguely reminiscent of a big Z. Basically his torso is jutting to the left and his hips jut to the right. Not so much fun. A few trips to the chiropractor and he will be fine but he is out of commission for the time being. (Of course, this all necessitates that we find the Tums quickly.)

*Our previously friendly Explorer turned into Christine: Picture this: driving from Lexington to Columbus on Saturday afternoon for the work Christmas party. Going slightly over 70, no one else around, dry pavement. I turn on the cruise control and the car takes off on me, quickly accelerating to nearly 80. I hit the brakes to turn off the cruise control but ‘Christine’ is still speeding up! Randy tells me to pump the gas pedal as I realize it is floored – completely bottomed out. After a few good kicks and me prying at it with my toes, it finally gives and we get back to me being in control, not the car! A little more adrenaline, please. Apparently ‘Christine’ does not like cruise control over 70 – new government car control mechanism, perhaps? Eh, doubtful. She has 100,000 miles on her and she gets cranky – no more cruise control for us. That was a little frightening as it has never happened to me before – just glad someone in the car was calm and knew what to do. Hint: it wasn’t me. (I really could have used those missing Tums)

*Went to my husband’s Christmas party and swapped stories about being a “construction wife” with the other “construction wives.” (Forgive the single gender references but construction is still a male dominated industry – very few “construction husbands” around.) It is common knowledge among the wives of employees of large national or multi-national commercial construction firms that you once you marry into the business, you will be moving for the business. Case in point – this is my 4th state in 5 years. (Ohio-Texas-Ohio-Kentucky.) Now, it isn’t fun (really, who likes packing and unpacking? And WHERE ARE MY TUMS!) but we knew it was going to happen when we got married. Whenever you get large gatherings of construction couples, the wives invariably start swapping moving stories. This is most fun when done with people of varying ages – the more broad the range, the more fun. Really freaks the youngins out. At our table on Saturday, we had Ann at over 20 years married to construction, myself at 5 years with construction (the moving started right after we began dating so I count those two years prior to the I Do’s) and Stephanie, girlfriend of 1 year. Ann and I actually went pretty easy on her considering some of my early moving conversations were with couples who have moved to no less than 8 states in 14 years!

So, that was my weekend. I have bought exactly 5 Christmas presents. Really need to buy more but I am not going to the mall until I find the Tums. Probably means some of you are getting your Christmas presents sometime in April. Merry Aprilmas!