Sixth Sense

Whoa. Kinda went MIA for a minute there. It's not that I haven't been doing anything, because I have. But I just wonder sometimes why I force myself to blog when I'm not feelin' it at that moment. I don't have to, you know. I learned that. But I do have an obligation to stick with something I started, right? If I'm gonna stop this thing, I have to make the decision to do so, not just fall off the planet inadvertently. Whatev.

I struggle with a quality-over-quantity issue. But I use this blog for more of a public journal than anything else, so what's the freakin' deal? I'm not going to write a masterpiece often enough to only post when I do.

I also don't want to be a Taylor Swift type where everyone is like, "She'll probably blog about this later," and roll their eyes and stuff.

I have this temporary office job now. I'm filling in for a girl (lady... woman... How old is too old to be called a girl?) who just had a baby. I like it and all, but it's taken me a little bit to not resent the job because I have to be there. I have to rip myself out of bed every morning before the sun even shines in my window and go to this place when I don't want to have to. Is that so wrong?

But complaining is SO 2013 and I'm not wanting to open that box every day, even though I crack the top a little bit. I'm thankful for a job when I need it. I'm thankful for a husband who wakes up before me for the sole purpose of turning on the heater in the bathroom and fixing my lunch and making breakfast for me and making sure I get up, even though he hears "but I'm so tired" and "it's so early" and "I can't go to bed at 8 every night just to not be tired right now" every morning from his whiny and half-asleep wife.

This summer, we've been married 4 years. I think it should feel insane, but it doesn't. It feels better than all the years before. I love him more than I ever knew I would, except this isn't the you're-cool-so-let's-be-together-forever honeymoon love. It's the kind where I look at him and I know him and he knows me, and I value the choice I made back then more now than I ever have, more than I could have when I walked down the aisle.

Weddings are great, but I've come to love anniversaries more. Attending other weddings is fun and beautiful and I think YOU ARE AWESOME FOR THIS! GO YOU GUYS! And then I want to flash ahead really fast to their first and fifth and tenth and twentieth anniversaries. Because you toast to the future, but then you learn first hand that the future is hard and everything has changed but nothing has changed. Life is still life and you are still you, except now you have this other person there all the time. And slowly, I've learned why I made that commitment, even though I didn't quite know why at the time.

Love, you know. Maybe it's a sixth sense.

2013

Last year, Justin and I celebrated the new year by going to Walmart and buying all our favorite snack food and setting it up on a table in the living room while we watched the NYE celebration on tv. We were by ourselves, and it was like a fun sleepover party where we watched Fergie and her hip dancing thing that we ended up imitating all year.

This year, we're doing the same thing. I'm looking forward to Fergie, and hopefully she won't disappoint. We have the best mashup of snacks and chips and salsa and stuff that will probably be way too much to eat in one night.

Right now, it's already 2014 on the east coast. We have less than an hour left in this year. This may be our last year to spend New Year's Eve at home alone, and we are making the most of it.

I hope 2014 is as promising for you as I feel it is for me. I hope it brings you magic and blessings and laughter and good even if it's sad or imperfect sometimes.

Happy 2014!

December

I love the holidays. At first, you'd think it's for the food. (It's totally for the food.) But really, when I think about it, I absolutely love the atmosphere. The energy. The ambiance. It's probably the only time of year when you can experience a windless Oklahoma night. If you're lucky, there will be snow on the ground, glistening in the mixture of moonlight and colorful Christmas lights.

There are few things I love more than sitting in my living room on a December night, under a blanket, basking in the glow of the Christmas tree. (Pinterest is probably part of this experience.) And, if I have my way, some sweet Christmas music would be softly playing in the background, and the Scentsy would be filling the room with Christmas Cottage.

This is the precious time of my life when Justin and I can spend hours together under glowing Christmas lights in the calm of midnight, interrupted only by our dog's snores. Playing loud and hilarious card games, drinking chocolate milk, and maybe indulging in the occasional midnight snack. Laughing at how much of a difference a year can make, how far we've come, and where we want to go in the future.

This time of year is significant for many reasons. I celebrate the birth of Jesus. I celebrate family. I celebrate the peace I find during this holiday in quiet moments, however long they last. But I also celebrate the beauty in an ending. The end of a year. The end of a season. We need it. We need this time to say goodbye. To celebrate a year of good and bad, of difficulty and of blessings.

The time I have now with everyone I love is invaluable. Throw in some holiday food and... Well, it's not heaven, but it just might be the next best thing.

23 Years

I've lived on this planet for 23 years and a day. More, if you count gestational time, but I won't. I've learned a ton of stuff, most of which amounts to the fact that I know basically nothing. Some of it, though, might actually be useful in the future. Might have been useful in the past, too, but here I am, mostly better for it.

When I was 5 years old, my sister, Peyton, was born. I remember, like it was yesterday, being fascinated with age, asking my parents all kinds of questions. "How old will Peyton be when I'm 6?" Still 0. "How old will I be when Peyton is 6?" 11 years old. I freaked out. ELEVEN?! I'll practically be an adult!

This cycle continued for years, until I turned 17. Then, I didn't care. I felt perfectly content as a 17-year-old, and when I turned 18, I welcomed it with open arms. It was time.

Now, 23 seems simultaneously perfect and premature. It's certainly not old, but aren't I supposed to have life figured out by now? Aren't I supposed to know what I want?

I know myself better. I'm more myself and still not quite myself yet.

I had a list of things I've learned lately that I was going to share. I decided not to use it. Seems silly, at this point, because one of the main things I've learned is that I still have so much left to learn.

But I made it this far. And I know where I'm going.

And that is enough.

Music Monday ON A WEDNESDAY! "Say Something"

I present to you the FIRST EVER Music Monday on Reghanland... ON A WEDNESDAY! Because why not? I make the rules.

This week's focus is "Say Something" by A Great Big World feat. Christina Aguilera. The song is beautiful, vulnerable, simple. The music video made me cry, but it seems everything does these days. I truly hope you feel the song and enjoy it.

Picking Up Chicks, Lesson 1: Get your own card

(Kora, the star of the show.)

Let's say you're at Tres Cantina on a Thursday night. You're there because someone you know - your cousin, perhaps - is playing there. It's a beautiful night in the late summer, so they've opened up the back patio, which is a perfect setting. You've got your best friend (who is also your cousin, extended, by marriage, who will share credit with you forever on making that marriage happen so you could be cousins) with you.

Let's also say that there are three guys hanging around near your table. They are going on and on about something, which turns out to be the "well water" they ordered. They find it extremely disgusting, and they offer you and your friend some. "Heck no," you say, rightly so, since, HELLO, that's gross. Plus, the guys in this hypothetical situation are harmless, but in other situations, you could totally get roofied that way. Duh.

One of them sees your iPhone. It's clearly a 3GS, so he asks when you're due for an upgrade. Let's be honest, it doesn't matter when you're available for an upgrade. He would've responded in the same way. He pulls out a Best Buy business card. Turns out, he's an employee there. He writes his name on the card, since it's actually someone else's card, and tells you to stop by and he can hook you up with an upgrade.

Do you go?

...Your answer should be no. No, you don't go. It's certainly not the worst pickup ever, but it was absolutely not successful, and homegirl (yours truly) next to you was trying not to die laughing right there, and you don't even live here, and he looked like he could easily have been 15 years older than you, and a bar & grill on a Thursday night in a city you don't live in is certainly not where you pick up guys who look 15 years older than you and give you someone else's business card so you can drive to see him at his work on the premise of getting an upgrade.

It's weird.

Cruise Post 2 of 2: Belize & Cozumel

Read part one to get caught up.

Belize City, Belize

Belize City was the second of the three ports of call we visited. The coral reef is protected, so our ship couldn't dock on the port. We had to anchor out and take a 15-minute tender boat ride to the port. The water where we were dropped of was very brown and had a lot of trash floating in it.

There are huge gates that separate the port shops from the city itself. From what I've heard, this is for the best. You can go into town, but nobody recommends it. The prices are dirt cheap (I hear) but it's extremely dangerous. Even being in the shops outside the gates, there were people with flyers crawling on the huge gate and laying on the ground, sticking their hands through, trying to lure you into town to take their $10 tour.

Don't know who that man is, by the way.

Drink stand.

It rained for a solid 5 minutes, and the rest of the time was perfectly warm and sunny. The prices were decent, but they weren't cheap enough to make me return for the shopping. They have a restaurant/bar called the Wet Lizard, which seems like a fun place, but we didn't eat there. We got back on the boat and headed to the ship much earlier than we planned, which ended up being for the best, because many people nearly got left behind! (We believe this was because of the people running the tender boats. The last boat ran at 4:15pm ship time so the ship could leave at 5 - which it did. However, when the ship stopped, we were on our balcony, watching 4 loads of people get dropped off from the boats. They had no idea. They were all taking pictures and waving at us, having a grand ol' time. Ignorance is bliss, I guess, until you watch your ship leave without you.

Catch a fish, drop a fish, catch a fish, drop a fish...

Cozumel, Mexico

Cozumel is a more popular port. That's nice for them, but not for us Americans. From the port where we docked, there all kinds of shops and a couple of restaurants to see. It's all very pretty, and just strolling around is nice. It's extremely commercialized, though, and the prices are astronomical. You can take a 10-minute taxi ride into town, but we have yet to do this in the two times we've been there.

Our prepaid excursion was for snorkeling and a beach party. However, because it was so cloudy and rainy, we had the option to get a refund instead. I will not deny that, at the time of the offer, I was very much in love with the idea of getting back on the ship and taking a hot shower & a long nap. But, since we had so many people in our party, we decided it was all or nothing - either we all went on the excursion or we all got back on the ship. The majority, myself included, voted we ignore the crappy weather and do the excursion as planned. I am SO glad we did, too, because snorkeling was amazing!

We boarded the catamaran, which holds 130 people and is usually full for this excursion, ended up having around 20. When we got to where we were snorkeling, we got our gear on and jumped in the water. Between the cloudy sky and the rain, you couldn't see below the water's surface. When I jumped in, I was not prepared for the beautiful sight. I jumped directly into a school of fish! I'm sure the water was not a clear as in the daytime, but you could see all kinds of coral and other fish in the distance. The salty water was disgusting, and eventually the waves made me seasick for the first time in my life, but I can't wait to see the photos we took. I'm excited to snorkel again someday.

The only sun we got all day.

We got back on the boat and went to the beach, where we played on the huge inflatables in the water and ate an $11 meal. (Yes, $11 per person: big burger with potato salad and pasta salad.)

Overall, the whole trip was amazing. Honestly, I could go on a cruise and never get off the ship and be perfectly satisfied, but now I know I can never pass up another opportunity to explore Roatan or go snorkeling. I can't wait until our next cruise.

*All photos in this post were taken with my Samsung ST76.

Cruise Post 1 of 2: Roatan

You guys.

Justin & I went on a cruise with some of his family (and a handful of others) late last month. I am here now to tell you all about it.

We sailed on the Carnival Magic for seven days and visited three ports:

1. Isla Roatan, Honduras
2. Belize City, Belize
3. Cozumel, Mexico

This is our second cruise. Our first was with on the now-retired Carnival Ecstasy (which is currently being transformed into the Carnival Sunshine) a few months after our wedding in 2010. We were completely by ourselves, and it was the first trip we had taken alone. We drove the near-8 hours to Galveston, stopping to sleep in Conroe the night before boarding. We were so excited and anxious, we drove around the Port of Galveston for 10 minutes searching for our parking lot (which ended up being right in front of the terminal). We were so relieved to just get on the ship! It was terrifying and awesome, and it wasn't until this cruise that we realized how special that time was. We look back and just want to pinch our own little cheeks for being so adorable. (And we're sure we'll continue this cycle for the rest of our lives.)

This cruise, we had 10 people in our party. Besides Justin and myself, we had 5 family members, 2 friends, and a neighbor. We drove two cars, and the car I was in ended up being the fun one. (Duh.) The trip down was extremely stressful, but we made it Conroe intact. We all ate at Wolfies for dinner that night, which is a really good seafood restaurant that sits right on the lake, but many of us were disappointed that they were out of crawfish for the season. AND the most upsetting part is that the servers were all wearing awesome Wolfies t-shirts and sweaters that wouldn't be available for customers for another 2 weeks! Lame.

View of Roatan from the ship in port.

We fell in love with Roatan. It was the first of three stops, and that set up the other two for complete failure, honestly. The people are amazing, the landscape is beautiful, and there's just a sense of community there. We met up with our tour guide, Kislin, who has been leading tours for 16 years. We were taken ziplining first, which is way more fun than I imagined. Afterward, we got to play with some monkeys and see their other animals, like toucans, sloths, and deer. (No deer hunting in Honduras, by the way, unless you want to go to jail. They told us the deer only have two babies in their lifetime, so they are very protected.)

Coconut trees and campaign posters.

View of the ship from the zipline cliff.

In Roatan, most everyone speaks both English and Spanish. The official language is Spanish, but the primary language is English. The teacher/student ratio is so unbalanced that they split classes up so some kids go to school in the morning, and the rest go in the afternoon. Most college classes are taught in the evenings.

An old wrecked ship by the other port in Roatan. (That's the Carnival Victory, not ours.)

Our tour guide took us to the pharmacy so we could get some medicine for one in our party with a sinus infection. They went in to buy the medicine, and the pharmacist asked if they had a prescription. When they said no, she immediately went in to tell the doctor. $20 and half an hour later, they had seen the doctor and gotten their prescription. (Talk about health care.)

The pharmacy.

We had lunch in a small restaurant right on the water. The view was awesome on all sides, and the food was great. The tacos were similar to American tamales, and comparing authentic Spanish food to a type of Americanized Mexican food made me laugh.

Walking up to where we'd eat lunch. (That's the owner of the restaurant.)

The view from my seat at lunch.

View of the restaurant from the pier. We're in the top part!

When we finished lunch, we continued our tour and ended up at a private beach called Parrot Bay. I had taken so many pictures all day, my battery died when we got there. Because of that, I wasn't able to capture the tiny hermit crabs Justin and I encountered as we walked around the water, or the dead squid we saw on the bank. This private beach was surrounded by nice townhouses (contact Century21) and also included a beautiful private pool.

After that, we headed back to the ship. Even though I was tired and sunburned, it was truly sad to leave. We intend on going back someday, and maybe if I'm lucky, we can have a vacation home there! I vote yes.

*All photos in this post were taken with my Samsung ST76.

Tyler's Birthday

You know what I love?

Birthdays.

Not just my birthday. And not even for the gifts. I prefer two things: 1) a ton of friends to accompany me to a restaurant (Dave & Buster's is a recent fave.) and 2) some sort of lunch/dinner meal with family and pie.

Angel food cake is also perfectly acceptable.

I have the added benefit of my birthday being on or almost on Thanksgiving, and if you know me at all, you know this is pretty much my own personal heaven. Because FOOD.

Anyway, I love birthdays in general. They're like their own holiday. The sprinkles, the sparkles, the mood, CAKE. Can I get a woop woop for some neatly or not so neatly wrapped gifts? Y A Y !

Maybe you think birthdays are childish. To you, I say stop harshing my mellow. If your heart doesn't sing at a chance to celebrate life, maybe you should find your inner child and realize that birthdays are for everybody!

So, my good friend Tyler turned 21 on Monday. Woo! *fist pump* His ID was expired, so we spent most of the day trying to renew it. Such a long story. We ended up not getting it renewed, but AS IT TURNS OUT, only 1 of the 3 places we went even looked at the expiration date. (They wouldn't accept his birth certificate. I asked.)

The grainiest photo in all the land.

We went to Cheesecake Factory, his restaurant of choice. Others may hold different opinions, but I think this place is the bomb. (It should be noted that I exclusively order pasta here.) We get the oh-so-delicious guacamole and some surprisingly stellar mojitos for which they didn't even ID us. I'll forgive them for it, though, because first of all, I don't want to look like a minor. Second, our server was the best server probably ever.

My blueberry mojito. *swoon*

He also had an Asian pear martini which he says is awesome but I'm just going to take his word for it. And OF COURSE we got cheesecake, which is arguably the best part of the whole thing.

We met one of his sisters at Edna's, which we learned is totally in a weird and awkward place. The walls and ceiling and basically the whole inside is covered in dollar bills. Some new, many very old and gross, but apparently the fun is to find your last dollar each time you go. Tyler and I decided we prefer to spend our dollars instead of staple them to the walls, but in honor of his birthday and experiencing something new, he put a dollar on the wall.

We didn't stay here long. We followed up with a visit to Henry Hudson's for the free t-shirt, but this dude was definitely doing his job and saw that Tyler's ID was expired, so that was a short-lived experience. The guy was "killing our vibes" anyway, as Tyler put it, and we only went there for the free t-shirt, so we couldn't be mad, really.

Watch out, World, this crazy is totally legal and now has access to all your favorite hang-outs. Unless your favorite hang-outs are places like Dave & Buster's, in which case, all of us have always been allowed in there and we've probably had a blast together already.

I am Susie Homemaker

When I'm laying -- lying... whatever -- in bed at night, I just shut my eyes and think. I'm not that tired, but then I get a text. Suddenly, I'm the most exhausted I've ever been, and simply opening my eyes would use up the very last fumes of energy I have. It's not about the time, it's not about who. It's the fact that my brain decided to sleep already. Sorry, I don't call the shots. Brain does. So I lie, eyes closed, havin' a good ol' back 'n' forth with my brain to decide of it would be worth it to just wait and open the text in the morning, when my eyes don't weigh a zillion pounds and my arms aren't so perfectly snuggled under the warm covers. Last night, that happens. I answered the text, except then I had to get up and pee, and my scalp was throbbing because my hair has been in a bun all week, and I could taste toothpaste in my mouth, which was surprisingly unpleasant.

And really, I'm not lying in bed, I'm lying on the couch. Because that's where we've been sleeping lately. We have a mission today to go to my parents' house and retrieve our bed and dresser. The bed we have been using was left by the previous homeowners (we're tenants here, not owners) and let me tell you about this bed. IT'S HORRIBLE. The box spring is broken and the mattress has to be the first mattress ever made. It finally got to the point where I couldn't move my neck even to drive, and the couch looked preeeeetty comfortable. So here we are, today, finally getting our big, awesome bed from my parents' garage.

To make room for this, though, I've spent the last three days fighting in the cleaning war I waged on this house. It was overdue for a good cleaning anyway.

I won't go into all the gruesome details, but just know that I am amazing and I should have been a stay-at-home wife much sooner. My brilliant plan is to make myself invaluable as Susie Homemaker so Justin will see I am much better off here than at any 9 to 5.

That probably means it's time I got on the cooking train.

...Hahahahahahahaha I'm not getting on the cooking train. I'm Susie Homemaker, not Betty Crocker. Let's just be honest with ourselves. If I get on the cooking train, all my loved ones need to host an intervention, because I'll either like cooking suddenly and the real Reghan has been abducted by aliens, OR I'll weigh 400 pounds and everyone else will starve because I have a habit of eating all the food as it cooks.

So... what's the best way to clean a mattress?