Goodbye

For two and a half years I've been blogging here on Wonderous Clusterf#@k.  I've bitched about working part-time at Sbux, shared my adventures, posted far too many pictures of my Cheese, and everything else in-between.  But, sadly, I feel it is time to call it quits.  While I've enjoyed sharing my thoughts, dreams and pictures in this space, I feel now that it is not the best use of my time.  I've recently been going through some major life stuff, stuff that is too private and emotional to discuss on here.  Let me just say, that in these last couple weeks I feel like I've been put through the ringer and what I've discovered about myself is that I can actually handle those hard and unfortunate parts of life pretty well.  Even those parts that you don't see coming a mile away and hit you upside the head and knock you unconscious.  Yeah, not fun.  But, while everything isn't as peachy right now as I once thought it was, it is my hope that one day I might know the happiness and contentment that I once did.  Though, I'm sure it will not come easily, I am lucky to have exceptional people in my life who ground me and look out for me.  To those people, you know who you are, I love you and I am beyond grateful for the support you've shown me through this rough time.

To everyone else, thank you for following.  Thank you for being just the tiniest bit interested in my life and what I had to say/show.  I am grateful for all the thoughts and comments you've shared.  Maybe I will see you again, someday.  Until then, I hope you all have a great summer.

Much love,
Jessica   

Double Secret Surprise Time!

In a couple weeks my mom is turning 60.  Crazy, huh?!  And get this, my sis is turning 40 this December!  Where does the time go?  Anyways, my dad wanted to throw a surprise party for my mom.  But when he approached the topic with my sister and I, we practically simultaneously said "Hell, no!".  Well, it was two separate phone calls that he made, so it wasn't simultaneous...but it would have been if we were together!  See, while my dad or my sis would love to have a surprise party thrown for them, they're the social types, my mom and I are the exact opposite.  The thought of a surprise party makes us crawl in our skin a little...okay, a lot.  Ugh, just thinking about the idea of a surprise party is making my stomach do somersaults!  Anyway, needing an alternate plan, my sister and I put our heads together...a dangerous thing.  But in this case, an awesome one!  And what we came up with might be the most perfect (for my mom) secret surprise EVER!  And, as with most surprises, it all starts with lies...

A couple weeks ago I planted the seed that Antoine will be out of town this weekend, visiting his best friend in L.A. (Lie #1).  So I said I was thinking about coming up for the weekend with the Cheese-man (Lie #2) and visiting, using a chance to visit my grandparents as my main reason for coming (Half-lie #1 - I will be visiting my grandparents but obviously mom's bday surprise is the main reason I'm coming).  What mom won't find out until I park my car in their driveway tonight is that instead of bringing Cheese, I'll have my sister in tow (Surprise #1)!  And instead of spending the weekend laying around not doing anything, my sis and I plan to kidnap my mom and take her to Cleveland for a girls weekend (Surprise #2)!  We've booked a hotel for Saturday night, thanks to Antoine's generous donation of hotel reward points (Surprise #3)!  And on Saturday, after we have breakfast with my grandparents, we're meeting up with my hlp, Amanda (Surprise #4) and going to David's Bridal so I can try on wedding dresses (Surprise #5 - a biggie, since that's one of the wedding related things that matters most to my mom...and one wedding thing that doesn't exactly thrill me)!  Oh, yeah, and my sis and I did my wedding flower dry-run last night, so we'll be taking my mom a bouquet (Surprise #6)!  Here's a sneak peak of the bouquet we're giving her...

I gotta say, the dry run went very smoothly and didn't take long at all!  And, as I expected, it consisted mostly of a lot of sister chit-chat!  I'm really looking forward to doing the actual flower arranging the day of with my sis, mom and Amanda!

Ok, where was I?  Oh!  We're taking mom to to Melt Bar and Grilled (Surprise #7 - what what!!).  And we're taking her on a little birthday shopping spree (Surprise #8) and to Lucky's Cafe for breakfast on Sunday (Surprise #9)!  Her head might literally exploded from all the awesome surprise-fun this weekend!

It should be a blast!  Hope you all have a great weekend, even if it's not filled with double secret birthday surprise shenanigans!

Orchid Fever

...Or "My flowery version of wordless Wednesday.  Oops!  I forgot it's Thursday.  Crap!  And also, yay!!"

 

The Life of a Basset Hound

Fact: my dog is a lazy lump of fur.  Don't get me wrong, Cheese is a playful, fun-loving dog.  He loves to be outside running, exploring and meeting new people/new dogs.  But, there's another side to him...the lazy side.  Like most basset hounds, Cheese spends anywhere from 14 to 20 hours a day laying down and/or sleeping.  It's what basset hounds do.  It's in their nature.  And if you ask me, there's little else in the world more adorable than a basset being lazy, in their element.  They turn into a big pile of floppy, snoring cuteness.  And here's your proof...

It doesn't get much cuter, right!?  Yeah.  Anyway, have a good day everyone!  Am I the only one who keeps thinking it's still Tuesday!?

Simple Moments

I realized something the other day, though I'm certain it's not the first time a person has come across such a realization, nor the first time I have in my life, for that matter.  What I realized was this, life is made up of moments.  Moments that stand out and moments that don't.  Moments that we forget about 30 minutes after they've happened, and others we will remember for years or even the rest of our lives.  But remembering these moments isn't the important thing.  After all, we only have so much space in our heads to store them and they can't all fit up there.  So, after time, even the best and most life-changing, most transcendent of moments will often fade.  Maybe they will be replaced by some other earth-shattering happening, or maybe they will be forgotten just to make room for that moment when you accidentally swallowed a bug while you were canoeing.  We have no control over this, and some of us (me!) seem to remember less moments than most people.  But let me state again, the remembering is not the important part.  No, it's the realization that all these moments are special in some way.  Maybe because they made us laugh or because they taught us something (however painful that thing was at the time) or maybe they made us appreciate something/someone in our own life a little more.  Every single moment touches us, in some way or another.

Films and books tend to focus on the big moments, those life-changing moments that rock the core of you and transform you in some way.  Because, those are the moments that matter the most, right?  I don't think so.  I've been thinking a lot lately how people say that your wedding is the best day of your life.  Through reading I've come to see that not all people believe that.  Sure, your wedding should be a special moment, it's the day you make a public commitment to share a life and marriage with someone else, for the rest of your life.  But isn't it the life and marriage afterwards the really rewarding part?  To me, it seems like it should be.  The wedding is just a ceremony, put on, mainly (at least in my case), for the people around you who you love.  For me, it's the marriage, the moments after the wedding that I'm excited for.  It's the little, inconsequential, and often ordinary things that I can't wait to experience.  Those simple moments where I step back and realize that I am completely content and blissfully happy with the person I have chosen to share my life with...all while we pick out flowers for our garden at our local home improvement store or walk along with our snowies talking about nothing in particular.  It's those simple moments that I'm really excited about.  And I know I won't remember most of them, but I hope that every so often I can stop and realize just how special they are...