SPRING 2008 EDITION

Winter was truly starting to feel far far behind us when Spring finally arrived!! Thank goodness – I was beginning to get over the record breaking snowfall we had this year at home! We hope everyone enjoyed their April showers and May flowers. And thus, we welcome you all to the SPRING 2008 EDITION of The Newlyweds Blog.
And until next season's update....enjoy your Summer everyone!
xoxo, jen, justin, and hank
P.S. Feel free to post a comment!

SPRING CLEAN UP: Jen Goes Pyro

Who says I need Justin or others around to have a burn party? One overly ambitious night, in April, when Justin was at work late, I decided to finally get to it. Another year had officially bitten the dust as i cut down & cleared last years ornamental grasses and all the rest of the shit in our yard that I blatanly ignored LAST spring. I was quite proud of myself, however that proud feeling trailed behind my initial feeling of True Fear. As i did this by myself with several massive squeezes of the Lighter Fluid and those gay 12-inch long matches. Now – check out the fairly confident Jen in the first shot. It’s cool – I’m cool, this is fun I'm thinking. As you can see, I’m in the frame of the shot. Now the flames were actually larger just seconds before the click of the auto-timer went off on my camera. Ok, now check out the Thumbs Up i'm giving in the 2nd pic...yeah, keep looking you'll see it, over to the left. HOLY CRAP that went up as quick as the boner of a virgin getting his first lap dance! Yeah, so i had the lighter fluid in my hand and fully thought i was SO close to the flames for that shot, apparently I was not. I was everything but confident that time around. I swear I felt the peach fuzz on my earlobes curl up, frizzle and fry. I was having fun, all by myself. Sorry mom, it doesn’t look like I learned much from you when it comes to your life lesson of “jen, don’t play with fire.” Burn baby burn. that’s what we Michiganders do, here in Bedford County, come Spring, when our husbands are away at the office working late & we have a yard full of work to do. It’s called Productive Boredom. (My husband was proud when he came home to find my massive burn pile of ashes & the house still around & no firemen called to the scene)

SNOWBASH 2008, March

End of March, another framed pic of Snowbash goes up on the walls of Colin’s Vail condo. Justin thoroughly enjoyed his winter get-away this spring – his annual reward after the brunt of florida & the auction. Oh, of course, this reward is right in line with the reward of coming home to his loving wife......and her ever so growing HONEY DO LIST she's managed to almost effortlessly add to during this period of time. Anyway, back to Snowbash. We, as in the wives/girlfriends/fiances of these guys have been pondering a little bash of our own, and OH do we dare call it “Maxi Bash” per Rachelle? or better yet, as Tamara suggested this month “Bush Bash”. I love it. It needs to happen. “Period.” (and yes, pun intended on that last word noted). And boys, don't get your panties in a bunch (as justin often says to me) we wouldn't do Bush Bash anywhere near you guys ;)

MORE COWBELL

When doing spring cleaning throughout our house back in april, I came across a Mix CD that i made my friend Tim years ago titled “More Cowbell”. I immediately jumped on You Tube and executed my search. Enjoy this classic skit from SNL. Hail to the chief, Will Ferrell! Oh how I do love Will. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvqB0uwLj0k

TERRY TURNS 60!

My dad turned 60 this April. And from the looks of this pic on his bday – he doesn’t give a shit. Dad, you look seriously GREAT for 60!! But then again, as 30 is the new 20 (I do feel 24), 40 the new 50, I guess 60 is the new 50 then, huh ☺ One of his gifts was a big box of old style candy from back in the day....like the candy cigarettes you see in this shot.

RTB SUPPORTERS Feature

Justin is still building on RealtimeBid.Com's success from the Februrary Florida auction rolling it over into the Spring auctions for the first time. http://realtimebid.com Currently he is fine-tuning his business plan, fielding interested client prospects & excited about what the future has to bring in terms of Live Video Bidding Online. I think Justin could be real successful if he would just offer Live Video Bidding of Overseas Brides. Now THAT is a niche to fill – screw the construction equipment! This edition’s Supporter of RTB: Dougy, salesman for the NorthEast region, Yoder & Frey, and one fantastic guy.

HANK'S FRIENDS Feature

This edition of Hank’s Friends features Tralee, Emerson & Kaya. Tralee was my Uncle Rick & Aunt Linda’s 9 year old black lab. Unfortunately Tralee had to leave them & this world this Spring. I really hope she’s having fun romping around up there with Emerson & Kaya (my very very VERY precious golden retrievers who left me years ago). Emerson was my first love (shhhh, don't tell Hank!) and that was in my early 20's when i didn't have a digital camera - i'll soon scan a photo of Emerson for this feature & post it. God knows i have enough of them.

BLAST FROM THE PAST Feature

Sylvania, Ohio. My Junior Year, Justin's Sophmore, 1990/1991. It was the year of love, oh yeaaaaa. Me, at my highschool sweeheart’s house (that would be justin) with Peter, his dad. Let’s hear it for Peter and his big fat cigar & me and my big fat curly hair and my what-the-hell-kind-of-shoes-are- those-shoes! They’re kind of sick. Oh and the total gay crossing of my arms, why am I sitting like that!?

“YET ONE MORE THING JUSTIN DID NOT SIGN UP FOR”

So one night in December 2 yrs. ago, in front of Justin lounging on the couch enjoying a movie, I obsessively yet VERY JOYFULLY decorated our xmas trees & put up all our xmas decorations around the house. I started at 8pm and went continuously through the evening breaking through into what we all know as those wee hours, 5 am. That was around the time when Justin, after falling asleep on the couch for several hours awoke, gazed up at me, and said (or more like sleepy-ly mumbled) “What’s up Christmas Crack”. And then went right back to sleep on the couch. It was friggin’ hilarious!! And it could not had been a more appropriate-dead-on evaluation of the situation. I was clearly flying high on my christmas cheer, flying high on it straight through the night till the winter sun peeked into our windows again for another winter day.

WELL. Two years later, this Spring, in May, while I was digging incessantly with a shovel into our backyard for several hours straight, denying myself of even the tiniest break, like a flipping marter or something, Justin walked on by me, never stopping & with a smirk on that cute face of his he looked at me and said once again ever so appropriately but this time replacing the word "christmas" with "garden": ”What’s Up Garden Crack” as he continued to just walk on by to do whatever it was he was doing that day outside. And again, the statement was hilarious! So there it was, I did it again. Obessively…YET Joyfully, i jumped deep into another seasonal “task” for hours on end. Which brings me to the actual title of this posting: Yet One More Thing Justin Did Not Sign Up For.

Sure Justin signed on that dotted line on the Marriage Certificate that one beautiful Vermont sunny day back in July last year. But throughout our PRE-married and now BLISSFULLY married life (wink), justin often finds himself involved in, what I now refer to as, “things he did not sign up for”. Always with bells on, he jumps right into these often over planned “projects” of mine, and usually at a fairly last minute’s notice, again all with never having signed up for any of them ☺ And THANK GOD I have a husband like that because more than not I’m discovering I could never complete these goals of mine and put that big-ass check mark next to it that signifies “DONE”, if it were not for all his help! Justin, once again, props to you. So this time around - it was my vegetable garden. We now have our very own vegetable garden! well it’s mine, he doesn’t even like tomatoes and if things go as successful as planned we’ll be eating, drinking, canning & sleeping friggin’ tomatoes (YUM! 6 varieties of tomato plants). Oh, and we'll just be eating cucumbers, hungarian hot peppers and gypsy peppers. but I just don’t feel right saying it’s all mine when during all of my digging out of this garden he wheeled away over THIRTY VERY HEAVY wheelbarrows of sod & dirt (“very heavy” being the instigator of why Justin was putting time into something, once again, “he did not sign up for” ☺). And this was just the beginning of this little project of “mine.” There were SEVERAL other stages of the garden that my hubby helped me out with or flat out just did himself.

Now, I speak casually about all of my husband's help but I want everyone to know this: I did acknowledge to Justin, after one of his final stages of helping me (he resourcefully bent, wiggled & broke old wire hangers in half and made these handmade loop things that I would shove into the ground over the soaker hose to keep it from popping up in certain areas) and i looked up & said to him: “my love, thank you for all of your help over the last month, I know you didn’t necessarily sign up for this”. He giggled in a tone that conveyed no problem it was my pleasure & cutely said: “well baby, I would venture to say there are a lot of things with me you didn’t sign up for either.” And we both smiled. It was actually really sweet. Awwww us newlyweds, are you puking yet?

Oh. ONE MORE THING. After all of our hard work, justin did something …..you got it……one more thing "he did not sign up for." He willingly, and with a smile, escorted me with a flashlight over to my plants around 11pm at night, the first day I had planted them, so I could “talk” to them before I called it a night, as was adviced by my inspirational “Garden Mentor” & cultivator of my greenhouse’d veggie plants, my 2nd cousin, Raymond. Yeah – I just couldn’t go to bed without giving my fragile baby plants a little initiation pep talk (grow for me and don’t let me down now dammit!!!) No, it was more like “my sweet sweet veggie baby plants, so fragile looking, I’m wishing you well - now you grow good for me, ok? Because i have never done this before. And this was ALOT of work to get you here.” I spoke those words in my soft high pitched hank-tone voice, so if they’re anything like my dog then they’ll gaze up at me every time I near them, always with so much love in their little baby plant eyes, and they’ll live on this earth with the main goal of wanting to make me happy. If only I could win their love (& ensurance of heavy veggie production) with treats, like I do with Hank – I suppose that would be called WATER, huh ☺

You can check out the link below for an Updated Slideshow of our Garden.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=cce4pp5d.3fwbs5sd&x=0&y=-whwake&localeid=en_US

DO YOURSELVES A FAVOR, You Thirty Somethings

So this post is for all those friends of ours that are those "Thirty Somethings". Do all yourselves a favor - and bust out the Rage. Rage Against The Machine, what a way to bring in the morning sun at 5 am when driving through the Green Mountains. This spring Justin and i headed to Vermont & NYC. We didn't set out to drive straight through, because like the morning slackies we both are we got on the road at 5 PM, duh! But we found oursevles in a pickle, no where really to stay so towards the 10th (of the the 12th) hour of this drive we found ourselves a replacement for Justin's Mountain Dew Code Red and my, well i don't drink coffee so my quick-wake-me-upper. What a great 50 minutes & not to mention very effective way of waking one's ass up during a long drive! It had been way too long since that angry, dreddy, venting, u.s. government despising kick ass band played through our stereo. so bust it out!! i do think ya'll just might thank me for the suggestion. Complimentary Preview link, Bullet In The Head, Enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkuOAY-S6OY&feature=related

HOLY SCHNEETOES: David Cook

So i am one of those. One of those people that watched American Idol through the winter into the spring. And Justin would oblige me towards the last few weeks of the show and watch it with me too. Often times he would find me raising my voice in either complete joy or utter disgust after a performance of one of the finalists. The disgust i can tell you ALWAYS followed that idiot dreddy white boy Jason Castro (thank god america didn't crown him the winner otherwise i would have had to boycott the show next year, 4th place for that dipshit was enough to give me the dry heaves more then the Dragster coaster at Cedar Point). Anyway....David Cook - Holy Schneetoes! He could not have been more deserving of the May victory. On the April 15 show he was forced to choose and perform one of Mariah Carey’s songs. Now, you wouldn't have to force me i am a BIG fan of hers & have no problem admitting it, as you see i have a very wide range of music taste, Rage & Mariah, does it get anymore polar opposite then this? however, i thought to myself, how the hell is this rocker dude going to pull this off, doing a song that usually involves a five-octave vocal range, without sounding ridiculous. Well, he managed to pull his style into it and it was awesome! He chose to perform Carey's “Always Be My Baby” & not only got a standing ovation from yours truly in her living room with Hank next to her side wondering what the hell his mom was clapping so hard for but he received the first standing ovation from one of the judges, Randy. Check it out....and if you don't like this please keep it to yourself rather then posting a comment on our blog that will only upset me tremendously ;) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rM4Ct-64PGk

SHOUT OUTS

• April. Lola’s 1st bday! Lola, you are so sweet. And i do believe, with your very first year behind you, that you have successfully bumped Marylin Monroe out of the "most photographed female" slot - this of course could have never happend without the help of your mom & her non-stop snapping of her digital camera! I know, I will be the exact same way don't any of you worry!

• May. Amy’s NYC National Stationery Show! Congrats to my sister, it was as TRUE Success!

• May. Raymond – you are awesome! Thank you for answering my countless emails of questions & for all your advice & guidance during this whole gardening venture! And let's not forget one of the most important things....the plants you greenhoused during the winter.

• May. Sam & Erin ENGAGED! Congratulations! We can't wait! Wedding Date: October 11, 2008 in Portland, OR

• May. JP & Boot welcomed their second son! Congratulations you guys!

• May. Justin's cousin, Erin, Graduated College with Honors! Congratulations Erin!

• June. Kelsey is an official Northview High School Graduate (with Honors)! Talk about feeling kind of old, i went to Northview and to think i was up on that stage 16 years ago being handed MY dimploma - it is really weird to me.

• June. Rhonda adopts her 3rd doggie! Hank can't wait to meet her some day :)

• Julie & Brian are expecting their second baby soon! Congratulations you guys! And this time it's a girl, one of each how perfect :)

• Tracy & Brian expecting their first baby soon! Congratulations you guys!

Until Next Season......Enjoy Your Summer!