steve

4 Years Ago Today, I Met my Husband

4 years ago, Steve and I finally met. I say “finally” as we met online (OKCupid) and had been emailing and IMing for roughly 3 months. During my last decade or so, I was a very active Livejournal blogger and chronicled e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. about my life. Including our relationship. The below posts were all written the day of our date. The “friend” I sent the picture to was, of course, Steve and it greatly amused him. Back then, he liked his cell phone a whole lot more.

During the last 4 years together, we went from living separately, living in his miniature 1 bedroom apartment for 3 months, moving into a huge town house, adopting Lola, changing jobs (us both), unemployment (us both), a trip to Pittsburgh, experiencing several snows (aieeee!), moving to Homestead, my graduation from ECU with my bad ass MBA, a trip to Las Vegas to get Married, a trip to West Virginia/ Ohio, meeting new friends, and so many other things.

Basically, it’s been an amazing trip and I am so freakin happy that we finally had a mutual day off from work (him) and homework (me) to meet.

I loves you, Steve! <3

ps- sorry for the lack of caps and random sentences. I totally LJ’d with train of thought… Apparently I was busier typing than worrying about silly things like proper sentence structure.

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Nov. 28th, 2007 at 11:14 AM

cuz why not?!

i sent this to a friend and thought y’all should enjoy my dorkiness as well!
hehhe
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i have a date tonight. he’s 36, deli manager at [[Harris Teeter]] and lives in Chapel Hill. i met him within days of meeting asshat. stupid me for making such a bad choice. anyhow.. i emailed date-guy a few days ago to tell him i was single again and see how he was doing. we’d kept in touch over the months via email, but he totally backed off. i gave him a brief synopsis of what happened and he’s like “how the hell can anyone in their right mind walk away from you?? maybe he was blind? or just plain stupid?” haha cute ::ego boost::

he was seeing someone for a few weeks, but told me last night he dumped her. i kinda wonder if it has to do with me… if so, then i feel kinda bad! [[no, I didn’t feel bad. At all.]]

 

Fire
Nov. 28th, 2007 at 8:04 PM

date was good. more on that later. it got cut short because….

Nichole and Miles’ apartment complex caught fire. like the building next to theirs. they left with the clothes on their back and 1 of the kitties that they were able to grab before the firemen were kicking them out and making them leave. they’ve left to go buy some clothes to wear tomorrow. hopefully they’ll be able to get back into their place in the morning… or even later tonight. they certainly can’t sleep there. i’ve never so badly wished i had a bigger house! Phoenix and the cat they have, Minion are not pleased. Phoenix won’t come anywhere near her carrier and when i pick him up, he hisses. Minion is now in my bathroom with some food and water and howling like crazy.

the freakiest part is that there were 3 firetrucks in my tiny little cul-de-sac last night. there wasn’t a fire, in fact i’m not sure what it was. but i did go out and ask the firemen if i needed to evacuate. but Nichole said if anything happened i could stay with them. their place is considerably bigger then mine though.

 

date
Nov. 28th, 2007 at 9:46 PM

date went well. quite well actually. he unexpectedly got the day off so instead of meeting after 7pm, he called me around 5:15 as i was leaving work and we met for dinner. i had to go home to grab a package at my complex office then put on jeans and make it to the restaurant. i made it from morrisville to carrboro to durham (over by Sam’s Club) in just under and hour including changing clothes. i. am. good!

so we sat and talked and ate until i got Nichole’s call. i felt terrible leaving so abruptly and told him “i swear this isn’t the ‘date is bad, call and bail me out’ call.. it’s really an emergency and we;ll do this again very soon!” he sent me a text on my way back here telling me to be careful and not drive like a crazy woman. (oops!)

after Nichole and Miles left, i gave him a call to let him know what all happened. i guess i was babbling a little cuz he was surprised to hear that there was actually a fire and not just trucks. me, babble? heh. we tried to figure out another date and i told him that honestly i was crazy with finals until the 13th, but didn’t want to wait that long. he said he got saturday off. so i asked what his feelings on dancing were (not great) and then invited him to the PPD holiday party. he was only hesitant when i told him it was semi-formal. lol. though i think the vision of me in a floor-length gown kinda offset that. i love getting dressed up and sparkly! i told him i’d find out what the guys were wearing (co-workers’ boyfriends, etc) and let him know and he could make the decision from there.

so, uhh.. we’ve been talking sporadically for just over 2 months. our 1st date lasted about an hour and was super casual. our 2nd will be going to a work holiday party in semi-formal garb. hmm… interesting.

i don’t know the last time a guy i dated met any of my friends, let alone work people. can anyone think back this far? it certainly hasn’t been since i’ve lived here (july 21, 2006)

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Happy 1st Anniversary of 10.10.10

One year ago today, we said I Do in our gorgeous suite at the Luxor Hotel overlooking the Las Vegas Strip. My brother and future sister-in-law were there as our witnesses (and celebrating their 2nd dating anniversary) and my fab friend Kelly was there due to her husband being in another 10.10.10 Vegas wedding. Talk about perfect timing!

Sure, we’ve had our share of both good times and bad this past year. We made decisions about growing our family via foster adoption, we visited his family and spent a week in West Virginia, we spent 3 days in Orlando for MegaCon, and learned how to deal with seeing each other for only a couple hours a day due to our opposing work schedules.

Happy anniversary, my love! I cannot wait to move outta here, get grown-up jobs and raise our children together.

Lots and lots of love to the man that supports me and loves me for exactly who I am! I could not be happier to spend the rest of my life with you. <3

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8 Months and Counting

 

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Photo by the uber talented Emeric Photography

Happy 8 monthiversary to my husband and best friend! I love you more every day… Even during the times when I don’t like you very much. 😉 You make me want to be a better person.

We’ve been though quite a lot not just in the last 8 months, but in the last 4ish years. And yet, we can still laugh with and at each other.

<3

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25 Things About Me

I used to be very big on Livejournal. Once, a few months back, I used a blog printing website (LJBook.com) to create a book of all my posts and, that book? It was over 7,000 posts and 4500 pages. Now, keep in mind that I was very active between 2003 and 2008.

But I digress.

I was digging around to find some of my earliest knitting projects posted on LJ and not on Ravelry, and I found one of those “25 Things About Me” lists from January 2009. After reading though it, not a whole lot has changed. It’s posted below with the updates in green.

1. I grew up in the “country” of Miami. There were no sidewalks, no street lamps, and a bunch of horses around the corner. Oh, and the smallest lot in the area was 1 acre.

2. I learned to knit in a bar. By a half drunk girl. <3 Now I’m obsessed with knitting! Seriously love it. However, I have knitting ADD and rarely finish a project before starting a new one (or 3)

3. On that note, I collect yarn for it’s softness and colors. No clue what’ll ever be made with about 2/3’s of my yarn stash. But at least I did finally start organizing it all. (It’s in several bins by yarn weight. I’m actually starting to list about a dozen for sale that I likely won’t ever use.)

4. I am horribly terrified of spiders, rats and, to a lesser degree, snakes.

5. When I was about 12, my “job” was to feed the hundreds of birds that we owned. Did it all the way through high school.

6. Die hard Gator fan. Die Hard. Even though I’m currently enrolled and paying an arm and leg for my MBA at ECU, my love for the Gators vastly outweighs my love for the Pirates. (sorry ECUers!) (Scratch that, graduated May 2010)

7. I tend to start watching shows a season or 2 after they start and then watch every single episode. Like LOST, I got into it 3 episodes to the end of season 4. Then proceeded to watch every episode in a matter of weeks to catch up. (Yup, just did this with both Drop Dead Diva and Secret Life of the American Teenager. Oh, and Firefly. And Doctor Who. And Torchwood.)

8. I have a personal vendetta against Ben Affleck. He got Jennifer Garner pregnant and ruined my favorite show (at the time) – Alias. (I fully admit that this is weird, even for me.)

9. I will watch everything J.J. Abrams produced or will produce. By far my favorite producer/ director/ writer. (And bonus, he tries to always cast Greg Grunberg in everything he does! Love him!)

10. I want to have lots and lots of babies. And have a list of names that I love. Now to find names I love that overlap with names Steve loves. (uhh yeah, still have that list, but the overlapping list is far far shorter. Blah.)

11. I was engaged right out of college. My feelings for him paled in comparison to the person I truly loved when I was in college. We’re talking head over heels love as compared to lukewarm love. And we never even dated, that’s the sad part. (He and I are both married now, obviously to different people, but seeing his wedding pics was a bit bittersweet.)

12. I’d basically given up on online dating when I met Steve. I had no idea how things would end up even though I did know there was something special and different about him on our 1st date.

13. I proposed.

14. My parents have 25+ dogs and I can name them all… but only when I’m there and looking at them. And yes, the majority of them look exactly alike except for a few markings. (They’re down to about 20 now… I think. I honestly don’t know bc they’re never all out at the same time.)

15. I have 5 tattoos and counting, but not a single one is anywhere that will be affected by being pregnant or nursing my kids. 3 on my ankles, 1 on my neck and 1 on my hip. (7 now! The other 2 are on the collar bone and on the left wrist.)

16. I was raised in a Reform Jewish synagogue and had a Jewish education until the 10th grade. I have been celebrating Christmas with Jen’s family since I was 16-17 years old and can never even remember when the Jewish holidays are.. let alone observe them. Jen or my mom has to tell me.

17. Stars are my favorite shape and 12 my favorite number. (Other favorite numbers are 843 and 42, with the latter being 1/3 of my latest tattoo.)

18. One of my tattoo’s is a seemingly random cluster of 37 stars – 3 different shapes/ sizes. There is nothing random as I drew it in Photoshop very deliberately with a specific design in mind. Also, the 4th and smallest stars were left off as they’d have been nothing but a needle prick.

19. I taught myself web design when I was a freshman at UF. I didn’t like my dorm roommate very much and spent all my free time in CIS Lab (the computer lab) tearing apart websites to figure out how they’re made.

20. The majority of my friends in college were made on IRC back when the internet was safe – yes, there was a time when it was safe! We all met up in #uf and had reunions in Gainesville for years afterwards. Many of them I’ve found again thanks to FB!

21. By that token, I got online in 1994

22. When I finish my MBA (May 2010) I will be able to manage at IT department, and also know what they’re talking about since I’ll have been coding websites for almost exactly half my life. (At my age, that’s a feat!) (Will be able, err, am able… yet still unemployed by MBA standards. Grr.)

23. I’m a label whore when it comes to my purses. I own Coach, Lucky Brand, loads of Vera Bradley and a knock off Kate Spade. (While I do have a few Coach bags and tons of Vera Bradley’s, my favorite is a no name faux leather bag from Kohl’s.)

24. I’d love, more then anything, to learn more about my dad’s mother Clara. My brothers and I didn’t find out she’d even existed until a few years ago and it was unbelievably weird and freaky to find out that his step-mother wasn’t his real mom. It was also somewhat of a relief since she always treated me like I was the most horrible person ever. BTW, Clara died when my dad was very very young before he was moved to Florida from Chicago. (I still don’t know very much, though I do know her maiden name. However, that’s about where my knowledge ends. :()

25. I am the only bridge of communication between my parents and brothers and my dad’s step-mom’s family. My “cousins” are awesome even if the parental/ grandparental generations don’t get along.

*wow. that was really difficult to come up with.*

Clearly I haven’t changed all that much in the last 2.5 years.

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Wedding tattoo… Finally!

Hipstamatic [tattoo] love | BeccaBlogs.com EDIT: It was brought to my attention that I will need to cover this up for jobs and, of course, interviews. Yes, I already knew that. But does anyone have any suggestions for what to use? I’m talking stragically placed bracelets or even make-up. Thanks!
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On Saturday, I got my 7th tattoo. It took me 7 months and 4 days to get my wedding ink. No, I’m not one of those people that has my hubby’s name inked on me; I don’t believe in that stuff. Call me superstitious. The only names I’d ever remotely consider are those of my children.

But anyhow, countless versions of the same general idea later, and it’s finally inked. I knew I wanted to incorporate love and our wedding date. I knew I wanted something not entirely obvious. I knew I wanted it on my left wrist.

And I’m pretty sure I succeeded as several folks have asked what it means since I got it.

So what does it mean, you ask?

First off, the Hebrew is the word for love: ahava. This came pretty late in the design game.. Like in the last few months. I checked, double checked and whatever the word for hundreds of times checked for the proper Hebrew letters. C’mon, we’ve all heard the horror stories of getting another language on your body with the incorrect spelling or meaning. I downloaded Hebrew fonts, drew it everywhere, drew it all over my hand, and love every version of it. Done deal.

The 42 is actually our wedding date. No, I swear I’m not insane! It is the numerical equivalent of the binary 00101010. Or 0+0+32+0+8+0+2+0. it is also the answer to love, life and everything in the universe. I know you’ve seen me reference that several times on here. Like here. And here.

So what d’ya think… not so obvious a meaning? 😉

Now why such a visible place like my left wrist? Believe it or not, it’s pretty easy to keep hidden if you hold your arm the right way. But the location is because when I’m in a bad mood, I always sit with my head in my hands, and predominantly my left hand. I wanted to always have a clear and visible reminder of why I’m doing what I’m doing and the help to get out of my slump and move forward. My husband and partner. My best friend. My family. My life. We are in this together and now I have an ever present push to stay positive about everything we’re working towards.

And it doesn’t hurt that the final version of ahava was the one he drew out for me at dinner last week. He was trying to mimic the letters of my Hebrew name tattoo that Stacey drew for me so many years ago.

So far, it is my favorite ink full of such amazing meaning. Are you inked? Are they sentimental and mushy-gushy like like one? Would you ever get (or do you have) someone’s name inked on you? Do tell!

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Whirlwind Trip to my Favorite City, Gainesville

Gainesville | BeccaBlogs.comHello friends!

We got back home from our whirlwind trip to Gainesville around 10pm last night. We’d gone for an interview for me and some side work for my current position. Also, hubby was scouting out info on opening his own comic book shop and was talking with the owners of all the shops in town while I was interviewing and working.

That’s right, I said interview! In Gainesville! (AKA my favorite city on the planet – tied with Chapel Hill.)

The position would be a truly amazing opportunity for me. Not only is it design work, it’s a supervisor position for a team of 3. And it’s a government job. With great benefits, etc. No, I really don’t want to write more about it until I hear that I’ve gotten the job. Which is on Monday. So, yes, I’ll be obsessively checking my email and voicemail all day Monday.

Chicken eggs? Check. Basket? Check. Now stay together and hatch!

Yeah, I have super high hopes for it.

But anyhow, we drove up Thursday afternoon from Homestead to Gainesville in mostly good weather. We did have a few patches of craptastic rain where I could barely see 50′ in front of the car, but we survived just fine. That night we went to Target Copy Archer to print some resumes and references. I didn’t know anyone there that I knew, but did chat with a friend of a friend after I mentioned I’d worked there. Then dinner at Outback and then headed to Hotel Bayer (one of my best friends parents kindly let us stay) for the night. We ended up staying up and talking for hours with our gracious hosts until she finally pushed us off to bed as my interview was early Friday morning.

Friday we woke up super early, showered, got ready, and were out their door by 8am. We stopped at Starbucks along the way, then drove into town towards downtown. We found parking with about 15 minutes to spare. I took deep breaths trying to calm myself while hubby de-furred my black jacket and pants. [Damn cat hair gets everywhere!] Then I went into the interview. Yadda yadda yadda interview interview assessment assessment and done.

From there, I picked up the hubby from the comic book shop he’d walked to miles away (he did have 2 hours to kill!) and drove out to Renaissance Printing to visit with Marlene, Ben, Gina, Laura, Kristie, and Colleen. It was weird seeing all the different people that I hadn’t seen in many years, but awesome getting so many hugs. They were all so excited about the prospect of my moving back. After that, we went to Target Copy University and talked to Jennifer and Karen for a while. More hugs, happiness and excitement at my possibly moving back. While at TCU, we had lunch at Firehouse Subs, I talked to my aunt and she sent me a list of things to ask/ look for with my very first case manager gig.

Next I dropped hubby off at another comic book shop and drove out the Tacachale. I met with the social worker, flipped through AM’s file, asked lots of questions, met AM, took his picture, and took lots of notes. As my aunt said, this was like a trial by fire, feet first. And I succeeded! It was really cool to go out there and see how this population that would otherwise be drugged up and locked away somewhere was able to roam free in a completely safe and secure environment. The client I met is severely mentally retarded with several other problems and is just about as independent as he can be. He even has a job and his own house! Seriously. It was really amazing to witness.

After this bit of work, I picked up hubby, we hit up another comic book shop, then went to meet Jackie, Ella and Riley for some TCBY fro yo. Um, yum! I hadn’t seen Ella since she was an itty bitty thing and had only seen Riley in pictures. It was great to catch up with her while Steve and Ella colored. It was really cute!

From there, we met up with Mitch, Diona and all their kids. As per usual, Mitch and I started hitting, slapping and punching each other almost immediately. It was great. And so far, the bruises haven’t surfaced. Yep, we’re so very much like my brothers and I used to be many years ago. We ate, we laughed, we talked, the kids played with their phones. From there we went out to Cold Stone (along with seemingly half of Gainesville) for ice cream and more talking and laughing. As it got later and the kids started drooping, we went back to their house so the kids could get to bed and we could hang out some more. More laughing, talking, and kicking, then we left around 1:30am to head back to his parents house. Yeah, it was a reallllly long day for us.

Saturday morning, we slept pretty late then sat outside with Mitch’s dad, drinking coffee and enjoying the gorgeous day. Boy do I miss that town! Our next house will have either a front porch or a cute back yard patio. Or both. Preferably both. It was breezy and cool and just perfect. Perfect for sitting in the morning before work or unwinding after a long day. We finally decided where to have brunch, packed up our stuff and headed out. By the time we finished lunch, it’d gotten so much later then we wanted to leave so, rather than go walk around Micanopy, we got on the road back South.

We had a lot to discuss on the drive back home including more about my interview, lots of hopes and extremely tentative plans. The best part is that, while nervous, I honestly don’t need to get this job to survive. I do have an opportunity down here, even though it’s not in my field. Plus hubby is working a great job and all the experience he can get will only help him in the future. I also slept for a couple hours while he drove. Hubby driving is like my own personal concert bc he had the radio up really loud and would say the song title and band name prior to belting out any songs he knew. It was quite amusing!

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A few bad things about the trip did happen. First, it was commencement weekend which meant there was a LOT more traffic and congestion than usual. We tried to avoid the UF area as much as possible, which meant I couldn’t show hubby half the stuff I wanted too. I didn’t get to see a lot of the Gainesville friends I wanted to hang out with due to scheduling conflicts, but hopefully we’ll be back very soon! Also, bc of timing, we didn’t get to see Jen and my babies, who live in Jacksonville. Unless we’d woken up super early on Saturday to drive the extra 90 minutes north, it wasn’t going to happen as the boys both had baseball games today. My mental plan to have lunch around 12-1pm with them then head back south didn’t work out. But, again, hopefully we’ll be living in North Florida again soon and can see them anytime.

Now we just cross our fingers and hope and pray. And try to stop looking at houses in Gainesville until I hear something!

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Taxes: Paying for the First Time in Ages

Every year for as long as I can remember I have done my taxes myself on taxact.com and gotten a nice refund back. I even turned my not so tech loving hubby on to taxact a few years ago. This year we had a ton of things for our taxes, not to mention our first year filing jointly.

After spending a few weeks waiting for all our W-2s and his 1099, I plugged in everything as usual and didn’t like the resulting number in red glaring back at me. A number that we owed. Ouch. Stupid 1099, even for 4 months, cost us a fortune.

Gone are the days of getting back $2-3k. Hopefully temporarily.

We held off on filing hoping a solution would appear to reduce that horrible number. Well, yesterday we went to H&R Block which, while helpful, was also EXPENSIVE. We spent a couple of hours working with 3 ladies who knew various things about 1099s and managed to reduce that horrible amount owed by about $300. However, in the end we owed them $350 in fees. Um, what?

We also learned from the client at the next booth that adopting a child earns you about up to $10k in a refund. Wow. I had no idea. And we want to adopt siblings. Insane. But also I’m sure there’s people that foster/ adopt just for the money. Sorry, tangent…

It was a very expensive lesson to learn, but from now on you can bet I know how to track all our deductions and expenses from his 1099. And with my new job, I might have a 1099 as well. Ugh.

If you or your spouse/significant other are a 1099 employee, how do you track expenses, etc? I need to implement a system immediately and find receipts from the past 4.5 months. For once I’m thankful for hubby’s pack rat wallet tendencies.

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Coming Atcha From MegaCon in Orlando

Hello from Orlando, FL!
[well, technically we’re home already.. but I’ll still write it like we’re there.]

Steve and I are here for a long weekend for MegaCon, a huge comic/ sci fi/ fandom convention. We drove up early on Friday and after checking into our hotel, came to the Con for a few hours to wander, gawk, snap pictures, and attend a few panels. It’s my first Con and a total blast!

After a few hours at the Con, we had dinner with Marie and Eric at Adobe Gilas at Pointe Orlando. Dinner and the company was fantastic, but poor Steve had been up for 27 hours by the time we crashed back at the hotel around 10:30. It was an early night for us all due to Steve’s 27 hours awake and Marie’s working at the butt-crack of dawn the next morning.

20110327-042023.jpgKevin Sorbo

Saturday we got up super early (a by-product of going to bed super early) and took our time getting ready, eating at Golden Corral (surprisingly good!), then heading back to drop my car off and head to the Con via the I-Drive trolley. I’m actually pretty annoyed that no one at the hotel told us it took exact change only. We didn’t want to spend another $8 on parking, so we walked the 0.8 miles. I know, this doesn’t sound so horrible, right? However, we’ve been walking the equivalent of several (10+) miles each day and my feet already hurt.

C’est la vie! We walked. As Steve sat in on panel after panel, I wandered the main exhibit hall with my cousin Audrey and her daughter Melanie. Mel had her Yellow Rick Road Productions sign and was having fun snapping pictures of costumed attendees and comic book artists holding the sign. I sat in on the James Marsters and Stan Lee (!!) panels with Steve, until he went off to others he was  interested in.

Stan Lee | BeccaBlogs.comStan Lee!

After a full day of panels, pictures, gawking and enjoying ourselves, we slowly walked back to the hotel and had an early dinner at Johnny Rockets at Pointe Orlando. Mmmm milkshakes and sandwiches. From there, we drove out to East Orlando and spent a few hours with his great aunt and his cousins. Mr. Up-at-4:30am was perfectly fine being out till after midnight. I, on the other hand, was falling asleep on the couch.

Sunday we were up early again, had breakfast at Golden Corral again, then drove to the Con. To me, it was a much more chill day after the insanity and thousands of people on Saturday. We attended a few panels together, then I took off to walk the entire exhibit hall floor, row by row, as he sat in more panels. Seeing Steve so excited was great. He was in his element learning about publishing comics and furthering his passion for drawing. We had dinner at Cattleman’s on I-Drive then ended up back at the hotel where we fell asleep early, yet again. Cattleman’s was good food, but grossly overpriced! $80+ for 2 steaks, a la carte everything and $6 small soups is ridiculous in our opinions!

On Monday, we slept in, checked out of the hotel and then went off to look at the house Steve lived in for several years, then visited again with his family for several hours before getting on the road home. Sadly, it rained like crazy the entire day and followed us back to Miami.

All in all, the weekend was fantastic and I couldn’t be happier that we went. It was like a mini-vacation perfect for our 6 months (almost) of being married.

** These are crappy iPhone camera pictures and I do apologize for their graininess. I have hundreds of higher quality photos that I’ll be posting soon enough. **

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