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Our Longest Run

Our lil’ baby Marriage is turning one today! We are so proud. We created her ourselves by signing checks and a marriage license. Amidst the postpartum excitement, we also swore we would run a half marathon together. Holy Commitment.

Our first run as a married couple was on our honeymoon in Tahiti. The scene was as picturesque as you can imagine. Blue skies. Bluer water. Tropical flowers and vegetation spilling on to the path, we ran. My face was less like blushing bride and more like beet-red. As I wished for a full breath in 95 degrees, 100% humidity, I reminded myself: That guy ahead of you is your Husband. Appreciate this.

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Aside

The View from Here

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“That’s hibiscus! And that’s hibiscus! That’s hibiscus too,” I tell my husband. Pouring onto the skinny, two-lane highway are bushes bursting with these pink, yellow, red and white flowers. Amidst car exhaust and reckless pedestrians, hibiscus stays wide open and sturdy, begging the sun and the bees with their loveliness. The bright orange stigma among the petals seem phallic to me. I assure myself that they seem this way to the other honeymooners as well.

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How to Change Your Name

Step One: Secure a Gmail account per your personal preference before it is scooped up by someone else and save your password as “thisisthenewme”. Complete those steps so far in advance that you will have no chance of remembering the credentials.

Step Two: Several months after the wedding go to the Social Security office and contemplate changing your first name too, when you notice how quickly and easily you can create a new name for yourself. “Miranda” has such a nice ring to it.

Step Three: Let new Social Security Card sit in a drawer while you tally up the other places you have to call or visit to finish this business and wonder if going to the Social Security office and asking for your old name back is permissible.

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Why Great Grandma is Still Great

grandmaAuthor’s Note: This post is for my family. It is a re-post of the eulogy read at grandma’s funeral one year ago. She is still great and still missed. Her knick knacks sit on shelves and her plants live in sunny corners of my house, comforting me with her memory and presence.

Great Grandma is great because the title in and of itself makes her so. She makes faces at you while you sit on her lap and pull tissues from her sleeve. She proudly watches you play with a bucket full of Legos, decorate her Christmas tree or hide behind her curtains and affirms that you must be “just the cutest thing.” After you leave, she is constantly reminded of you. Your handmaid projects and photos cover her fridge and her dining room hutch and fireplace mantel. Your pictures sit next to her bed and in a rocking chair and even in the living room window, facing outward for her neighbors to see. You are the newest and most exciting part of her family and you are probably her favorite.

If you are her great grandchildren, you know that Great Grandma is great.

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By The Way, We’re Married Now

Eric and Allie-492I walked up State Street towards the Capitol with the Love of My Life. I savored my surroundings and gladly accepted our photographer’s request to walk slowly. My shoes were fabulous but not functional. The weather was meteorologically pristine and was made pristine-er by a preceding week of rain, which always seems to heighten appreciation for an averagely nice day.

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The Wedding Checklist

cartoon_bride_1Wedding planning has been underway for fifteen months, so I am compelled to dispense something that resembles advice to people who are currently planning or plan to plan a wedding.  I began with a list of practical applications to the process, such as “create a wedding binder” and “delegate”.  When I let my fingers wander over the keyboard to explore the topics, the logistics took a back seat to a MEB revelation.

One of the first items on my checklist was Get in Wedding Day Shape. I’ve taken this to-do as an opportunity to fulfill a lifelong dream in which my arm muscles look like they are flexing even when they are not flexing. Soon, I will be able to do one full pull up. I’m not talking about a chin-up. Lance Armstrong does chin-ups. Champions who don’t cheat do pull ups.

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To My Brother On His Wedding Day

The brother you’ve barely heard me talk about is getting married today. I only think of him when he sends me a text or when we have our quarterly phone conversations.  A five minute call gets pretty awkward pretty quick because we would prefer to be in the same room ridiculing one another. The most fabulous thing about my brother is that we don’t speak for months and then pick up right where we left off the next time we see each other.

He tortured me in high school. I remember screaming at him for “vandalizing” my well-decorated planner with sketches of middle fingers, Happy Gilmore quotes and references to middle school boyfriends. I thought his friends were cute. They thought I was annoying.

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Why Great Grandma is Great

Great Grandma is great because the title in and of itself makes her so. She makes faces at you while you sit on her lap and pull tissues from her sleeve. She proudly watches you play with a bucket full of Legos, decorate her Christmas tree or hide behind her curtains and affirms that you must be “just the cutest thing.” After you leave, she is constantly reminded of you. Your handmaid projects and photos cover her fridge and her dining room hutch and fireplace mantel. Your pictures sit next to her bed and in a rocking chair and even in the living room window, facing outward for her neighbors to see. You are the newest and most exciting part of her family and you are probably her favorite.

If you are her great grandchildren, you know that Great Grandma is great.

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By the Way, We’re Engaged

My boyfriend and I got engaged nine days ago. Let me predict and field all of your questions right away.

  • We don’t know the wedding date yet.
  • We would like to wait at least five minutes to have babies.
  • The ring is the bomb-dot-com. Not that you have to ask, since you zoomed in on the ring before you saw the man who proposed.
  • This blog will not change to Mrs. Early Bird. That does not sound as cool and my coolness is very important to me.

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