For the last time.... I'll tell you when I AM engaged!!!

Dear everyone,

I am not engaged. I am in a serious relationship with marriage in my future, but I am not officially engaged yet. I do wear a "promise" ring on my left finger, but it doesn't mean that I am planning my wedding. Trust me, when the time comes, you will know.

Love, Kelli

Seriously, I get asked this question more frequently than any other. I think once a couple in their mid twenties and beyond has been in a serious relationship for over 6 months, people start swarming them, posing the marriage question, asking when babies are coming, wondering what city they will retire in. World, please! Slow down! Relax!

I love D with all my heart, and he loves me too. But we spent the past year dealing with some pretty heavy crap, and now we are taking time to enjoy our relationship without it revolving around cancer. There are some people in my life that the first thing they ask me every time I see them is "When are you getting married?" Please don't ask me this question. If I am happy with the state of my relationship, you should be happy too.

Some of the worst offenders are members of our own families. Apparently, over the 4th of July, D was grilled individually and collectively by his parents about when he would be proposing. Hey, note to world: guys aren't really into pressure. Lay off! The other night my elderly grandmother told me she wants me to get married before she dies. Suuurrreeeeeee, THAT doesn't make me feel any guilt!

Forgive me if I sound frustrated, but I am. I've never been in a happier place with my relationship, my life, my job, my friends.... but people seem to think something must be lacking if I don't have a (bigger) ring on my finger.

So, for now, please let us exist in a sinful peace, let us live together, have fun, and we'll get back to you when we have plans.

Sunblock Application Lessons

I could really use one of those. Even after almost 26 years, I still haven't managed to master the finer points of sunblock application.

This weekend was river floating in New Braunfels, and it was awesome. I had been a river floating virgin, but now I wish I could go every weekend. The weather was perfect, I felt relaxed, the beer stayed cold.... it was just an ideal way to spend a weekend.

I'm a little lobsterish today, though. I am totally loving those new spray on sunscreens, but I missed a few spots. It leaves me with some very random circles of red around my body, which is mildly uncomfortable. I'm lucky enough to be blessed with olive skin, so the red will soon turn to tan..... but then I'll be left with weird tan lines. Oh well, I consider it a small sacrifice to the river floating Gods :).

I think the weekend was a success, we gossiped, talked about the wedding, ate penis cake, and drank lots. Sleep was something I didn't do a lot of, so I'm now starting my Monday under the weather.

Tomorrow night is my Team in training informational meeting, and I'm so excited. I think it's going to be really motivating and get me even more excited about running. Running is still seeming pretty daunting right now, but I've started my training, and while it's going to be a gradual process, I'm ready for the challenge.

Penis slap

It's bachelorette party time! I'm leaving tomorrow for New Braunfels to celebrate Maggie's impending marriage. And despite what my title may indicate, I'm hoping to get out of the weekend WITHOUT a random penis slap in the face. (memories of Katie Coleman's 23rd birthday are haunting me).

I'm ready for a weekend of floating the river, hanging out by the pool, and drinking beer in the sun. Here's hoping the weather cooperates with us.

Sick :(

As today has gone on, I'm feeling worse and worse. I've had a bit of a sore throat for the past couple days, and last night I started feeling a little nauseated. I had trouble sleeping to the point where I left our room and went to the guest room so that I wouldn't keep D awake as I tossed and turned.

I came into work this morning feeling a little better, but maybe the lack of sleep just served to make me more run down.

I'm hoping that a warm bath and a good night's sleep will help.... I need to be in top form, as I'm going away this weekend for Maggie's bachelorette party. Sine I introduced the happy couple, I feel my attendance is important :).

In happier news, I am finally starting to tell how much my hair has grown, even though it still has a long way to go to get back to where it was. It's kind of doing a cute, flippy thing now.... it looks softer and more feminine. I guess I looked a little edgy and modern when it was shorter, but let's be honest, edgy and modern isn't really my style.

I also started my running training last night, and I huffed and puffed through my day one program, but I did it. Today is luckily a day of rest, and I'm back to it tomorrow!

Happy birthday, Boyfriend.... and Uncle Sam

It has been a seriously great past few days. From D's birthday to a relaxing 4th of July weekend, I've thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Let's rewind to the night before D's birthday, the night of the special birthday dinner. It turned out great! My menu was:

Appetizers: Crab Stuffed mushrooms and fresh sliced mozzarella
Entree: Pan fried salmon in grape seed oil and scallops in lemon butter sauce
Sides: Asparagus bundles wrapped in prosciutto and roasted garlic mashed potatoes
Desserts: Krispy Kreme bread pudding and chocolate covered strawberries

It might have been my finest moment in the kitchen ever. Anyway, D came home from work, and I had appetizers ready. He had kind of a rough day at the office, so it took him a little bit of time to unwind. When he was finally in a position to be showered with surprises and affection, I decided it was present time.

My first part of the gift to him was 3 items wrapped up. Let me preface all this with the one thing I know to be true in life more than anything else: He loves the Chicago Cubs quite possibly more than anything except me (I hope!). He watches almost every single game, he has a subscription to mlb.com to watch them online when they don't air on tv, and we often schedule things around when the Cubs play.

So, the first present he opened was a Cubs jersey with his favorite player, Kerry Wood's, number on it. Ok, great present number one. His second gift was this retro Cubs t-shirt that I thought was very cool, and he did too. Alright, second gift, good! The third present was a smaller version of the t-shirt I gave him, which caused a bit of confusion. That t-shirt was for me. D is always getting on my case about wanting me to wear a Cubs t-shirt to a game when they come to town, so I decided the next Cubs game we saw, I would wear a Cubs shirt for him. Nice gift number 3.

So, he was very pleased with his presents, and he thought that was where the surprises ended. Boy, was he wrong.

After D opened the first three gifts and thanked me, I told him I thought there might be one more gift. I went and got a large envelope, and I pulled a smaller envelope out. He opened it, and it was 3 sets of Cubs tickets. Danny started to thank me, but tell me I shouldn't have bought Cubs/Astros tickets that far in advance, his firm could probably give us their tickets at Minute Maid. I told him to look more closely at what park the tickets were for, and he realized the tickets were at Wrigley Field instead of Minute Maid, and D proceeded to get more confused then I had ever seen him. He slowly began piecing things together as I started pulling out other pieces of paper, like airfare to Chicago, hotel reservations, confirmations for dinner reservations, tickets to Second City..... we are going to Chicago!!!!!!

I have never seen D go speechless. And then get SO excited. Going to Chicago, seeing the Cubs at Wrigley field, taking a vacation.... he loved the gift. And I loved giving it to him. 30 is a big birthday, and I wanted to do something very special, and I think I succeeded.

Anyway, the rest of the night was lovely, and filled with talk of our upcoming trip (we are going August 2). I even talked to his boss in advance to make sure he could get the time off. I'm kind of proud of myself for putting this all together AND actually keeping it a secret!!!

Anyway, July 3 was D's actual birthday, and we drove up to Frisco, TX to visit his family for the long weekend. His folks live on an awesome lot overlooking a whole lot of land and a lake. It's a great place to get away from the city and be in a relaxing environment. Their community has a very nice amenities center with an awesome pool, and so it had the makings of an idyllic weekend.

We went out to dinner on Thursday night with his folks and one set of grandparents. We came home, and played hours of darts in their garage with his mom and dad, which was very fun. D and I spent the 4th of July running around, grilling out with his parents, and watching about 7 different fireworks shows from their back patio. It was the perfect place to watch the shows.

Yesterday we all went up to Lake Lewisville as part of D's birthday gift, and his parents rented wave runners. D and I shared one, and we had a blast. I had never been on one before, so of course he felt the need to terrify me on choppy water at 50 mph, but after I got used to it, I gave into my need for speed :). I got to drive as well, and it was awesome. We drove to Fort Worth last night to visit the other set of grandparents, as well as his uncle, aunt, and baby cousin. Babies make my heart melt, I can tell I already have baby fever.

D and his dad are out golfing this morning, and after lunch with everyone, we'll head back to Houston and the real world. I'm not ready for this vacation to be over, but it has definitely been the relaxing getaway that we have both needed.... and the next one is just around the corner!!!

Happy birthday!

I'm about to leave to begin to cook the meal that will hopefully give D a culinary boner (to steal a line from Top Chef). I got to work 2 hours early today so that I could leave 2 hours early.

I also FINALLY, FINALLY get to give him the long awaited birthday surprise that I have been planning for months. He doesn't read this blog, so he frankly has no idea I have anything special beyond the meal planned.

We leave tomorrow for Frisco, I'll be gone all weekend, so I likely won't be posting anything.

But in other news, I made the decision today to go and attend an informational session for Team in Training. I would really, really like to run the Aramco Half Marathon in January and raise money to fight my cancer. So, if I go through with this, be prepared for me to come knocking down the door for donations :).

C'mon, how can you say no to a cancer survivor trying to help eradicate the disease???? :)

Emergency room adventures

*warning, don't read if you are afraid of TMI*

So, yesterday morning, I woke with some... familiar symptoms. Oh yes, ladies, you know it: the dreaded UTI. It had been months since my last one, so I guess it was my time. I was only feeling mild discomfort when I left the house early to go and get an oil change, so I figured I could call my doctor and get a prescription called in. Well, while waiting for my car to be finished, the pain began to increase and increase, to the point where I was almost doubled over in pain. I went to the restroom to try and tough it up and pee.... and it came out red. I was bleeding somewhere inside, and it definitely freaked me out.

So, I decided to take a trip to my friendly neighborhood emergency room. The nice thing about being an MD Anderson patient is that it gives you access to their emergency room, which only patients are allowed to use. I signed in and got a room pretty quickly, but of course the process of finding out what is wrong with you is long, long, long. I checked in at 8am, and I got out around 3ish. The good news is that it wasn't a kidney infection or something more serious (which I was scared of), it was just a very serious hemorrhagic bladder infection (ew). On top of that, I got to spend a day hooked up to an IV with drugs that made me feel better, AND I got to watch Family Feud. It was basically like a day off of work!! :) I got discharged with a couple of prescriptions, and I went and got ice cream and french fries. Not really helping with my weight loss efforts, but I was feeling puny and vulnerable after a day at the hospital, so I needed some comfort.

So, when I went to the emergency room, I opted not to tell anyone. I, of course, called work to let them know I wouldn't be in, but I didn't inform my family or D until I knew things were okay. To be fair, my mom and sister were out of town in Austin, so a phone call when I was in the hospital would have only served to freak them out, and maybe make them drive erratically. D was working on about 6 motions that were due to the court yesterday, so telling him would have caused him to be distracted, and probably drop important things to come and be with me. Frankly, at this point, I am a hospital PRO. I'm not afraid to be there by myself, I'm not afraid to handle the doctors and nurses, I'm not afraid of (most) of the procedures they do there.... it really didn't occur to me to interrupt other peoples' days for my minor medical emergency.

But man, do you ever hear about it when you tell the people you love that you spent the day in the hospital. It apparently displeases them.

Anyway, I'm back at work today, feeling a lot better, and excited about a short week and a long holiday weekend. Tomorrow night is D's fancy birthday dinner, so I'll letcha know how it goes. ;)