Thursday, February 19, 2009

I succumbed.

I never do these meme things, but I got sucked in to this one. It was kinda fun. I would love to hear Clay's answers to the same questions. It might get funny!

What are your middle names?
Lori SHAY Cundiff and Clay ALAN Cundiff. I like both very much, and as 98% of you know, I have gotten a lot more use out of my middle name than most people ever do.

How long have you been together?
Holy Guacamole. We have been together THREE years, you guys! Clay is my longest running boyfriend since, like, high school? Our first date was January 31, 2006.

How long did you know each other before you started dating?
I only knew Clay through forums on the interwebs until that one day that we met at coffee and dinner out with friends. After that day, I guess it was only a few weeks until our first date. And after that first date, we were pretty much “Dating” with a capital D.

Who asked whom out?

This one was somewhat of a group effort. I kind of threw out the gauntlet, but through my coercion, he is the one who actually asked me out. Ok, fine. I made Doug throw the gauntlet because I was chicken.

How old are each of you?
I'm 31, he's OLD 41. Not that I would ever make a big deal out of our age difference. I like to think of him as vintage, and I certainly do LOVE all things vintage.

Whose siblings do you see the most?
This is an easy one since Clay is an only child. We definitely see Andy and Carrie the most, but that still doesn’t mean we see them enough.

Which situation is the hardest on you as a couple?
I don’t think we’ve really faced any of the hard stuff yet. I mean, sometimes his cats cause some tension (and by tension, I mean cat puke in the living room), but sometimes I leave some dishes in the living room. I’ve been known to go through irrational tirades, but those rarely have a reason, so I couldn’t call that a “situation” so much.

Did you go to the same school?
In Louisville, you only talk about your high school. Since we lived in totally different ends of the state, we never mingled much in high school.

Who is smarter?
Clay. He married me, so obviously that man is brilliant. But aside from that, Clay is one of those people who would probably just read the encyclopedia for fun. But since those no longer really exist, he reads Wikipedia for fun, which is kind of the here and now way to do that. Occasionally, though, I’ll put on my big girl pants and say something REALLY profound and common sense like, then act all smug, like, yeah, I know everything. It makes him proud.

Who is the most sensitive?
Did I mention those occasional emotional tirades? Those would be mine. Still waters run deep, though, and Clay can be really sensitive. Like when I mention nailing things to the walls.

Where do you eat out most as a couple?
In Louisville. At places that aren’t chains. I guess a running list of our most often hit restaurants would be as follows: Sushi at Sapporo, Burgers at Flanagan’s, Italian at Come Back Inn, Fast Food at Taco Bell, Chinese at Double Dragon, and then everywhere else.

Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple?
Italy for the honeymoon.

Who has the craziest exes?
I wish I could just go simple and say Clay on this one, but mine are so numbered and varied in forms of crazy that I would probably end up actually winning.

Who has the worst temper?
Miss Kitty. Tempers really haven’t found their way into our relationship much. I know it’s hard to believe, but at some point along the way, I learned that being rational really does get you further. I'm pretty sure Clay doesn't even have a temper. If he did, I'm CERTAIN I would have invoked it by now.

Who does the cooking?
Clay does the cooking, and for good reason. Remember that question about who was smarter? I married a chef. Any other questions? I do the baking, though, and sometimes the clean-up, too!

Who is the neat-freak?
It’s funny, because we each have our specific things that drive us crazy. The mound of dishes by my recliner in the living room for three days went totally unnoticed by me, yet Clay had to put his foot down on that one. The whiskers all over the sink in the bathroom, though, make me insane. I think we just kind of complement each other, so that it’s never too overwhelming.

Who is more stubborn?
This is a good one! I really don’t know. I guess I would say me, but when it comes to Clay I cave pretty easily.

Who hogs the bed?
We both hog our OWN side of the bed. There is a clearly marked line down the middle of the King sized bed. It is marked with body pillows. No one dares to cross more than a hand over the line once sleep time has arrived. We even have our own blankets so that there is no tugging or sharing. All of this separateness makes us MUCH closer in the long run, trust me.

Who wakes up earlier?
During the week, Clay definitely gets up earlier. He’s up at 6:30 to be at work by 7ish. I get up at a leisurely 8ish to be at work by 9:30. Weekends, however, are when Clay plays catch-up while I’m ready to hop up and face the day.

Where was your first date?
Our first NOT date was to Rich O’s Pizza. But that was NOT a date. Sort of. Our first OFFICIAL date was to Melillo’s Italian restaurant.

Who is more jealous?
I don’t consider either of us to be jealous. I mean, seriously, there is no other girl out there more perfect for Clay, so why would his eyes wonder?

How long did it take to get serious?
2 dates.

Who eats more?
No one goes hungry in this relationship. But Clay eats more.

Who does the laundry?
Laundry is typically my domain. Clay is always good about lending a hand and switching over a load when needed, but I do all of the folding, and most of the laundry in general. Clay vacuums. This is a very happy trade-off.

Who's better with the computer?
We have Doug and Andy in our lives for this matter. Andy might be taking some time off, though, since our fall-out over why the heck I would want a phone that I don’t even understand. Apparently my cloud is grey. Or empty. Or simply wrong.

Who drives when you are together?
I always try to push this one off on Clay. He’s pretty good about being my chauffeur, but sometimes he makes me drive. When this happens, I always pull into the gas station so that he can fill up my car for me. This seems fair to me!

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Lovely Weekend of Love

I love weekends. In and of themselves, they are just lovely. But this one, well, it exceeded all of that!

We'll first skip right over Friday, as it happened to be Friday the Thirteenth. I'm not superstitious, but it was kind of rotten. Clay is probably going to have scars to prove it. He got into a fight with the desk, and I'm really not sure who won. Injuries on both sides.

But since we're skipping Friday, I'm going to talk about Saturday. Valentine's day. I love V-day. Even when I was single, I loved V-day. The hearts and friends and cupcakes with sprinkles and cute little cards and hugs and such. What's not to love? But this Saturday was even better! Clay and I slept in, then we woke up and decided that was dumb, so we slept in some MORE. We FINALLY rolled out of bed and decided we needed food. We had a lovely Irish brunch together, then Clay decided he needed to go shopping. I kind of had a fun date afternoon in mind, but Clay seemed to think he needed new pants for our Valentine date that night. Do you know Clay? Clay doesn't wear slacks. And he's willingly requesting that we buy him a pair of slacks? I absolutely abandoned my plan of date day, and we went date shopping. We got Clay some snazzy date night pants, and also found him a DRESS shirt. As in, a real shirt with three numbers instead of just letters for sizing! WOW! Spiffy, indeed. At this point, I realized he must REALLY have something good in line for date night! All he would tell me was that we had dinner reservations at 7:00, but I needed to be ready at 5:30. Oh my...an out of town dinner date??? I obviously needed something to wear, too!! One can't go on such a spiffy date in her old clothes! We did a bit more shopping for me, then rushed home and spiffed up for our spiffy date, still having no idea where I would be taken. We headed toward Lexington, but stopped just short. Clay took me to the BEAUTIFUL and FAYNCY Holly Hill Inn. This is a big mansion that they've made into a nice restaurant in "historic Midway, Kentucky". They gave us menus, but our choices were merely meat or vegetarian. Bring on the meat! This was a NINE course Aphrodesiac dinner! A full explanation can be found on their website, but basically every course included foods that are/were considered "amorous" at some point in history. The menu had a really neat write-up about the reasons each food was used. It took us about two hours, but we rocked all nine courses. I even ate CAVIAR, you guys. I've never had caviar before, but I'm sticking to my vow of trying ANYthing once. I have yet to regret that! Can I just say that this dinner ended with THREE courses of dessert? THREE!!! AND...they sent us home with a bag with two iced sugar cookies. Clay has spoiled me greatly all along the way, but this was really over the top. We left there painfully stuffed, yet already reminiscing about each course. We slept like ROCKS after all that.

Today we did some housework, then spent some time with our other Valentines--Cooper and Collin! We got the privilege of babysitting while Andy took Carrie Beth out for her Birthday. Happy Birthday, CB! Cooper and Collin both slept from 1:00pm until almost 4:30!!! Those stinkers were wasting good Wii time! They finally woke up and we got some great play time in. Cooper rocks at Mario Kart, and Collin was just thrilled to play and play. He was all over the place, but never got into any trouble at all. Those boys are really growing up fast!!!

Clay and I are now home, snugged up and ready to face another week. I love how a good weekend can totally refresh and re-energize me!

Saturday, February 07, 2009

Date night!

Clay made it back into town yesterday afternoon. Since I missed him SO much, he offered to let me pick any place I'd like for dinner. I'm not good at making choices, but we had a gift certificate for Artemisia, a little downtown bistro that we both really like. So we headed downtown and had a really nice candle-lit dinner on their heated enclosed patio area. I was really good and had salmon with veggies, so I figured I needed dessert to compensate for the healthfulness. Rather than staying at Artemisia, I mentioned a little bakery not far from downtown that I'd been wanting to try out. We headed out of the restaurant and realized that it was Trolley Hop night downtown! On the first Friday of each month, all of the downtown stores, restaurants, and art galleries stay open late. There is a trolley that people can ride up and down as they amble among the city's gems. After such a big dinner, and on such a warm and nice night out, we decided to do a bit of hopping ourselves. We really enjoyed ambling along Market Street and doing a bit of shopping. After all of that, I was certainly ready for dessert! We hopped back in the car and went to Sweet Surrender for some cake. It was a delicious and decadent evening with great food, stolen kisses, and a new appreciation for a husband who had been gone for a few days. A great start to a great weekend!!

Today, we're headed to see a movie, then see where the day takes us.

Stay tuned for possible upcoming information about our next vacation!!! We might have found another deal too good to pass up! Hint: Can anyone give Clay some stick shift driving lessons or me some left-side-of-the-street driving lessons?

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

I've Got the POWER!!!

Sorry to have kept you all in suspense. But we got our power back! I've been so busy celebrating that I didn't have time to blog about it. The power came back on sometime during the Super Bowl, and we moved back in immediately! We've restocked the fridge, done the laundry, and all is well. Last night Clay stirred up a big pot of taco chili, and we vegetated. Until....Andy called. He had the power, too!! I went and saved him and took him home, then crashed hard in my own bed. Bliss...

So tonight, we went to Chuck and Jude's house to hang out for a while. Chuck and Jude are good friends of ours who Clay has known since perhaps high school. Jude is also a fantabulous hairdresser who takes good care of me and Carrie Beth. Anyway, as a new project this year, I have decided to learn to knit. Mary from work brought me some needles and yarn and attempted to teach me a couple weeks ago, but I've never had time to play around with it. So, I took my knitting attempt to Jude's tonight, and she totally got me going on some knitting. I've already made...well, a trapezoid, I guess. If you stretched your imagination, you could go on a limb and say I've made a Barbie blanket, but Barbie is kind of pretentious, and I doubt she'd even accept such a misshapen blanket. But the point of the story here is that I KNOW HOW TO KNIT, YOU GUYS!!! It's going to take a bit more practice, but I'm totally going to ROCK at it! I hope you all really want a new trapezoid scarf for Christmas next year!

In other news, Clay is leaving me. I hate it when that happens. He has a business trip and will leave tomorrow morning and come back home on Friday afternoon. I do love it when he comes back home. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and all that. I'm sure the kitties will protect me in this time of great peril. At least we have electricity to help us make it through!

Sunday, February 01, 2009

OVER it.

I'm officially tired of being a refugee. The hotel is great, but doesn't compare to my home. with my bed. Things are making progress here. Trucks are out and about. Trees are getting moved. Power is being restored. These things just take time. I'm CONVINCED we will get power back today, but we had to go on and cancel our Super Bowl party. We cleaned out the fridge and freezer today. Good thing we have Aldi, because we'll need some food when the power comes back. I realize we are FAR FAR more fortunate than most, but since it's my blog, I thought I could still have a little whine.

We had dinner with Andy and Carrie and the boys last night. I really enjoyed getting to hang out with them for a little while. I hardly even got any stink eye from Collin, and Cooper and I certainly had fun fighting over who had the best pizza. I wish there were something I could do for them as they shuffle around from house to house, but everyone is pretty helpless in all of this.

There's no place like home.