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A great evening!

Jenn — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 04:44:44 +0000

Just a quick update to our anniversary evening. We had a wonderful meal at a small Italian restaurant called Pasqualino’s – and when I say wonderful, I mean my eyes were rolling back in my head it was so good!

Our waiter, Frank, took a decidedly unspectacular picture of us:

We had a lot of laughs, shared some lovely gifts, and had a wonderful time. All is right with the world…

An Important Date in History

Jenn — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 09:00:41 +0000

Not your history! Mine! ;)

A year ago today, four people met in a kitchen, unsure of how to get things started. They knew what they wanted, but didn’t really know how they were going to do it. They had no backup, and only a few sheets of paper to go by. It was a rocky start, and after waffling around a little bit, they all smiled at each other, but silently wondered if they were doing the right thing.

This evening, those same people will be dining together, celebrating their first “anniversary”.

What a difference a year makes! Soon after we came together as Main Street we welcomed Walt aboard, first only as a part time accompanist, and more recently as a fully-fledged part of the group. Walt also has a wonderful Baritone voice and now sings with us when we do a cappella (unaccompanied) songs, which is awesome. Guess what? That means we’re no longer a quartet! Now we just call ourselves a group and be done with it. We will always have our original “Core Four” who started things though, and of course that is what we’re celebrating tonight.

What else… Well, we have been to the recording studio not once, but twice! The first time was so exciting for us; a real dream come true! We have performed in concerts, benefits, been hired for street festivals and smaller events, and have more of the same already booked for the second half of this year! We have been honoured to entertain people young and old. We have worked hard to develop an amazingly large, diverse music library. Most importantly though, we have had a great time together, and formed a true family and a bond that none of us could have foreseen a year ago.

Happy Anniversary to the Core Four, and my best friends, ShaMoo, Knarf, and J-B. I love you guys more than I can express. Here’s to many more years, and many many adventures together!

Anniversary and shopping

Jenn — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 14:56:55 +0000

Ok, so it wasn’t a romantic anniversary – we all knew that wasn’t in the cards for me. We did have a nice day together, and went shopping in the states with our youngest daughter. We decided to make that our Anniversary “thing” because we needed to buy Freon for the van (which hubby fixed on Sunday) which you can’t purchase here in Canada. Had a nice lunch at TGI Friday’s, and made it home in time to pick up the Teen and go see “UP”, which is really an awesome movie. We cried, we laughed, we left smiling.

Back to shopping though… Slim pickin’s down there (in the US) lately. A lot of junk, and the prices are getting worse than they are here. I’m all about deals – love shopping and love getting a good deal even more. It’s the Garagesaler in me, and being used to shopping wholesale. I’m spoiled, thats what it is! Anyway, it was hardly worth going considering what we brought back. The only reason to shop south of the border is to get things “cheap”. Well, 2 reasons really – sometimes you’ll find something “different” that you won’t find in Canada. Otherwise it’s pretty pointless, and our money is better spent in Canada, where it can aid our own merchants. We didn’t leave too much of it down there this time.

We used to shop in Target a lot – but we didn’t even bother going there this time. A lot of crap, and their prices have been steadily rising for the past couple of years. Same with Burlington Coat Factory, which I really find depressing. The purses were UGLEEEEEEE, the shoes were ridiculous, unless you appreciate stilettos that make you look like a hooker. The clothes were “meh”, and over priced. The only clothes I bought this time were at K-Mart, of all places! I bought a black satin over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder, and a cute PJ set for the Teen.

I bought a few things in Tops grocery-wise. They have different spices than we do here, and a better selection of some baking items. Sometimes you can find really great deals. I make a point of signing up for all the points/discount loyalty cards at places I go to in the states. This time when we went through Tops, I ended up saving about $15 off the total bill, just because of the loyalty card discounts. Nice! I also got a good deal on some books at Borders – again my loyalty card paid off. We get hosed on book prices up here – although I generally buy my books at Costco if I can find them there first.

Confession: I love shopping at Big Lots. True, most of them are holes – filthy, low brow, and full of absolute crap. BUT there are the odd gems that you’ll find, plus the aisles of dry goods that make it worthwhile wandering through (just bring your hand sanitizer with you). You’ll find excellent bargains on all sorts of things, from kids’ snacks to ethnic foods. Always worth a pass through.

Where else did we go… I guess that was it! My heart just wasn’t it in after we went all that way to get to the Burlington Coat Factory, and walked out with nothing. Talk about a mood killer!

So, happy anniversary to my wonderful hubby; the solid, loving man that I can always count on. 18 years has gone by in the blink of an eye! Your arms are where I consider myself home.

So I wonder if he’ll remember… Part Three

Jenn — Sat, 30 May 2009 18:25:41 +0000

Left the house fairly early today – the Teen and her friend had to be at practice for their Cadet Annual review, and I’d promised my brother I would stop by and sort out his wiring for his high speed in his new house. Stopped at a couple garagesales (yes it is one word if you’re a real Garagesaler) and picked up a few things, but nothing worth mentioning. Got to my brother’s place, and found an unholy mess of wiring that the Cogeco idiots had left him with. Took me an hour or so of splicing and testing, but I got him up and running. Who’s the (wo)man?!

Went home and picked up the hubby, because we had some running around to do – he needed to pick up a condenser unit for the van’s A/C, and I had to hit Costco – again on a bloody Saturday, although it wasn’t all that bad this time – for a couple of their massive caesar salads to bring to the annual review this evening. I know I could have made them myself, but honestly? For $9.99 each, you get a massive salad with all the cheese, bacon bits, croutons and dressing, and you can serve them right in the bowl, which means I don’t have to wait around for my own bowl to be returned to me at the end of the event. Awesome.

So anyway, where was I? Oh yes – we’re driving along quietly, and all of a sudden he turns to me and says; “Our anniversary is coming up! What do you want to do?”

Ok, he ~~survived the experiment~~ passed the test.

I smiled and quietly told him he “passed”. I don’t think he quite understood what I meant, or the magnitude of his statement, but as he’d clearly made me happy, he didn’t press the point. Smart man.

So I wonder if he’ll remember… Part Two

Jenn — Fri, 29 May 2009 14:30:54 +0000

Hubby just left for work… still no mention of our anniversary. We did discuss going to the states for the day (we’re about an hour or so from the Niagara border) but that isn’t something unusual for us, as we often take a run down to see if we can find anything nifty or different to buy. Lately it has been pretty depressing though – things end up being the same, or more expensive down there. My mother took her friend who is visiting from Calgary down yesterday, and they spent very little money, which is completely unusual for Mom.

Again, I digress. It’s May 29th, and our anniversary is June 1st. The experiment underway is to see if my darling husband will remember without any prompting from me.

You know what I just realized? My mother hasn’t said a word about it either. Granted, she has had a LOT on her plate with my brother’s divorce getting finalized, him moving into a new house with his kids (another story, for another day), and now company from out West for a week. Still, it is unusual for her not to mention anything. If it were a “special” anniversary I might lean towards suspecting something is up, but 18, while getting up there, is not terribly noteworthy. Obviously. So I’m back to just working up a head of steam over hubby probably forgetting about it until the very last second (if he clues in at all).

Things that make you go… hrmmmm.

So I wonder if he’ll remember… Part One

Jenn — Thu, 28 May 2009 18:42:56 +0000

Monday (June 1st) marks our 18th wedding anniversary. I haven’t said a thing to my husband, because you see, I’m running a little experiment.

See, a few years ago my darling hubby totally blew off my birthday. He didn’t forget it – he was “too busy to get a gift or schedule any thing. And then it was too late, so we’ll celebrate it next year. Sorry. Love you.”

Yes, really. Now, to some people that wouldn’t mean all that much. He couldn’t care less if I remembered his birthday or bought him anything at all. In MY family though; birthdays, anniversaries, christmas – they mean a lot to us. I was hurt. No, I was totally crushed! He didn’t/doesn’t get it though, because, coming from a completely dysfunctional family, he never really got fussed over or paid any attention to as a child. (I have no fear of him or his family reading this, because other than a couple of close girlfriends, no one else that I know is aware this blog even exists. I have to have SOMEWHERE to vent, don’t I?!)

Wait. I should have prefaced this with “My husband is a wonderful man“. Truth be told, in spite of this, there isn’t too much I can complain about. I love him. He loves me, and tells me so many times a day. He’s a great daddy, and the kids adore him. He’s got a good job, and he works hard.

Still, he can be a bonehead sometimes.

But I digress. My little experiment is simply to see if he remembers our special day. I don’t expect anything grand – we normally just do a nice dinner out, and a movie, and usually he buys me flowers. He does know that I adore yellow roses. However, it’s May 28th, and he hasn’t said word one to me about it yet.

Now, I know what you’re probably thinking: “he’s going to surprise her and whisk her off to a romantic (whatever) and make her feel like a total heel for saying all this!”

But you’d be wrong.

If I had to come up with a list of things that I was unhappy about in regards to my marriage, the list would be short. Very short. But at the tippy top of that short list would be a total and absolute lack of romance. I crave it, I try to introduce it every so often… but to no avail. He just doesn’t get it. I blame his parents.

So anyway. It’s a mini-rant, but let’s call it Part One, shall we? I’ll update as we go.