seven hundred and thirty days

I never know how to start important blog posts like birthdays or anniversaries or something. There's a lot of pressure, I'll have you know, to be the right amount of sweet and sappy, but also clever and hilarious. I'm sweating just thinking about how I'm going to write the rest of this.

You see, today marks TWO YEARS of marriage for us. Two whole years! Two years of marriage feels like two blinks. Literally. One blink for year one. One blink for year two. Soon we'll blink, blinkity, blinky and have five kids and five times twenty gray hairs. Chyeah, I want a whole brood of children, okay?

I feel silly saying anything about marriage because my parents are celebrating thirty-two years in three days and that is a number to celebrate, people! I feel like anything I say here or any wise words I try to share with you is just more leverage for my thirty-two-year veteran parents to be like Pfffssshaaawww, what do those young newlyweds think they know?!

Side note: Are we still considered newlyweds two years in? Now there's an important question for you.

^^for realsies, been-married-for-thirty-minutes newlyweds

Anyways, two years! I'll just keep saying those two words since I can't seem to say anything else.

In two years we have lived in three apartments and in two different states. We have acquired zero pets, and also zero children (Freddie is somewhere reading this and going High five, anyone?? Anyone?? No kids? High five, ANYONE?) (We love children, calm down). We (I) have eaten lots of delicious food that we (he) have cooked. We've also eaten a lot of delicious food that we haven't cooked because we've lived in Charleston and Houston. Both top contenders in BEST FOOD EVER CITIES in America.

I think the greatest thing about marriage or just relationships in general is love. Stay with me here. I knew I wanted to marry Fredster for many, many reasons, but really because sometimes when I looked at him I would be completely and utterly overwhelmed with the amount of love I had for this person. It always happened in candid moments like when he was biting his lip as he concentrated putting the egg whites in with the sugar during bake time fun time. Or when he was staring at the TV thinking What The F*&# was happening with Lost. This all still happens and in the most random moments it will hit me and hit me hard. I just want to run to Ricky and pinch his cheekies and squeeze him real hard just so he can get somewhat half of an idea of how much I love him.

That's marriage, folks. Spending the rest of your life trying to figure out how to convey how much you love this person. Because it is actually something that can never be accurately described. Yet, I've managed to fill an entire blog post about it--about something indescribable. Oops. And yes, you still feel the indescribable love even though he never puts down the toilet seat.

I'll just stick with saying this: Freds, I love you a lot! A whole heck of a lot. Now let's go celebrate 730 days of laughs 'n' stuff with more laughs. And maybe (definitely) some ice cream. 

a propose-iversary of sorts

Well, shoot. It has just been a hot minute since I posted anything gushy mushy sappy wappy about my Freddiefriendhusband, hasn't it? Let's change that now. 

Monday marked our one year engage-iversary (now doesn't that sound silly? Hmm, what about one year since Freddie proposed-iversary? No? They all sound silly? Moving on). April 28, 2013 was a day when my left ring finger got a lil heavier and my life got a whole lot lighter. Lighter because my love for Freddie is so high, maybe? Man, apologies for this entire paragraph. 

How in the whole wide freakin' world has a year passed since then? I still remember so many little details. So many of the crazy happy emotions. So many of the endlessly long glances at my finger. But there's also a lot I'm sure I've forgotten. I am desperately trying to cling on to every last little memory I can squeeze outta that day. Like the most obvious memory of...me being the dumbest person.

There. I said. I was the dumbest person on April 28, 2013. Being a good blogger stalker, I have read many a proposal story online. 9 times out of 10 there's usually the line about I had an idea it would happen that night so I made sure I painted my nails. Or I made sure I looked really nice. Or He was so nervous! I was just waiting for it to happen. My story has none of those lines in it. My nails were not painted. HORRORS! My students had performances all day so my "nice" outfit consisted of an all black ensemble since I was working backstage. Nope, not the glam black ensemble you are picturing. More like a black leggings and an oversized black shirt ensemble. Very in style in the working-backstage-world. 

Now that I'm on this side of the proposal I can see there were a lot of signs that night. Signs so obvious that the universe might as well have had a big ole fat neon glowing finger pointing down at each moment. But I had on my anti-big ole fat neon glowing universe finger sunglasses so that's obviously why I didn't see any of them...

Sign #1

We had been talking about marriage and engagement for awhile. I was gearin' and ready to be married and living in South Carolina. So when Freddie insisted we have a special night to ourselves and go out somewhere nice I just thought he was happy to see me. Because ya know, long distance sucks and who doesn't want to celebrate being together by going to a fancy wine bar? 

Sign #2

April showers bring May flowers. April in Georgia is usually rainy, but fairly warm. Like hey, 80 degree weather already. April 28, 2013 was neither extremely rainy nor cool, yet Frederick wore his rain jacket the entire night. Even as he helped load up heavy scenery pieces after my kid's show. Even when inside said fancy schmany wine bar. 

Purple teeth and rain coats make for the more dapper night out attire. Everyone wave to Freddie's left sleeve pocket. Otherwise known as The Ring's Hiding Spot. 

Sign #3

This is the part in the proposal story where other girls might say they could see how nervous their significant other was and knew something big was about to happen. This is the part in our proposal story where I am singing and dancing around the room and didn't notice how extremely nervous my significant other was. I can't help it---give me a few glasses of wine and a good Spotify station and I'm good to go. I can rewrite lyrics for you. I can choreograph some new hawt dance moves for you. The possibilities are endless. So as Freddie grew extremely quiet around my loud-mouthed dancing self (which hey, it isn't that strange for Freds to stand there quietly and let me get the crazy moves out of my system) I wasn't aware that every time he kept pulling me in for a hug he was holding the ring behind my head trying to get up the courage to get down on one knee. And he kept pulling me in for hugs... 

So Monday night, April 28, 2014, in the 30 minutes between work and my rehearsal that we got to spend together, we sat down and just laughed. We laughed about how it felt like Freddie must have given me a script that night with how well everything worked out. We laughed at how dumb I was. We laughed at how this all means we are 4 months away from being married for a year (because laughing is better than freaking out about it, obviously). 

Boy oh boy, Freddie-o! I am so happy you decided not to wait to propose after you got the ring because that night is forever engraved in my mind as one of the most wonderful nights of my life. And I've had a lot of wonderful days and nights with you soooo kind of a big deal that I can pinpoint one down like that ;)

Didn't get enough proposal goodness from this post? Because one can never have too much proposal goodness. Check out the real proposal story here. 

on going steady with freddie

Ladies and gents, today is a special day. Yes, it is ten days before the Ides of March and yes, it is the week before my spring break and why yes, it most certainly is 4 months and 10 days before my birthday. While these are all thrilling events, none of these things could even compare to today being a year since I went on a first date with a dude named Freddie (friend). Oh great, here she goes again. Didn't she just post about Freddiefriend on Valentine's Day? Uh, guess what? This is my blog and I can blog about whatever my little heart desires. (Which is pretty obvious from my cowlick, furry vest, and obsession with chocolate posts). 

Where do I even start? I mean, it's not like I am some relationship expert about to publish my first book and decided to blog about my lurve advice. I am the farthest thing from a relationship expert, but here are some words of the wise from me to you. Because yes, I am a very wise non-relationship expert. 

Life happens and a lot of the time people (me) tend to focus on the negative things or get mad about stupid things. Hey, sometimes it is over legit things though, okay? The overall point---remember how great relationships are? They are kind of all around us. Friends, acquaintances, classmates, professors, moms, dads, siblings, boyfriends, girlfriends, employees, bosses, etc., etc. You know the list. Life is short and it really does fly by (when you're having fun!) so why not make the best of it? Why not tell those people that you love just how much you love them instead of spending most of the time being all grr to them? Unless they deserve the grr-ness, of course. But anyways, remember my FF and my year anniversary with my FF? Yeah, so about that...

A year with Freddie has gone by in what feels like a blink of an eye. Sometimes when I am feeling all giddy and Eeeee! Freddie! I am like Geeez, I am still feeling like I did way back in last March?! Awesome. In the end it was the little things that FF did that got me. Hooked me. Made me fall head over heels for this guy. Little things like the nonchalant grab of my knee on rides in that yellow Jeep. Or a kiss on the forehead. Or a good morning text with lots of exclamation points and emoticons. Or driving to Newnan and sleeping in my brother's old room just to spend a weekend with me (and the entire Moore family). Or standing in my kitchen making pizza for me and my family. The fantastic laugh and hot dancer legs were a big bonus. Seriously, this guy makes me smile bigger than the Cheshire Cat. I knew I was hooked during one of our first dates. We sat in Candler Park eating King of Pops and watching people try to play golf. It was a perfect day and I would have been perfectly happy to just sit there by the FF forever. (P.S.--the next weekend he came with me to set up music at my sister's high school dance and then went to see Black Swan with me. No protesting. He had me. And everyone around me.) I try really hard to steal all of his free time. Sometimes to the point of where I am sure he's like Uh, remember that time I had friends and no Emily? Maybe you should stop being so awesome if you don't want me to take all of your time. 

The point of this story blog?

Freds, you are my absolute favorite. Even above complaining. (what? I don't do that.) Even above peanut butter M&Ms and gummy candy. This year has been so much fun, especially the times when you tried to teach me math or we made pasta from scratch. F-U-N fun. Thanks for taking me on a date a year ago and then continuing to take me on dates and laugh at my stupid jokes n' stuff. I love you and every single day of the 366 days I've gotten to be with you! (Heck yes, leap year!) Well shucks y'all, insert some more gushy sappy stuff because it is all true when it comes to this man.


ready for some creepy cutesies couple-y pictures?