So I got married a little while ago, but didn't really post any pictures. Much to my mother's dismay. So here are some pictures from the wedding.

September is half over-

It's carameled apples and pumpkin time. 

Movie reviews

Romantics Anonymous- A french movie. This show is awesome. It's a cute love story about 2 people with social phobias. I liked it. A lot. Charles liked it too. A movie for the whole family. A

Wild Target- My family  really loves to find random movies at the library. How do you find a good movie? Just wild, blind luck. I found one. It's about an assassin who falls in love with his target. Think of Undercover Blues. It was awesome. It came out in 2009 and I don't know if I even heard of it when it came out. Witty and hilarious. Watch it. You won't regret it . A+

Book review

In Defense of Food- Super duper boring to listen to the guy reading it on CD, but I'm on 4 of 5, so I can't just stop. There are some good points, but it is just droning on and on. As Charles said, it's probably just not my kind of book or maybe hearing stats over and over is the part that's killing me, but I can't wait until I finish that book. B-

I like yogurt in smoothies, but not plain. So that's what I do with it. I like fruit plain, and in smoothies. I saw some weird fruits in Guatemala, but only ate a couple super weird ones. Mostly we ate watermelon and mangoes= delicious. They have this fruit there called Tamarind though. That's some nasty business. Bleh. They put it in the juice all the time. One time I drank a whole glass of it and then- my companion told the family I didn't like Tamarind juice. Dude, not cool. 

Holiday decorating- we might just get a fancy wreath for every holiday. Then people will know we know holidays happen. For the record, we bought decorative pumpkins last year and set them outside our door and last week one of them started visibly rotting. We threw it out. The other two are still fine. Wow, I'm super duper impressed. Talk about food storage. 

It's been a little while since I've done my hair- that usually means I'm up for a haircut. I just need a little different style, so I have a good reason to do it instead of sporting a bun or pony every day. I guess I don't have reason to complain- most people would love having a pony. Also, I need to put all my distractions away at night so I have to go to sleep. Charles- that's you. Also, I have only read a page of The Karamazov Brothers since last week. I need to prioritize that business or I'll never complete my end of October finishing goal. 

We had crepes for breakfast today. That was nice. Charles, you are supreme. I never had this much trouble getting up in the morning when I was single. I guess that means we need to reinstate the curfew. 10 would be a good time I think- 10 sounds so early though. Man, look at me with my terrible bad habits. What time do you people go to sleep? 10:30 seems like an ok time because I went to bed at 10:30 on my mission. 

I had chocolate cake for breakfast

If you didn't know this about me, I like to know how things work. Charles is really good at explaining how things work. Early this week, he explained to someone how soap works. I stood by and listened in wonder. Now I think of it as I wash things. Hard life being married to a genius. 

Dyson.

Through much thoughtfulness about cake, I have confirmed I do not like strawberry flavored cake. Weirdly enough, it kind of grosses me out- although jello does not. Though I do not eat much jello either. Orange cake, also gross. Lemon cake and I are good friends. I like it. Makes me feel lemony fresh.

Ok, back to Dyson. I vacuumed Monday. No, you don't understand. I vacuumed. We've lived in our apartment for a month and we just got a vacuum Saturday. Up until Monday, I did not realize to what extent my animal husband and I shed. Now, well, I know a little bit better. I'd write more, but I'm going to go vacuum again. 

Since you now know my joy in knowing the backstory of world workings, this should not be a surprise to you. With a dyson, you actually get to see the filth filling the holding container. You get a clean house and major entertainment. Next week, or maybe tonight, I will vacuum again and let you know how it goes. I can't wait.

We also got a new table this week. It was off craig's list and looks like an insect. Very cool. The lady who sold it said she was going to paint it like a lady bug. Thank goodness she did not. It matches our apartment better now than if she'd done that creative, but terrible idea.

Commercial shoutout- Is anyone else totally creeped out by the I can't believe it's not butter lady? Every time I see one of her commercials I get the heebie jeebies. 

Updates on marriage, for all the lovely people asking me how it is to be married: Being married is like being single, but I now leave home late every day because I can't get out of my house. There's a man there. He holds me hostage. 

Not only does he hold me hostage every day, he makes me eat food and washes all my dishes. It's like the bridge troll lives in my house. Luckily, we have a dyson. 

Since Charles is in love with the waffle maker, and I'm in love with the vacuum maker, it sounds like we're already having some marital problems. We're working through them. Labor Day, I cleaned around the outside of my apartment unit as Charles hung up pictures inside the house. I vinegar watered the outer rim by the base because there are lots of cats living in our complex. It's an outside setup-like my college apartments. I like it, but every 4 inches there's a stripe of cat pee on the wall.

Since the vinegaration of our outer perimeter, I haven't noticed as many cats outside our door and the stains are less visible. I like to think it's a little cleaner for us to live. We are not getting a welcome mat, I looked at the mats of our neighbors and they all look like litter boxes. Gross, double gross. 

To my piano teacher Mrs. Sigler- I practiced the piano three days this week. That's the most I probably ever practiced when I was actually taking lessons. Who knows how long that will last, but it's going ok for now. The newness may wear off, but I was surprised by how not awful I am. I haven't practiced in a while and the easy hymns were really easy to play. Awesome. I'm not pro yet, but go me. Neal, Sarah, Emily, Bonnie, I'm catching up to you. 

Rachel, I couldn't find you on Facebook somehow, but I'll give you my address on your email or something. 

Amy, sorry  I haven't sent the wedding dress back. We get it back today. Don't ask me why it took so long, I have no idea. 

The other Amy, you are great. I love you. 

Reading: I hope to finally finish my book The Brothers Karamazof. I hope to finish by Halloween. Consider that a goal. The only reasons I put this goal up are because 

1. The troll has homework now so we don't have so much philandering time 

2. If I put it up here I'll have to work harder toward completing it. 

3. Now that I'm married, I'm not allowed to Trick-or-Treat without first borrowing someone's child (Note: I can, however, buy good candy instead of depending on the mercy of strangers for a good calorie selection). 

And for kicks, the little guy on the right is my husband age 12. Now we know I'm not the only chipmunk in the family. Maybe we'll have a bonding moment looking at the moon. 

Belly button lint is a real thing-

When we moved to Hayward, Charles and I realized we lived 10 feet from the "No Room for Racism" sign. Have you ever seen one of those signs? We have one. You know you want one. I didn't know they even had official signs like that in cities. Green- very official. 

I found these helpful hints for Chinese characters on the internet. They look helpful. I thought of my brother when I saw them, he's in Taiwan. I mean hello, I'm not learning Chinese, but he is. So  I didn't know if any of this would help you. I hope it does, especially if you're learning Chinese. I work better with pictures myself. 

This week has been semi-uneventful. We had cookie/icecream sandwiches for FHE after eating chipotle. We watched Fried Green Tomatoes- it was our 1 month anniversary. He brought me flowers. Man he's great. 

I have a blister on my thumb. I was carving our car for the Pinewood Derby Adult Edition. It's happening tonight. I was only carving one night and I got this grand blister. Bummer. Charles said next time I should put a bandaid on the soft spot before it became a blister. Good to know- for the next time I find myself carving stuff. Who knows when that'll be. 

Except I've heard I might be in charge of the scouts, in which case I might be using a knife sooner than expected. We shall see. Scouts, don your chain mail. You're going to need it. 

Monday is Labor Day. I will be doing less labor, more day. We're planning to get a fancy waffle maker Saturday at BBB. That means waffle Monday. Charles is pretty excited about it. Apparently waffles are one of the most exciting things in life. We will not be making fish waffles this time. Maybe once we've gotten a handle on the waffle process we'll walk to the outskirts of waffle making. Maybe.

I have been watching lots of Remington Steele this week. It's a detective show with Pierce Brosnan. He is young and super skinny, but still has the charm. The main woman character kind of drives me crazy though. Her name is Stephanie Zimbalist in real life. In that character, she just bugs me, I'm not sure why.

Something else that bugs me a little, I've been reading the Wheel of Time series. I've just finished the 8th book and the women in that series are seriously dumb. I get annoyed about 85% of the time with the women characters. So dumb, so dumb. 

Also, they don't have the rest of the series on cd. Hopefully I can get some time to finish the series or I'll be stopped at 9 of 14. That would be tragic. I have to finish it now, so I don't have to start at the beginning later. That would be the real tragedy. I'm past halfway.

Speaking of halfway, have you ever seen a commercial over and over again. It happens a lot when you watch shows online. Super annoying. I usually just mute them. I wonder if there were a commercial clever enough, they could get away with it. I don't know if any advertisers have quite reached that level of cleverosity yet. They're halfway there.

So that's the skinny on my week. I went to soccer this week and I went to frisbee Saturday, so hopefully I can get back on the exercise train. Toot toot! Love you! Mer

To the guy who Shmarles well-

You know who Shmarles well? Charles Ward. When he doesn't shave, he's very Shmarmy. It's nice. Like a pirate. Charles, you make a great pirate. 

Today, I've been married to a pirate for exactly a month. I didn't know a month could go so fast. There it went, and here I am. Still happy, still alive. Charles, as Jasmyn would say, you are ideal. 

This doesn't mean you win, ideal husband. It just means I have to step up my game a little bit. To my readers- he's super duper nice to me. He has great hygiene. He cooks. He cleans. He decorates. I know, how long can it possibly last? One month down. Then we might not have any more decorating. 

Don't tell anyone, but sometimes he cries. Honestly, I'm just grateful he was patient enough to let me snatch him up before he was on the market floor. I feel like I got him from the warehouse, before they even shipped him to a store. It's like I'm a perfect man snatcher. And he found me. Have you ever seen that movie? Where the toy found the kid? That's me. Thanks Charles.

Congratulations to us! Cherilee is still smoking hot! Speaking of smoking, 

there's a girl smoking on my bathroom schedule. Every time I go to the bathroom, she's smoking. First I thought she was always smoking. Then I realized, quite recently, that she is probably just on the same schedule as I am. So she probably thinks, "Wow, that girl goes to the bathroom a lot". Same as I think she smokes a lot. Imagine that. 

After three cookies-

Here I am, sitting with rocks in my socks at my desk. Well, I'm not wearing socks in actuality. You could assume the rocks are in my brain. Brain rocks usually pop up around 2-3 pm for me at work. That's about the time I should drink a 5 hr energy drink. I don't believe in them though, so maybe I should just sleep more.

I am eating a cookie- because it's cookie Friday. 

In other news, the new Batman is Ben Affleck. I don't know if that's a good idea, but there's already a huge petition against it. We'll see what happens. Honestly, it doesn't really matter, they'll change Batmans in 5 years anyway. Plus, I never liked Spiderman, so Batman shouldn't be a huge loss.

Saw these pics on Facebook. Looks like Deane's kids got all rowdy with a 20 lb bag of flour. I'm sure that's something she wanted to do...clean up a bunch of flour on Friday night. She's having another baby. She told you right? In February. So she'll have one more mess maker around. 

I swept my living room floor yesterday. We don't have a vacuum yet and it was pretty dirty. Unacceptable. We also had tuna noodle casserole for din din, we're high flyers. The living space is plenty large enough for the both of us. Now all we need is a little decorating. We have lots of pictures and I'm planning to hang up all our wedding cards- they're so pretty and they need to be appreciated for a little while. You know how it is. 

Rumbles-

Sand. I like sand. It seems to me there are lots of uses for it. Sand can be, get this, melted to make glass. How cool is that? On our honeymoon, Charles and I made a candle holder and a glass bowl. I use the term, made, loosely, because we actually just blew into little straws and spun the long pole and turned it. 

Was I nervous to ruin the candle holder? Yes I was. Was I glad Charles helped them with the bowl? Yes I was. Did we park in the bus pull in spot both times we went to the place and not even realize it until a group of locals, smoking next to the car, pointed it out? Yes, we did. Oops poops. 

At least we didn't get a ticket. We probably

wouldn't have parked there, except another car was parked in the "spot" ahead of us when we got there, so we thought nothing of it. That's my excuse. Excuses are so bogus. Here is my excuse for not eating the following items.

Things that make my teeth hurt when I eat them: 

1. Ice

2. Apples

3. Jolly ranchers

4. Green mangos

5. Starburst (only when I eat lots)

I've been watching a lot of Hollywood Game Night, So you Think you can dance, and America's got Talent. They are terribly interesting to watch. Turns out it's exciting to watch people get eliminated from contests. It's terribly disappointing when they get cut despite their talent. 

Speaking of talent, Charles and I participated in the Tri-Valley singles ward talent show on Monday. We did an interpretive dance of our story, written by Heidi Doxey, called Chazpunzel. 

Charles wore a long hair wig on his chest and I used my So you think you can dance skills. Andy wore a drape. Matt read the story. Alex did the music. It was a combined effort for our end of an era finale and it worked supremely well. We left with a bang and some fireworks- like what Joshy tried to do after our CA reception even thought it didn't work out like he wanted it to. He'll have it figured out for Bon's reception. 

Our house is getting more and more organized. Thanks Charles. Our roles have been switched a bit this week. He's been doing all the house stuff and I've been working. One of these days we'll have it all organized and figured out. Today is Thursday. Sometime before Saturday we'll be figuring out what to get with all the love people sent us in the mail and in cards at the receptions. 

Saturday we do a house shopping spree and go to the temple. That means I probs won't be at frisbee, but there's a little time in the middle of the day to...do whatever I want. For example, finishing up thank you cards to our sweet friends and family.

I'm sure organizing items in my house will take up whatever other 30 minutes I can find Saturday that are not already being used. I don't actually have much planned, but Saturdays are always seemingly epic. 

Therefore, I wish to be like Saturday. Sometimes.