Saturday, January 22, 2011

back amongst the employed

After having a 3 month hiatus from work - and diligently plunging ahead with wedding plans - I am back amongst the employed.  I suppose it's not nearly as exciting as dude ranching, but I am the Marketing Director for Irwin Family Chiropractic.  I think that sounds pretty fancy, don't you?  Just say it with me...Marketing Director.  Marketing DIRECTOR.  Yeah, that's right, I'm a director.

Ok, for those of you who are on my case about grad school, that is still in the works.  I've taken my GREs and I need to get on the application.  I'm getting there.

Right now, I'm going to be encouraging everyone to come in, get their back adjusted, get a massage to keep it there, and do their exercise to maintain.  Woohoo!

Anyone in Ft. Collins need an adjustment?  Lemme know!

Sunday, January 2, 2011

biiiig news

I think the definition of "news" is that it is, well...new.  And I think if the news is 2 months old, it doesn't really qualify as, well, new.  But here goes anyhow.

Dow and I are getting MARRIED!  I had to wait to tell you until the proper people had been told in the proper way.

November 10, 2010 we went up to Lars and Amy's old cabin to join the Texans for music.  Oh geez, this is going to take some back story since I quit blogging around that time.  Alright, settle in!

Lars and Amy have an old cabin that they rent out by the night for people to get away.  In November 2009, The Texans came.  And endeared themselves to us, after staying in the cabin for a month.  The main Texans include George & Della, Bubba, and Leroy, whose family consists of What's-Her-Name and Her Kids.  Bubba has got an amazing voice, one you'd expect to hear on country radio and he plays the guitar.

So, this year, the Texans were back and we had dinner plans.  We were going up to the cabin where Della cooked up some chicken and dumplin's and we were going to play some music.  Except when Dow and I got there, Amy, Lars, and some new Texans were sitting around the table with cookies in the middle.  George, Della, and Bubba were nowhere to be found.  It turns out that Bubba broke his arm when his horse took off bucking and they were at the emergency room.

But there were still chicken and dumplings left, so Dow and I ate while everyone else sat there.  Then Lars said we should play music.  Without Bubba?  These Texans, and their teenage daughters, looked like they could care less.  And when Amy started to protest, Lars said, "Just a couple of songs; the girls really want to hear it."  Did I mention that the teenage girls looked like they could care less?  They even exchanged glances saying, "What the heck?"  And I thought to myself, "That's weird.  Usually Lars is really good at reading people..."  But, ok.

So they sang a song.  And then they chose another.  How about "Don't Fence Me in"?  Now there are a couple extra parts to this song.  First, the song says "Wildcat Kelly," but Amy always changes the name to someone there - 95% of the time she picks Dow.  Then there's the sheriff and the sweetheart, who are usually the male and female there who know the song.  Since she usually uses Wildcat Dow, I asked who the sheriff would be that night, since no one else knew the song.  So Amy decided Dow should be the sheriff and Leroy should be Wildcat.  Messing up Lars and Dow's plan, but she didn't know that since she wasn't involved in "the plan".

I had Leroy move to the middle of the couch; I sat on one side of Leroy and tried to get Dow to sit on the other, but he refused.  Instead he sat next to me on the smallest portion of couch possible and I wondered to myself why Dow had suddenly become so weird about sitting next to a man.  Until I noticed his hand cupped on top of his pocket.  And I wondered if he was going to do it then, but then I realized that I shouldn't think that way or every minute of our time together I'd start wondering if "this" was the time.  So we went on singing.

When it came time for the sweetheart's line, I sang to Leroy in my very finest, "It's time to settle down!" and that's when Dow tapped on my shoulder, pushed my leg, pulled out the ring, and said, "If that's the case, will you marry me?"  And everyone except Lars was flabbergasted.

Amy's mouth hung so far open, I think Lars had to tell her to close it.  And the Texans, well, they had no clue what to think and the teenage girls just filed out of the room as soon as they could.  I, as you might have guessed, said yes.

The ring was, is, absolutely beautiful.

He picked a ring from an actual jeweler and had a few tweaks made so my ring would be one of a kind, with diamonds and swirls on the side.

And you can see the whole diamond, which is really cool...until you forget to take it off when kneading bread.  Then it gets really nasty.

Anyhow, that's the big news.  Dow and I are engaged and we're planning on getting married August 27, 2011 at Amy and Lars' cabin.

Much love,
The Dow Wrangler

Saturday, January 1, 2011

happy new year!

Happy New Year to everyone!  I hope you all celebrated in the best way possible...and survived to tell about it.  

Dow and I had plans to go to a house party with Amy and Lars, but then this "big" storm threatened to come in and they cancelled out of fear they wouldn't be able to get into, or then out of, their cabin.  And as it turned out, Dow, Amy AND Lars were all sick.  I already had the gunk, so I was fine.  It looked like a boring night in.  Until I guilted Dow.  

After a long nap and some food, he decided we should go into town for First Night.  First Night seems like a funny name for the last night of the year, but whatever.  They have all these different venues and different shows.  Since we didn't decide until the last minute, we missed the first 3 shows, but we made it to the last 3.  Dow, of course, let me pick them all, because he's nice like that.  

We started at the Masonic Lodge where we saw the Grupo Tlaloc Danza Azteca, which was, as you might have figured out, an Aztec dance group.  

They all wore these awesome big feather headdresses.  This wasn't even the biggest one.  I'm not sure if it was actually green or if it was the spotlight, but either way it was cool looking.

If you look down at their ankles, you'll see they have "things" on their legs.  They looked like walnut shells and made lots of noise.  They danced to the drums you see in the background, adding even more rhythm with their feet.  It was pretty sweet.

Next we headed - on foot, in 5 degree weather - to the Opera Galleria for "All the World is a Circus," where a "French" guy told us all about the things other countries did for their circuses.

Here he demonstrates, with volunteers, how the Chinese walked on big balls, turned a weapon into a big yoyo, and did lots of gymnastics type stuff.  

I don't have a picture of the last place because it was the Nonesuch Theater and it was the first act of a play.  I just didn't think I should take pictures in there.  They sucked us in and then offered half price tickets to see the rest of the show.  How could you turn that down?

At 10:30, they shot off fireworks in Old Town Square.  That seemed like a good idea until I saw people wearing snow boots and ski pants and suddenly my long johns seemed inadequate.  And they were.  It was freezing, but Dow luh-luh-loves fireworks and he did come to town even though he was sick and wanted to go to bed and he let me pick all the shows, so I figured it was the least I could do...suffer in the cold.

I promised Dow that we would go home after the fireworks, but by that point we were hungry again, so we decided to go get some food and a drink until the countdown. 

They even gave us sweet hats (I had a tiara!), noisemakers, and free champagne!

Even though Dow didn't want to go in the beginning, he told me several times last night and again today how much fun he had, so I'm glad we did something more than staying home.

I hope you had as much fun as we did!