Do you think people would believe me if I said I was keeping kosher?

I've always liked seafood. I lived on the coast for all of my childhood and we now live about 2 hours away from the Atlantic Ocean. However, Granny and one of my aunts live in Charleston and get delicious fresh seafood all the time. Shrimp, scallop, crabs, I used to want to eat them all. My in laws have an annual custom of going down to the docks in Charleston and buying several hundred pounds of shrimp in the summer and then freezing it and thawing it as needed. Last summer I helped make coconut shrimp and for the first time was involved in cooking shrimp from beginning to end. UGH. Peeling and taking the legs off is fine. But that vein that runs down the back? I always thought it was an urban legend that it was the intestines. Um, it is not a legend. When the shrimper catches some shrimp right after a big meal, you can tell. Washing your foods feces off of itself is a great way to make that food unattractive.
I've given up on shrimp but somehow, in some corner of my mind, I hoped crawfish were different. I've written about my love of them via the Crawfish Festival before. They are at least easier to disassemble than little baby shrimp so taking out the guts was easy to do in one fell swoop. I ate a few until there was one who I didn't thoroughly de-gut. Chewing sand particles that had once been in a crawfish was a one way ticket out of crawfish town.
The one sea animal I've never liked eating was oysters. I know they're a delicacy but to me they just taste like rubber bands. Then again, I've only been offered them when they're steamed or raw. Last night John and I shared a seafood platter and it had oysters on it. No substitutions. They were fried so I figured I could enjoy them. My first bite in I felt that ominous grit in my mouth and, after quick inspection, saw that there was a black spot in the oyster filled with sand. Well, half a black spot. I always thought that spot was like, the dark muscle where the oyster is tethered to its shell. NOPE. It's a stomach.
Shellfish, I think we're done. It's been nice. Not really.

Cutest baby ever!

His answer was "no."

My question to John earlier this evening: "Wanna stop looking at porn and give me a foot massage? Since I'm on my period there's no way this could lead to sex."

Put all your money in Kleenex stock

It really hit me today that Mother's Day marks the anniversary of the last time I saw Mom Mom alive. I don't think Sunday will be an easy day for me, emotionally.

Snob

I am a complete snob about some things. Fashion/ clothes are one of those things. I'm not label-crazy, I just think that having a wardrobe with classic pieces that complement your figure, instead of whatever is trendy and on sale, is the best way to go through life. One of the best things about living in DC was the ability to shop at stores like Filene's Basement (R.I.P.), American Apparel and H&M. Filene's was my biggest love. Like I said, I'm not a label junkie, but finding $180 super designer jeans for $35 or Burberry, Coach, de la Renta or Chanel scarves for a few dollars more than a full priced scarf from Gap made my day.
I am a huge proponent of the fact that you don't have to spend alot of money to look nice. One of my friends from middle school ended up living close to me in DC and we reconnected and became even closer than when we were younger. Her family had more money than I can ever imagine. Just boatloads. She had no problem telling me about her designer bags and shoes. I had no problem hearing about it.
One summer afternoon we were at the pool and I had on a pair of designer sunglasses I got at Filene's. She looked at the name on the side and said, "Halston? Is that a knock-off brand?" No. No it isn't.

Beginning of my birthday celebration!

This weekend was AWESOME!!! I love tradition. If I do one thing once I feel like I have to repeat it over and over again because it's "tradition." Last year John and I were living apart (He was working down here and we hadn't sold our first house so I was living in the first house and working at my old job) and I would come down every weekend and we would do some type of housework/ remodeling project together. All I wanted for my birthday weekend was to NOT have to paint or sand or hammer for all of Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I wanted to go strawberry picking, because I love strawberries and when I was little we used to go and it just seems like a cute, fun thing to do. Also, I saw ads for a crawfish festival in downtown Columbia and I really wanted to go because I am a dork and totally into cheesy festivals. (I dragged my whole family to the Okra Strut last year. Go me!) Well, the crawfish festival was AWESOME!!! They shut down several blocks of Columbia and there is a ton to do at the festival. They have bands on two stages, but the stages are far enough apart that you can still have a conversation and hear yourself think. There was a ton of Bud and Bud Light but there was also, to John's delight, a stand that had the snobby/ weird beers so he could drink his snobby beer and be happy. And the crawfish! OH. EM. GEE. This was my first time eating crawfish and there were so many people sitting at the tables under the main tent that John and I had to sit on the sidewalk, like several dozen other people. We had no clue how to eat crawfish so we turned to another young couple next to us and chatted with them as they explained it to us. It was SO wonderful! The crawfish are live and steamed right in front of you, then have a ton of spices dumped on them, and away they go into a big styrofoam container for your enjoyment.

Well, since we did that once, we must now do it every year. I had been talking up my (first) birthday weekend for weeks: strawberry picking followed by the crawfish festival. On Friday night John was talking about his weekend plans and he mentioned how he wanted to work on home improvement stuff with one of his friends in the morning, then go to the crawfish festival. I got a little sad because I really wanted to pick strawberries. One of my aunts said she'd go strawberry picking with me and I called the strawberry farm to check their hours. Guess what? They were closed on Saturday to allow more berries to ripen! YAY!!!!!!!!!! No worries about missing berry picking with my sweet husband! I slept in on Saturday while John and his buddy did some work on our deck. The three of us headed to the crawfish festival and picked up two friends of ours along the way. Two MORE of our friends met us there, as well as our roommate and several of her work buddies. We had quite a group! The weather was PERFECT. It was in the mid 80s but the rain that has been ravaging the mid-South left us with some cloud cover, so it wasn't super hot. Everyone (minus me) got a beer and I stood in line to get crawfish. Two people in our group held a spot for us at the table and we sat down to dig in! DELICIOUS!!! It cracks me up because about half of the people were like, "Um, this is good, but it's too much work for such little meat." I'm so glad I grew up eating crabs! First, eating a crab is WAY more complex than eating a crawfish. With crawfish you twist off the torso and you're done. With crabs it's take off the legs, eat the claws, take off the apron, take off the top, take out the lungs and guts...crawfish are easy! After some delicious crawfish John told me the most beautiful words I could ever hear that day: "I'll be the DD." WOO HOO!!! I had one Bud Light (wow, that stuff really is water) and two beers from the snobby beer selection. There's a high gravity beer called Wild Blue that is DELICIOUS. That plus one shot made me a very happy girl.

I can't wait to do it again next year!

Ugh NPH

I have never seen one episode of "How I Met Your Mother." Neither has John, to the best of my knowledge. John's co-workers are all males and are as metrosexual as men in South Carolina can be. I mean, I know metrosexual is an idea that is about 5 years old but, like most trends, it came to SC several years late. Also, by metrosexual, I mean men who care about clothes being ironed and belts matching shoes. Anyhoo, their reference book for all things male is NPH/ Barney Stinson's "Bro Code". It is such misogynistic drivel. "Bros don't cuddle." "Bros always leave the seat up for other bros." "A bro shall always alert another bro to the presence of a chesty woman. Such alerts shall not be verbal."
For God's sake, men. This crap is such...crap.

Fantasy

I wish all of my friends lived with me. I wish that our house was about 50% bigger and maybe had a bigger kitchen, or a second kitchen. That would be so awesome. We could all just hang out all the time.

One of my favorite days of the year

Today is totally one of my favorite days of the year. More on it later!