Happy Hamster(less)ween!

Happy Halloween, everyone! 

To be totally honest, Halloween is one of my most favorite holidays, and I normally start thinking of my costume months in advance, and spend way more time and effort than is probably necessary. This year was sad because I didn't have any adorable hamsters to dress up, but now I have a spouse, which opens up the whole new world that is couples costumes.

So this year, Daniel and I are dressing up as... hermits! But really, we're just going to turn off all the lights and stay in, shunning trick-or-treaters and eating all of our candy ourselves. Daniel has a crapload of homework, so we're not going to go party. 

However, in order to show my Halloween spirit, here is a pumpkin I painted. That's me, dressed as Merida from the movie Brave, being mildly startled by a ghost.

Anywho.

This week has been super busy and I've slacked slightly on my picture drawing/word writing. I actually do have a post in the makings, but I wanted to get some input from y'all before I finished it.

So, to help me out, what are some of you biggest pet peeves?

Leave a comment here, send an email to hemustbehappy@gmail.com, comment on Faceook, or send a carrier bat (seriously, that would be adorable.)

Confessions

Here's the thing, you guys...

I have some deep, dark secrets that I have been holding back from the world for too long now, and it's starting to eat me up inside. 

Now, I know what you must be thinking. "Jackie? Dark secrets? Pshhh! She's far too adorable and awesome to have dark secrets. Besides, with how much she talks all the time, it's ridiculous to think that there are words that have not yet spilled out of her brain through her mouth."

And to you I say... ouch. But also, it's true. As multi-faceted as my personality may seem, it's actually extra extra SUPER multi-faceted, and some of those facets are shameful and appalling. 

So with no further ado, let's all get ready to be horrified!

Here are ten of my darkest secrets that come to mind right away: 

1. I don't believe in chinchillas.

"But Jackie, chinchillas are real!"

No they're not. You know nothing.

"Wh-- I've seen them! I had a pet chinchilla for like three years!"

That's just what they want you to think. Next you'll be trying to tell me that unicorns and jackalopes and platypuses are real. It's all part of the conspiracy. I've looked many a chinchilla in the eye and denounced their existence to their furry little faces.

I don't know what sort of scarring childhood experience I had that has caused my unshakable disbelief in a scientifically acknowledged reality, but so help me, I won't be convinced.

Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it?

That wasn't a political statement.

...or was it?

2. Sometimes (often), I think about drawing freckles on my face so that people will think I'm cuter. 

Okay, this one isn't even making a statement. This is just a true fact.

Truth is, I'm getting older. It happens to most people, but I never realized it could happen to me. Unfortunately, as I get older, it gets harder to be super adorable all the time. My baby-face is starting to look more mature, I sometimes get heartburn, I've even started to get terrible bags under my eyes and faint wrinkles on my forehead.

Ever since my smartness all burned up, I've had to get by on my sense of humor and cuteness. With my cuteness gone, all I would have left is my quick wit, and I don't know if that's enough to make everyone like me all the time.

Freckles are the obvious solution.

3. These days, I spend more time carefully arranging my clothing so that it squishes my fat roll into smaller, less noticeable fat rolls, than I do putting on makeup.

This comes with getting older, too.

Back in the day, I used to survive off a steady diet of ice cream and Doritos, and my weight had stayed within about a 5 or 6 pound range from the time I turned about 14. Sadly, now that I am no longer a teenager, my metabolism has apparently slowed to a screeching halt.

The problem is, I have no idea how to diet or exercise, and my regular routine of wandering the house searching for snacks just isn't cutting it anymore. And the other problem is, gaining weight means that all my clothes don't fit the same anymore. And the other other problem is that I refuse to go out and buy a whole new wardrobe just because I can't squeeze all my regular pants over my butt-fat.

So, I've developed a brilliant solution. If I carefully smush my fat in all the right directions, no one will notice that I've gotten kinda pudgy over the last little while!

4. I actually listen to a lot of Britney Spears.

Okay, I didn't even draw a picture for this one. Some of her music is really catchy! Stop judging me, you know you've done it too. You can't be an 18-24 year old and honestly tell me that you don't secretly jam to some Britney every now and then.

...hmm hmm taste of your lips, hmm hm hm hmmm, you're toxic, I'm slipping under...

5. I can't use the bathroom if it's at an unfamiliar place, or if anyone at all is in the bathroom or within like a five mile radius.

I know I'm not the only one that does this! I'm not weird, you're weird! One of these days I'm just going to die of... kidney failure or something. Honestly, Daniel and I started dating over a year ago, and I have used the bathroom at his parents' house exactly three times. And that was only when I had no other choice.

For some reason I'm mostly fine with using public restrooms, but people's houses really freak me out. In a public restroom, if you find some mysterious hair, you're like "Ew gross, a mysterious hair." But if you find a mysterious hair in the restroom of someone's house, you're like "This hair belongs to someone IN THIS HOUSEHOLD." And then it's weird.

Usually, the three places I can use the bathroom without freaking out are as follows: Home (but only if Daniel isn't lurking around somewhere), work (but only if I am certain there is no one else in the bathroom, and if someone does come in I'll abort the mission), and my parents' house. Seriously, the other day I was visiting an old friend from high school, and on the way back I stopped at my parents' house to use the bathroom, so I didn't have to hold it for the 20 minute drive back to our apartment. True story. I pretended like I was visiting them just to say hey.

6. Up until recently, I couldn't cook rice without starting a fire.

This one is really sad. I would consider myself a pretty awesome cook, frankly. I can make French Silk pie no problemo. I've made all manner of casseroles, soups, stews, stir fries, and pastas, all without a hitch. One time I helped my father make crème brûlée WITH A BLOWTORCH and didn't start a fire.

For some reason, though, there was a period of time in my life where me making one of the simplest dishes known to mankind resulted in something burning. And I'm not just talking about the rice, either.

Once I was making rice, and some melted butter caught fire. Being the competent kitchen safety technician I am, I threw water on it, but that's another story. I cleaned up all the smoke damage before my parents even got home.

Since I got married and moved into my own apartment, though, I haven't started a single fire, so maybe my curse is lifted. Maybe true love's kiss stopped me from randomly setting fired to my home, or some like that.

7. I think I may have backed into a mailbox one time, but it was dark and I panicked and drove away.

Once, when I was young and kinda newish to driving, I was dog-sitting for a friend of the family. This friend lived in a somewhat sketchy area of town, and sometimes I was a little nervous to be over there at night. He had some neighbors across the street that were often drunk and often yelling at each other, so I usually let the dog out and then skeedaddled as quickly as I could, so as to avoid... I don't even know. Maybe my irrational teenage mind thought I was going to get dragged in to mediate, and that would just be awkward.

Anywho.

One day I was over letting the dog out, and I had driven over in my dad's great big truck. I usually parked up the street and walked down to the house because it had a shared driveway and I really didn't want to accidentally block off the other neighbor, because that would also be awkward. This particular time, however, I pulled into the driveway because it was pretty late and I wanted to just be in and out of there.

I did my thing, fed the beast, and then jumped into the truck to drive away.

Now, this road was also quite narrow, and the truck was pretty long and monstrous. I pulled out of the driveway somewhat faster than I should have, and felt a little teeny tiny "bump."

It was probably just the tires hitting the curb, but when I pulled forward, I saw that there was a mailbox behind me. Not wanting to get shanked or yelled at by strangers, I pulled off and sped away.

I checked the next day and the mailbox seemed fine, but the guilt has been destroying me inside for years.

Phew. It's good to get that off my chest.

8. Once I and a couple of my friends threw some nerds under the proverbial bus for a terrible high school crime we committed. 

I can't say too much, for fear of being arrested or hanged or something, but let's just say...

Once upon a time, my friends and I were up to some mischief. I won't specify what sort of mischief, but we'll say... we were somewhere we weren't supposed to be at school, and something happened that was... uh... we'll call it "minor property damage." We didn't really know the extent of our crime at the time, but we knew we were in trouble when we heard footsteps behind us in the darkness of the Forbidden Place.

We scampered as fast as we could toward the nearest exit, and emerged into the hall just outside the band room at my high school.

This hall was notorious for hosting a menagerie of nerds at any given time. I can say that because I was one of the nerds, before y'all get on my back about stereotyping. It's our word.

Anyway, being the crafty rapscallions that we were, we decided that the only way to escape conviction was to give the authorities a scapegoat.

We showed the nerds into the secret... uh... place of mystery... just in time for the vice principal to come out and catch them in the act of illicit trespassing. They were sternly lectured in our place, and we got away clean as a whistle. And to this day, no one but us knows what we did.

And, you know, all those people that we told.

9. I'd rather get a kitty than another hamster.

Does that make me a terrible person? I mean, hamsters have kind of become my "thing" these days... I'm the resident authority on rodents and all the random trivia associated therewith.

But if I could get another pet... I don't know if it would be a hamster.

It's not because I don't love hamsters or don't think they're the cutest creatures ever to grace the face of this otherwise depressing planet, not at all. Mostly it's a result of the overpowering guilt left over from the untimely deaths of Walter and Radagast.

When Nigel died, it was incredibly sad and heartbreaking, but I was still comfortable getting another hamster, because I didn't feel responsible for Nigel's death. I had closure. He had cancer and he was getting old, it was just his time to go, and I did absolutely everything I could to make him better and to make sure he didn't suffer. But with the others, I have no idea to this day what killed them, and I constantly worry that it is a result of my negligence.

Kitties, on the other hand, are a lot harder to accidentally kill. I mean, the chances that you'll run over your kitty with your car are infinitely higher than with a hamster, but they aren't going to die if you don't feed them often enough, or you forget to refill their water, or if it's too hot or too cold in your house. Kitties are tough. They can more or less take care of themselves.

Hamsters, for all their cuteness, are helpless.

10. I sometimes read my own blog when I'm bored, because I think I'm really hilarious.

I'm not vain or anything like that. It's just that I don't have great long-term memory, so when I go back and read my own work, it's always a new experience. Plus I actually am pretty proud of some of the stuff I've done.

Unlike any other art I've ever done, I can still be proud of my blog after I've finished a post. Normally with any other drawing or design or whatever, I'm really excited about it while I'm working on it, and then when I'm done, I step back and look at it and think to myself, "This is a disgrace to the name of art and should never see the light of day again."

Not so with my blog, though. I am genuinely un-ashamed of my work here, and I want to continue sharing it with the world! Admittedly, sometimes Daniel has to go through and point out the embarrassing number of typos in every post after it's first published, but after a couple revisions every post is like a child to me.

Except better than a child, because none of my posts scream or puke or touch me with creepy tiny sticky hands.

***

On that note, I hope you like my blog too, and in order to make it easier for you to enjoy it, I want to hear more from you, the readers, so that it can become more of a conversation. A conversation with pictures! I'm sure you are all aware of the sweet poll I've got posted over there in the right sidebar. It seriously takes a total of like three seconds to take a poll, and it doesn't even hurt. If you look at my blog, just click an answer on the poll. It will make everyone's lives better, and I'll be updating the question bi-weekly, to keep things fresh. Your opinions will be heard, and your suggestions will be featured right here in the post-y section.

Don't you want to be a part of the action?

Yes. Say yes.

Good.

A Year and A Day

Hey everyone! As promised, today's blog post is a special spotlight on my relationship with my semi-newish husband spouse! Since we recently celebrated our anniversary yesterday, I decided this was a good time to reflect on the growth of our relationship over the last year, and I chose to open the conversation to the readers. 

By which I mean begged for input. 

Fortunately, a few people pulled through, and here are some of the questions I received this week...

Q: How did you two meet?

A: Well, good reader, that is an excellent question. Technically, I do know HOW we met, and approximately WHEN we met, but neither of us actually remembers MEETING. 

Daniel and I had been friendly acquaintances for about three years or so by the time we actually started dating. The reason we don't remember meeting is because it honestly wasn't that notable of an event at the time. 

Here is an actual real life photograph of us at band camp the week that we first met:

I assume we probably spoke at some point during this week, and we might have attended several festive gatherings over the years after this first encounter, but I honestly couldn't tell you about all of them. Or any of them, really. 

When we met, I was fresh out of high school and Daniel was fresh back from his mission. He was pretty freaking weird, and I was super cool and popular. HAHAHA just kidding, I've never been cool or popular. I was, however, the youngest person in the band that year, and therefore didn't even register on his radar. I ended up dating someone else in the band.

A couple years later, a group of our mutual friends were gathered at Betos enjoying delicious Mexican "food" and friendly banter, and Daniel started conversing with me and my BFF Arryn. At this point, it was Octoberish, and Arryn and I had been making plans to acquire boyfriends in time for Christmas, so that we would have someone to buy us presents. Arryn and I had determined beforehand that Daniel was destined to be my Christmastime boyfriend, so this was working well in my favor. 

So, anywho, after being friendzoned so hard, I had pretty much given up all hope for ever dating Daniel ever, so I ended up dating a guy from work. 

Another space of time later, I had decided that my life was going in a direction that was kind of a northerly one, so I announced to the general public at school that I had decided to attend another university, about an hour or so away. Most people reacted with mild interest, a few congratulated me on my life choices, and three or four people shouted "NOOOO!"

One of those people was Daniel, which was strange to me, because we weren't really super close at all. When I asked him about his exclamation, he said "You can't leave here! You're too much of a... uh... novelty."

"A novelty?" I said, "A novelty?! That's what I am to you? An interesting trinket for your grandmother's parlor?"

"No I... You just can't leave," he said. I ended up dating another guy from work.

After a few more months, we ended up at Betos once again, with pretty much the same group of friends. Being college kids, we decided it was a brilliant idea to have a party after the football game, and that party involved a hot tub. 

This is how we started dating:

And that leads us to our next question!

Q: What is your favorite thing to do together?

A: We like to do all the things together, but in all total and complete honesty, the time I enjoy most is when we can just chill on the couch and watch TV together. Sounds lame, I know, but it isn't exactly sit-in-silence TV enjoying.

I would also say that I enjoy cooking dinner together, although usually cooking together usually means me cooking and Daniel "helping."

But it's okay, he's cute enough to get away with it.

Next question!

Q: What is something you discovered about each other after you got married that made you love each other more?

A: Well, honestly I don't think I could narrow it down to specific "things" that we learned about each other. There are lots of things we have learned about each other, and we do love each other more all the time. I think what it really comes down to is learning to love the things that bugged me at first.

For example, one of the things that drove me insane about Daniel when we first got married was that he is insanely paranoid. When we were moving into our first apartment, he made me wait by his truck while he took in each and every thing himself, because he was worried someone would steal our stuff. At first, I wanted to punch him in the neck all the time, and I scolded him for his general mistrust of humanity. 

One day, I asked him why he locked the door every time he left for work in the morning when I was still in bed. It made me feel like a defenseless baby, and besides, who is going to randomly break into a second floor apartment in the morning? He responded with "I know, but if something ever happened to you, I would never forgive myself knowing that I could have made you a little safer."

From that day on, I've learned to appreciate his paranoia, because it doesn't really mean that he's a crazed lunatic who will spend the rest of his life in an underground bomb shelter filled with guns and ammunition, it just means that he cares.

Daniel's answer: This question makes my head hurt a little bit just because, like Jackie said, it's a little tough to narrow it down.  But as far as I can think of, I would have to say that I have really come to appreciate Jackie's capacity for service.  I love all the little things that she does for me.  Little chores that she does around the house suddenly mean a big deal to me because it means that A) I don't have to do it (living with only one other person means that there are fewer options for people to pawn chores off on to), and B) I feel like she does them specially for me.  I like the embarrassing sticky notes that she puts in with my lunch, and when she folds the laundry, and when she makes cookies while I'm at work.  They are little things that make a big difference.  I don't want to make it seem like Jackie has suddenly become my little wife/home maker (She would hate that).  I just mean to say that I appreciate the things she does as part of our equal partnership, and I especially love it when she does little things that go above and beyond anything I could have expected in an eternal companion.

Aaaaand, another very eloquently phrased question from a reader:

Q:  I wanna hear/see your story all put into picture form with clever words.

A: That's... not even a question. And secondly, there aren't enough clever words or pictures to describe all of the delightful adventures and superfuntimes we've experienced over the last year and a day, so instead I'll relate yet another amusing tale from our wedding day.

Once upon a time, I have a mostly functional brain that is almost pretty good at remembering things sometimes. On our wedding day, the functional parts of my brain must have been pretty worn out, because we had to turn around at least once on the way to our wedding because I had forgotten things.

When we finally arrived, I was whisked off to be married, and as the ceremony came to a close...

Being the excellent rememberer that I am, I had forgotten to bring Daniel's wedding ring TO OUR WEDDING, after spending the whole day before giving him crap about remembering the marriage license. I didn't want to look like an idiot at my own wedding, and you can't really exchange rings if only one of you has a ring. That's not an exchange, it's a... um... gift.

Anywho, fortunately at the very last minute, one of my aunts suggested that he borrow a ring from someone there, and fortunately my dear spouse has delicate tiny fingers, so my mother was able to lend him her gold wedding band for a little bit until we could go home and retrieve his actual ring.

Here is a very romantic picture of Daniel wearing the wrong ring:

And last but not least, here is a question directed specifically at Daniel, since it's is Spanish, and I am quite unilingual. 

P: ¿Cuando se dieron cuenta que pudieron estar juntos sin uno matar al otro?

Q: When did you realize that you could be together without killing each other?

A: Well here's how it went down.  We were hanging out one afternoon eating at Costa Vida. We were chatting and talking about relationshipy thingeys when I said to Jackie "You know, I think that I like you enough that we could probably make things work together forever." When I realized what words came out of my mouth, my stomach sank, and I made a face like this....

(See Jackie's version of this story HERE)

We were both quiet for a few seconds as we contemplated what I had just said and what it meant. For me it started off like "Oh [insert vulgarity here], what does this all mean?" to "Ok cool I guess.  It looks like I know where life is going now."  And then we both proceeded to freak out a little nigh unto self-defecation.

And the rest is history as they say.

(OK it's Jackie again.)

Thanks everyone, for reading and supporting Plans for Nigel, and thanks for the love and support y'all have provided for me and Daniel over the last year. This has certainly been one of the biggest adventures of my lifetime, and I'm glad I could share it with the entire internet all the time.

Here's another wedding picture.

Yours, Mine, and Ours

Once upon a time, like four and a half months ago, I got married.

A lot of girls spend their childhood dreaming about the day they wed, and how they're going to live happily ever after, and imagine what an awesome wife they're going to be...

I was NOT planning on getting married anytime soon, believe you me. In fact, there's still a part of my brain that keeps thinking "Yeah, I'm not going to get married for years and years, if ever!" And then I remember that I already am married. Not that there's anything wrong with that! But you know, it's just weird sometimes.

Anywho, long story short, getting married was a shock.

Today, we will be learning about why getting married has been such a learning experience for me, particularly when it comes to learning to live with a guy. I grew up with two sisters and no brothers, so I've never really had to live with a boy. I mean... my dad... but he's a dad, so that doesn't count. So without further ado, here is what I've learned about how to live with a husband.

1. Sleeping Habits

Growing up, I had my own room since I was a tiny kid. For like fifteen years, I had my own space, my own closet, my own place. After my marriage, not only did I have to share a room, I had to share a bed and a blanket! We don't sleep in a king sized bed, either. I brought the bed with me to the marriage, and I had been sleeping on a full sized bed. We aren't huge people, but it's still quite snuggly, and learning to share is rough stuff.

Admittedly, I'm not always the victim in the sleeping situation.

2. Bathroom Habits

Oh my goodness. I don't... It's just... (shudder)

For ten years, I shared a bathroom with two sisters and two cats. Admittedly, it gets tough to keep a clean bathroom with that host of occupants coming in and out, but introducing a boy into the picture is a whole different experience.

I'm no clean freak, as I'm sure my mother would be glad to confirm, but there's just... I...

3. Eating Habits

Okay, I have no illusions of being one of those nibbly little skinny girls that only eats organic... kale... None of that nonsense. I do, however, eat significantly less than a 24-year-old man. And the way I eat is different.

I'm a notorious chip-licker. I'll admit it right here, right now. I just like to enjoy my food to the fullest extent! I lick the seasoning off my chips before I eat them, I nibble the salt off my pretzels, I slurp my soup, I eat my fries one at a time. So sue me. 

Daniel eats like he's got a time limit.

4. This

Well, okay. Growing up in a house full of women doesn't mean I never experienced this. (Looks at sisters)

***

Don't take any of this wrong, I love my husband dearly and have no qualms about signing on for this... er... adventure. Being married is one hundred percent worth all the snoring and sharing and tooting. 

In fact, to be totally fair for writing this post and embarrassing my beloved spouse in front of all the internet, I've extended him the invitation to write a guest post for my blog. So that should be... Adorable. Entertaining. Enlightening. Interesting. Terrifying. Hilarious. Pick an adjective.

Also, next Saturday is a momentous occasion, because it marks the anniversary of mine and Daniel's very first date. This pretty much beats out any previous records, and I'm hoping that our relationship continues to be the record holder forever. To commemorate this fortuitous event, my next post is going to be sort of a Q and A type deal, all about the adventures and experiences and times that we've had over the last year, good and bad.

So, if you have a question you want answered or a story you want told, let me know here, in the comments, or send an email to hemustbehappy@gmail.com. Or, alternatively, if you haven't already "liked" Plans for Nigel on Facebook, you should go do that. And then leave your words in the comments there.

But for really, I want to know what you want to know! You're all part of the Plan.

...for Nigel.