The Napkin Diaries

So, I just have to celebrate! Today, my boss came into my office, and the dialog was something like this:
Boss: Do you have any manila folders?
Nicole: Well, not manila, but folders.
Boss: Okay, what do you have?
Nicole: Green, Orange and Yellow
Boss: What's your favorite?
Nicole: Mmm... green.
Boss: Give me one.

So I gave him a green folder. He stuffed some papers in it and shoved it in my hands and then turned around and left. I just figured it was nasty HR stuff that I had to send out. I opened it and it is an out-of-cycle merit increase, which in lamens terms means boss man is giving me a raise. A BIG raise! It is so completely wonderful to know how appreciated I am. And that goes for everything - work, life, family, friends. When someone lets me know that they respect me and genuinely appreciate what I do for them, that automatically puts this giagantic cheesball smile on my face.

The next wonderful thing of the day: I trusted this fabulous new friend to highlight my hair - 9 days before my wedding! She is Dave's boss' wife. Her name is Winnie. I thought she was cool as hell anyway, and now to know that she can actually do what I ask with my hair, oh, I'm sold for life! And she fed me wine and white cheddar cheese popcorn. Good day!

I know I never wrote a blog about the bachelorette party, but that's mostly because (a) the pictures pretty much explain the weekend, and (b) there quite possibly may not be words to describe just how much I love Erin, Megan, Emily and Catherine. Megan planned the whole penis-filled weekend. She excelled, just as expected. I love you 4 like my own family. God only know where I'd be without you. I had so much fun that weekend and I truly owe it all to you ladies. Thank you!

Might I add, Dave's weekend wasn't too shabby either. I collaborated with his work buddies and his closest out-of-town buddies to put together a bachelor party for him the same weekend. About 15 of them ended up on some crazy sailboat with 2 stippers that Friday night. Needless to say, not one of them could hang Saturday night. The girls could though... all the while I was laying on bartops having shots poured down my pretty little bride-to-be throat. Hell yeah.

All in all, my life is amazing. I am so lucky and damn I know it. I have this amazing man that I get to call my husband in about a week; my friends care about me so freaking much that I don't even know how to thank them for caring about me that freaking much. Even though the move to Charleston was hard at first, look at me now - I have a killer job and a boss who really does think a lot of me. I must admit, I can't ask for much more. I win

After reading Catherine's blog, I just realized that I haven't written anything since like July. That's lame. But it also makes sense that I haven't written anything since then because I feel like I have been too busy to enjoy anything enough to write about it. That's not completely true since there have been some really awesome events in the past few months (ex: Jenni's wedding, my bridal shower, Emily's bachelorette party, Megan's bachelorette party, and Emily's wedding) – these things were wonderful, left me exhausted, but wonderful.

In the midst of being this busy, I think I lost myself. All I do is plan the wedding and go to tons of wedding related events. I now understand how brides turn into bridezillas… yes, planning is fun, but it is extremely difficult when we have to travel 400 miles almost every weekend to go finalize this thing or make a decision about that. In the grand scheme of things, who cares how tall my cake is or what kinds of leaves are in my bouquet – think about how ridiculous that is?! But nonetheless, I got sucked into it all because I want everything to be so pretty and wonderful and have a "Nicole touch". I should have focused my attention more on the fact that I am marrying Dave, not how everything is going to look while I'm marrying him…

Ugh.

I had a mini breakdown this week, well, it might have been more than mini… I realize that I have no idea what makes me happy and I have no idea what the hell I want to do with my life. (This statement does not refer to Dave though because he is the only thing that makes sense.) I realize that I do the things that I have to do and I stick to what is routine… this even relates to what station I leave my Sirius radio on… I made myself turn the dumb thing off and put in one of my old Dave Matthew's CDs. I have no idea how long it's been since I chilled to DMB. Made me feel like Nicole again, just a little bit. I did the same thing this morning; I played a Matchbox 20 CD. Some of you might know that I was one of those people completely obsessed with music, especially music that actually had lyrics worth listening to… then, somewhere along the way, I decided I didn't want to listen to anything that made me think, thus the techno phase.

I understand that I haven't figured myself out since I moved away from Clemson. I knew who I was there – I was this maniac bar fanatic who partied like it was her job and all the while maintained a GPA somewhere around a 4.0. No, I don't really know how either… I had my circle of friends that were basically my new adopted family and we spent so much of our time together. I was so freaking happy there! And I was fun. I'm not really fun anymore… and that makes me sad.

When I knew Dave was moving, I knew in my heart that I could not live away from him. I was so in love with him and had wanted to date him for like freaking 2 years so once we finally were together, I didn't want him to leave me. So I went with him – which was great because now we get to marry each other in a month!! But that move broke me, to an extent… I never figured out how to define myself here. And that is something I am still struggling with. And I know its "okay" to not know, but I am sick of not knowing. I've always had some kind of plan and it makes me tear up knowing that when I try to visualize what the hell I am supposed to be doing, I can't see anything. It's blank. Well, it's blank when I try to visualize my career. What is scary and disgusting is that the only thing I can see is me being a mom. Which is so ironic and gross because I hate kids. But that's what I know I will succeed at one day.

I'm ready to get married and stop planning to get married. I just want to be there already and stop anticipating it -- its like some crazy road trip that turned out to be 300 miles too long... It's worn me out. I just want to stay at home with my fiancé for once and hang out. I need things to slow down a little bit so I can actually enjoy myself. And I need to quit being this weird person that I don't even know and just be Nicole again.

Sunday was the day before our one-year anniversary. Dave and I spent it at the pool with three of the coolest people on the planet: Candle, Catherine and Opie. We had some drinkies and just hung out. That night, Dave and I went to Sullivan's Island to eat at this restaraunt that Candle and Opie rave about called Poe's. Which by the way, was awesome. You can get rare burgers. Or medium rare.. how I like it. I got a little nervous when Dave was like "lets just go drive around," thinking that he had something planned. No. We actually just drove around.
We came home and started playing Nintendo. At 12:07, Dave came back into the living room (I think he had just been in the kitchen... or in the bedroom getting the ring...) and he said "Stand up." I was like "Why" He was like, "Stand up. I want to give you a hug. It's officially our anniversary." So I paused Dr. Mario and stood up to tell him I loved him so much and say happy anniversary. Dave then made some comment about how we will have the rest of our lives to play Nintendo... Then he took a deep breath, put his right hand in his pocket and as he was pulling out a ring box, he was getting down on one knee! I made some type of squealish noise and I think I said "Really?!" Then Dave said, "Will you marry me, Nicole?" and he opened the box to show me the ring. I actually only glanced at the ring and immediately said "Of course I will marry you!!" I held my hand out so he could put the ring on my finger and then I got down on my knees to hug him and kiss him. I was probably only kneeling for about 3 seconds before I was like "Um, can I sit all the way down because I'm really hot?" Typical Nicole. Seriously.
We sat down on the floor staring at the ring, then back at each other, then we would say "Oh my god, you're my FIANCE" By the way, fiance is our new favorite word of choice. The ring is so amazing. Dave's family has had diamonds for generations, so I get to wear the family jewels now. They are considered European cut (which resembles brilliant rounds) and the man who appraised the diamonds said he had never seen diamonds of this type more beautiful than the ones Dave had. Holy hell. The ring is 5 diamonds, platinum setting and 1.68 carats total. Seriously, I gained 3 pounds when I put that bling on my finger. He had it completely custom made. Because the diamonds are all unique, it took about 16 hours to design the ring. There is subtle, elegant engraving around the sides and the detail is absolutely amazing.
Dave told me that he had called to ask my Dad earlier that night to ask him if he could ask me to marry him. I absolutely love that he did the traditional thing and asked my Dad. And he was a sneak about it too. When we had come home from dinner, Dave grabbed the crossword puzzle and headed to the bathroom to do "business." I thought nothing of it. He came out really quickly though, so I asked if he was okay. He just said "false alarm" and I laughed at him and thought nothing of it. That's when he had gone to call my Dad. He said asked him and of course Dad said that he thinks the world of Dave and would love nothing more than for him to ask me to marry him and then Dave was like "Thank you so much. I have to go now because I am so nervous that I don't know what else to say." How freakin cute is that?!
We stayed up until 3:00 calling each other fiance and looking at my amazing new engagement ring. ENGAGEMENT RING! When I was brushing my teeth in the bathroom mirror, I paused only to say "It's like a rave when I brush my teeth," referring to how ridiculously shiny my 5, yes 5, diamonds are. Ohmygod, I'm so lucky!

I decided to skip class Monday night to officially celebrate our "new" anniversary -- the day David proposed. He took me out to Shem Creek to eat at this really nice restaraunt called Water's Edge. We ordered a bottle of wine, had crab dip, grouper, filet mignon and the most amazing peach creme brulle ever. Of course we ended up getting a buzz from our decievingly large bottle of wine that I had picked out. Of course I picked the one with the naked tree ladies on the label too. Hey whatever, the crazy tree nudests got us tipsy; so we ran with it. We went downtown to Henry's to grab some drinks and then retreated back to Gene's to finish out the night. We played Engagement Connect Four, Engagement Yahtzee and Engagement Scrabble. Which basically meant, we didn't really keep score and we just kept talking about being each other fiance. Oh we were so fabulously sappy. Love it.
Neither of us cried. I think we were too happy to cry. And both of us agree that we are in shock about it all. I mean, I look at this ring and say "Dave is my fiance" and I just can't believe it's true. I'm going to marry my perfectly ideal finance. FIANCE! Dave is my FIANCE! We're ENGAGED! HOLY FREAKIN CRAP! I didn't know that I could love someone like this and I didn't know I could be this happy. I thank God for putting Dave in my life. He is my soulmate. And now I get to be with him forever.

who else is sick of driving, raise your hand? good lord, i feel like i live in the car! blah. dave and i went to waynesville this weekend, which is only a 4 hour drive, but i've been doing 4 hour drives all summer, so they make me want to puke now. well actually the drive was a little longer because we had to stop at denny's. i mean we HAD to... it's denny's and we love it. and its so ridiculous because it's not like either of us is just going for the sake of the other; we both are seriously obsessed with denny's pancakes. that how we know we are meant to be: our extreme passion for everything denny's. the day i figure out how to order country fried steak and apple pancakes will be the most glorious day. (no catherine, it's no biscuitville, but i mean, it's frickin denny's and you gotta love that.)
so i got to meet a lot of dave's family (finally). i mean, it's been a year, i suppose i should know who these people are. apparently there was a big rumor going around that dave was going to propose to me saturday, so we were all sitting around the kitchen table and everyone was just kinda staring at us... waiting. nothing happened. dave was like "yeah, let me finish eating my salami and cheese sandwich real quick then i'll get on my knee... not exactly the perfect place to propose." ha, thanks babe. the idea did cross my mind though. it made my hands sweat.
so i got the shit beat out of me on the lake sunday. it was sweet. jeff (dave's dad) pulled me on the "Y" which is like a big tube, but instead its in the shape of a "Y" and it goes by the name of "Y-not." well y-not threw my ass off twice. well, actually i guess it was jeff's doing... anyway, i thought i was going to semi drowned one time because i went under water and i didn't really understand where i was or what just happened. and my arms almost got pulled out of their sockets. you know when the driver decides to take the boat in a circle and it throws you to the side of the wake and makes you bounce like 5 feet in the air? well, yeah, that happened and i was trying to be a hardass and hang on. or maybe i was just too scared to let go. needless to say, i was thrown and went under water and got a ton of it up my nose. i was seriously disoriented when i came to the surface. and being the stubborn ass that i am... i got back on and did it all again. this time though, i was able to hold on when jeff tried to throw me off, it wasn't until y-not decided to fucking flip over that i fell off. i was pissed that i made it that far and then just all of a sudden got flipped over. wtf. and i got some serious wind/sun burn. so now i look super sexy. ha.
so yay for dave's family, salami sandwiches, and speed boats. super good weekend.

so its about that time in our lives that we are getting engaged and married or at least planning for it all. some of my friends have gorgeous rings and bridal magazines from floor to ceiling. and i have to admit that i'm definitely guilty of daydreaming about the idea of marriage and having a wedding.
my oldest friend, sheena, got married last night. (yay and congrats!) i've known her for 18 years. we grew up together. even though we went to rival colleges (ewww, usc, gross. ha) we still managed to stay friends. our mothers consider one another to be sisters, and our families get along so well. sheena looked so beautiful, and gah, it made me cry to watch her walk down the isle. i'm so happy for you, sheena.
the reception was so much damn fun! i never realize how much i miss my old high school friends until i see them again. we're so lucky that we still get to see each other and that when we do see each other, its for wonderful occasions, like sheena and luke's wedding. i mean, yay! way way yay.
the most eventful moment of the night was the bouquet toss... because i caught it! YES! while dave did not catch the garter, i will still giddy about my fabulous flower catching skills. matt mullinax actually caught the garter, so we danced together. reminded me of prom. definitely fun.
so yeah, wow. the girls are starting to get married and i just find that to be extremely exciting. so now, i'm gonna go float around the pool and continue my daydreaming...

This weekend I was in Raleigh for my cousin Katie's wedding. Her and Wade were getting married on Saturday. My family got to the Hilton hotel Friday night around 7:30, where we immediately began drinking. Something about traveling just makes us crazy. So me, Michael, Jen and Pete (the newlyweds), and Dave and Loren got hammered. Ha. We ended up at Denny's at midnight and we stuffed ourselves retarded just about. I ended up having creepy crazy dreams about this weird midget ugly ass guy in a green and white striped collared shirt with acid wash jeans on. He was standing in the middle of mine and Michael's beds in our hotel room just lookin at me. And he had insanely huge teeth. Ewwww. And I woke up, but it took my eyes a few seconds to adjust so like I could still see the image of the creepy midget man at the end of the bed. Gave me the heebee jeebees.
Saturday at 2:00, Wade and Katie became Mr. and Mrs. Hendrick. Pretty wedding. Katie looked gorgeous. We all made a mad dash for the reception back at the Hilton. It took Katie all of 47 minutes to get plastered. Aunt Sharon apparently had refused to feed Katie all day, and she's a little girl, so basically she got loaded and then got completely out of control. At first, the DJ was horrid. He played "No More I Love Yous" as the bridal party was walking in... because that makes sense. Way to set the scene for the next 50 years of their lives. Moron. He kinda looked like a fat Ben Stein. And was a complete cornball. Then he started playing his crazy violin and attempted to turn the place into some kind of ho-down. We finally told him, after about the 5th Boys II Men song, that he better change the song line up or we might have to kick his doofus ass. He did... but he ended up playing Real McCoy, Quad City DJs, and Ace of Base. I shit you not. And we actually did the train around the entire room while "Come on Ride the Train" was on. I was slightly uncomfortable because I was sort of supposed to latch onto Wade's dad, who used to/is some crazy CIA man. And plus, its just weird to touch any Dad's waist. Even though it was goofy 90s pop music, it allowed for the Cononie Shake however, so all were satisfied. I had to call Joe after "I Saw the Sign" was played. I couldn't take it anymore. Someone had to know just how ridiuculous this night really was.
So okay, we were all dancing, singing, sloshing our Coronas around, when we all kind of backed off and just watched in horror/shock as Katie went buck wild. You know what people look like when they are swatting bees above their heads? Yeah, Katie looked like that, but add that in with some weird hip swivelling and a big poofy wedding gown, a glass of wine in hand with the deathgrip to ensure it stays in place, and some "wooooooos" for vocal effect. Holygod it was too funny. Then after flailing her arms for a few moments, she'd bend herself in half, touch the floor, and pull her dress up on the way back to her upright position. Then she'd run around and rub her dress on the nearest 3 people, put it back down, flail about, then do some kicks, like the Russian Dance kicks.... in a wedding dress. Then she would add in a split or two, but always threw her hands in the air for someone to help stand her up. Repeat this 86 times for full effect.
Then came time for the throwing of the bouquet and garter. Jesus. First, her gay friend Jarred stood with the girls while she threw her flowers, then he also stood with the guys as Wade threw the garter. Let me first tell you about the garter removal experience. I actually had to look away it was so umm, tacky. Like really, Katie hiked her skirt up so high that we basically got a peepshow of her downstairs, she flailed around while sitting in the chair, then Wade used his teeth to pull the bitch off. He like licked her leg all the way down. I looked away around the time his tongue reached her kneecap.
Then Jarred had to put the garter on Stephanie who had caught the bouquet. Jarred also used his little gay teeth to apply the tainted garter to her leg. And um, her legs aren't exactly cute and small and dainty. We basically got to see Stephanie's downstairs too, since Jarred shoved the damn thing up as far as it would fit. Oh joy.
So needless to say, it was actually a hell of a good time for what started off as a lame reception. Around 9:30, me, Michael, Jen, Pete, Dave and Loren went swimming with about 22 beers (18 beers that each of us probably consumed at the wedding, plus a good 4 more for each while in the pool). Smart, I know. Really ridiculously fun though. We would sit in the hot tub, get grossly hot and then cannon ball into the pool and throw the life raft to each other or use the big stick to scoop each other out. It was only a 5 foot pool, but there were a few times I swore there was a bottomless pit beneath me. My ribs and abs actually hurt from running around and doing relay races in the frickin pool last night. Yeah, we acted like a bunch of 11 year olds and it was damn fun damnit.
So yay for really fun drunk weddings and the fun drunk events that follow.

This past weekend was my cousin Jen's wedding. Her and Pete got married Saturday June 4th in Wilmington, Delaware and it was such a beautiful wedding. And a badass good time reception. Everyone had such a great time and got completely t-rashed! Michael and I even did the shoulder shake on the dance floor together. Ha. My mom and I had flown into the Washington airport Thursday and we drove the remaining 3 hours to Delaware. Our flight home was scheduled for 5:00 Monday afternoon. Yeah... that would have been nice.
We got to the airport around 2:00 just because security and check-in and all that shit is a pain in the ass, especially since it is Washington DC. Well, around 4:00, our flight had been delayed until 6:40 due to weather. Fine. I had Cosmo to read so I was well entertained. Well, around 5:00, our frickin flight was delayed until 10:00 pm. WTF?! Do you know how badly that sucked to hear? So we had to get in the damn customer service line to switch our tickets to the 10:00 flight to GSP airport. So mom and I were sick of sitting in stupid concourse G terminal and decided to go roam around the other terminals. Washington airport is huge. You actually have to take these goofy space-like buses to get to the other terminals and to the baggage claim area. It's pretty overwhelming, honestly. So, we got to the other terminals and realized that other airlines were not delaying or canceling flights so we were pretty pissed off that United Air was doing this to us. Mind you, this is the bastard airline that is going bankrupt... gee, I wonder why.
So we tried to get other flights with other airlines but they were all booked of course. So we wound up back in our terminal... whereupon our flight was canceled completely. What the hell are you supposed to do when that happens? And these bitches were no help. And foreign at that. I'm sorry if that is racist, but damnit I want to deal with someone whom I can understand and who knows what the fuck they are doing. So, we have to get back in the stupid customer service line and switch our tickets so we can now fly into Columbia. Because that makes sense. You have to fly right over GSP to get to ugly Columbia... whatever. So we got our tickets changed and our luggage swapped; so we thought. So this flight was also supposed to leave at 10:00. Of course it got delayed... until 11:40. We didn't board the bitch until midnight. All the while, Mom is on the phone with Hertz, the rental car people, so we can drive back at 1:00 in the damn morning to Simpsonville. Hertz said they would stay until 1:00 am for our flight to arrive. Good thing we didn't get off the mother f-bomb ground until 2:30 in the morning... yeah. Holyshit I have never been so mad and upset in my life.
Mom and I were sitting on the plane at midnight and the pilot told us that they just had a little bit of paperwork to finish and then we would be on our way. Cool, we though. Then this crazy lightening storm comes barreling through causing the entire airport to be on a groundhold. Ugh. Well, once the storm stopped, we were still sitting there. It was about 12:50 by this time. So Mom is at her wit's end and she is like "I have to get off this plane - NOW." So we actually got off a plane. That's really scary... we went back inside the terminal to try to get on the morning flight because by this time we figured the car rental place would be closed and we wouldn't have a way out of Columbia until the morning anyway. So Mom is talking to this guy and she asked him to please get our luggage off the plane. he said, and I quote "I can't be the reason for the delay of your flight." Mom went apeshit. I was on the other side of the terminal and I could hear her yelling. I don't blame her... my turn was coming. She was like "Delay? Are you frickin kidding me?! That is all your damn airline knows how to do! Let me guess? You just dont have time to deal with this either, do you?" The guy was like 'Uhhhh." She was like "That is exactly what I thought." He was like "Well ma'am I'm sorry and try to have a nice night." Mom was like "Oh I'm sure you're sorry. And you know what, you try to have a nice night too." Then the bitch that had to walk with us off the plane was like, "It's possible that the pilot will not wait for you." Enter my turn to snap. This time, I was the one screaming. I was like 'What?! He better wait!" And you guys know how scary I can be when I get insanely mad -- imagine Mom and I both being this livid. I was scared for other people's safety. I was like "I swear to God, if this plane leaves us or cancels the flight, I am going to fucking jail because I am going to kill someone." Mom was like, "I'll be right there with you." So you know, we try to get on the 8:00 am flight to GSP - of course it is booked, but they would be glad to put us on the 5:00 flight. Right. Because that does us a lot of good. So we get back on the stupid plane. It is now 1:30 in the morning and we had to run down the boarding area just incase they were getting ready for take off... Right. Glad we ran just so we could sit there for another stupid hour. The reason we sat there for another hour was because we didn't have fuel. Are you fucking kidding me?! Isn't that some kind of prerequisite? Don't you have to have fuel in the plane before people can board?! Ohmygod... so we finally get a fuel truck to come... and guess what? He was out of fuel!!! I actually said outloud, "you're one job in life is to have fuel. And you can't even do that right. Jesus Christ." So we finally got fuel and the go-ahead to take off. I bawled the minute we got in the air. I hate flying. I had a complete panic attack. I freaked out on the flight to Delaware also. But this time I just lost it completely. My mom had to hold my hand and tell me that the scary plane noises were normal. I couldn't catch my breath and I was afraid to open my eyes because I didn't want to see outside. There was scary lightening everywhere and the pilot wouldn't fly above the clouds because there would be more turbulence. Which only meant that I would see the earth the entire time if we were to crash into it. I really though I was going to die on that plane. We had sat on the ground for so long that I convinced myself there was a mechanical glich and we were going to crash once in the air. And it doesn't help when the seat in front of you says "seat cushion turns into flotation device" Jesus.
We landed at 3:30 at the Columbia airport. Where I finally caught my breath. Low and behold - there was one lonely man behind the counter of the rental car place. Little angels were behind him singing "Aaaaah" I swear. He stayed for us!! God, I love South Carolina. Of course our luggage wasn't on the plane. Imagine that. It got sent to GSP - but there was acually someone to help us fill out a baggage problem form too! Thank God for those nice people. Mom and I got home at 5:30 in the morning. I talked to her the whole way home even though it was difficult for me to even make complete sentences. I was so drained and I knew she had to be even worse off than I was so I knew I had to talk to her to keep her focused. We made it. It was miserable, but we were glad that we at least had each other for support through it all.
I don't know if I will ever be able to fly again. It scared me so much. And what sucked was that I had flown before, but I guess it was on a bigger plane. I don't know. Either way, I'm just glad we made it back alive and in one piece.