Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving from Hokie & a Wahoo 

(yes, I realize that this is biased towards the Hokie Nation, but it's rivalry week ya'll!) 

Photobooth Fantasticness

Two weeks ago, Ryan and I attended our friends Sarah and Todd's hometown wedding reception. They were married in Mexico, and then had a fantastic party for everyone in Delaware. It was a blast! I'm so happy for both of them, and super excited that we have now have married friends just a few blocks away from us :0) 

Everything about the wedding was amazing, but the biggest hit was definitely the photobooth. I've worked a gazillion weddings that have had these, but this was the first time i've actually gotten to attend a wedding with one. Needless to say Ryan and I felt the need to exert our super cheesiness in all its glory (see below). I loved absolutely everything about our wedding, but if I could have added anything, it definitely would have been a photobooth.  

Have a great Monday everyone! It's rivalry week here in the McCasa, so I'm working on how to get through Thanksgiving weekend surrounded by three wahoo fans....

Workplace Etiquette

If you've been throwing up all night, and still feel sick the next morning. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE do not come into work. It doesn't make you look like a better/harder/more awesome worker. It makes everyone else upset. Especially when you pull this stunt a week before Thanksgiving.

The Way We Get By- Amazing Documentary

This is the trailer for the documentary, The Way We Get By, which is airing tonight on PBS. It tells the story of a group of senior citizens in Bangor, Maine who greet EVERY SINGLE military flight that is leaving or coming back from war.

It truly is amazing what this group does. Because of them, I was able to talk to my brother before he left for Iraq. They also took pictures that my brother was able to share with my family. They made a huge impact on him, and I can only imagine the number of other lives they have touched. It is a wonderful reminder of how the gestures of a few can make such an impact on thousands. I really recommend watching this video if you can.

I'd like to give a big thanks to everyone who serves, who has served, or who supports those who are serving! Thank you for ALL that you do!

The Way We Get By - Trailer from The Way We Get By on Vimeo.

Ryan Answers: Part 1

Hi Everyone! I just want to thak you so much for all of your kind words and prayers. I can't even begin to tell you how much all of your support has helped! 

Now onto the 1st part of Ryan's answers...

Katie, Me and some of the members of The Reflex on the night we met

Justine asked: How did I know Katie was the woman I wanted to marry?

I could say it was because she put up with my witty--though she would say corny--sense of humor; I could say it was how I can't help but smile whenever I think about her or see her; or I could say it was how we easily turned our innate Wahoo-Hokie rivalry into a humorous and flirtatious interaction.  All of these things and more than I have space to write would be reasons why I knew she was the woman I was going to marry.  But, I also had a little help from everyone's favorite social networking site, Facebook.  Of course I looked at her photos once or twice in that month we first met--okay, maybe at least once a day--and in addition to falling very swiftly in love with her, I quickly discovered something else.  Katie is the most genuine person I have ever met:  all the smiles I saw in her pictures were the same that gave me goosebumps in person.  Good goosebumps.  And a racing pulse.  So after dating for less than two weeks, I was compelled to tell her "I love you," which is something I had never said to anyone except family members.  I was dying to tell her that for days and I meant it.  Thank goodness she returned the "I love you," because the road to win her heart started out a little complicated, as you'll read in the next question...

LuLu in D.C. asked: How did Katie and I meet?

To fully appreciate the forces and circumstances that brought Katie and me together, I have to begin in my college days at UVA, The University of Virginia.  I had a circle of friends in my graduating class that moved to the DC area, and these friends were VERY competitive with sports.  So much so that they were VERY anti-VA Tech, in the friendliest of ways of course.  Hence to my surprise finding them hanging out with a sizable group of VA Tech folks after a year in DC.  However, the most important character in this story (after Katie, naturally) was one of my good friends and fellow band member (the band story is for another time).  He invited me out one night to Whitlow's, a popular nightspot in Arlington, VA, to see The Reflex, a great 80's cover band.  It also happened that my good friend planned to introduce me to a girl he'd been interested in who's name was...drumroll...KATIE! 

Whitlow's was packed and it took us a while to get in, but as soon as we entered I looked over to the stage.  My eyes locked with those of an incredibly beautiful girl.  It was seriously like a Hollywood moment: for a few seconds we were the only people in the bar.  I made up my mind that I was going to go talk to that girl as soon as my friend introduced me to his lady interest.  After grabbing a drink at the bar and fighting our way through the throng of enthusiastic fans of synthesized music, we finally met our group of friends and my buddy's love interest.  And you've probably already guessed it, it was the amazingly gorgeous girl I saw upon entering Whitlow's.  And her name was Katie.  

Conversation being lost between my buddy and Katie, I quite easily fell into a very pleasant talk with my future wife.  The time flew, 80's tunes were sung, and soon the night was drawing to a close.  Moment of truth: I was falling for this girl, but my friend was interested in her.  Do I ask for her number or let her walk away?  To this day, Katie insists that I made the wrong call, but I had to be fair to her and my friend.  So I didn't get her number.  Fortunately, we would meet again about one month later, thanks to a mixture of river tubing, fate and being my buddy's "plus-one" on an Evite for said river tubing trip.  

Cry It Out- The 20something Version

* The Ask Ryan answers will be coming soon (he's very excited to share with you!). I just need to get this off my chest right now. Also, I want to thank everyone for your support in the last post...still not sure what is up, but it seems more and more like it's probably something with making counterfeit temporary tags.

Anyway...

I have a very bad habit of keeping everything inside of me instead of getting upset in the moment. I rationalize to myself that no matter how bad things are, I shouldn't feel bad because there are so many people that have it worse (perhaps this is Irish-Catholic guilt at its best?). I'm sure there's some sort of psychological term for this, but I don't know what it is. What I do know now though, is that this is a horrible, horrible thing to do.

Suffice to say, everything came crumbling apart last night as I subjected my husband to a 3 hour plus sob fest...swollen eyes, hyperventilation and runny nose included. It all started with a phone call from good friends with some very exciting news. I was (and am) so excited for them, but after a few minutes I suddenly felt overwhelmed with frustration and sadness. The tears started flowing uncontrollably as Ryan tried his best to figure out what the heck was going on. And then the words came tumbling out..."I feel like everyone around us is moving on with life and we're stuck in the awful state, and it's never, ever going to get any better."

For those of you who have been reading this blog since the beginning, and for my wonderful friends who follow along, you know that I have struggled with health issues since we returned from our honeymoon in August of 2008. For those of you who are new, you can catch up by reading posts under the "health" label on the left hand side. Needless to say, it's been a very bumpy year and three months. And while there have been some improvements they've come at a cost...major lifestyle changes, loss of "friends" who haven't been able to understand my new limitations, and a whole lotta guilt (99% of which I put on myself). The absolute hardest part though, is that we can't really find anyone around us who can relate to what we are going through .

A lot of people have told me that I'm so lucky that I've gotten sick at this time in my life. I'm young, we don't have any kids, and I have a husband who can emotionally and physically help support me. I've tried to agree and live up to this logic over the last year, and you know what I've come to realize...getting sick at this time in my life absolutely sucks. I'd also like to recommend never telling anyone that they are "lucky" in timing their illness. Unless you've been through the same thing at the same time, you really have no idea what it is like.

The timing in our lives (I say "our", because Ryan is affected by this too) comes with its own special set of issues. Growing up, I always envisioned having a honeymoon phase with my husband. We'd travel to lots of different locations, do volunteer work, hang out with friends, pick up new hobbies and live for the most part in newlywed bliss. However, our honeymoon phase turned out to be one of medical bills, doctor's appointments, and the aforementioned lifestyle changes.

Any event that we participate in...whether it is visiting the in-laws or going to a wedding requires about a week or more of planning. More often than not, even simple plans are cancelled because my body decides not to cooperate. Then there are the fears that are always in the back of our minds. Fears that I'll end up in the hospital again, fears that I'll never have the energy to travel the world with my husband, and mostly, fears that I won't be healthy enough to have children. The last fear hits my heart the hardest. And on top of this, there is the guilt. I've always been a very independent person, so I struggle with this so very much. I know that I didn't plan or make myself get sick, but it's very hard not to feel responsible for the effects my health has on others. I know that my husband envisioned the same sort of honeymoon phase and family plans that I did, and it's hard not to feel like my health has ruined his dreams too. He completely disagrees with my logic (the man has the heart and the patience of a saint), but that doesn't mean that I still don't feel this way. It's a heavy burden that I put on myself.

For the most part, I've plowed through all of this with optimism, determination and hope (and the occasional bad day), but now I feel like I'm running severely low on all three. I'm just tired. I'm tired of feeling sick, I'm tired of all of the emotions that go along with this, I'm tired of not being able to get clear answers from doctors, I'm tired of how much effort it takes to get simple things done, and I'm tired of trying to make people understand what all of this is like. I know that in a few days things will probably be more sunny, but for right now I'm in the middle of a big old funk.

-Katie

A Little Freaked Out...Can You Help?

Ok, so this seems straight out of a movie (in a really not so good way). Yesterday morning, my co-worker was standing outside when he noticed 3 men jump out of a car and take pictures of my license plate with a camera phone. He was smart enough to memorize their license number. The local police department was contacted, a report was taken, and I was shown pictures of the person who owns the vehicle that the guys jumped out of (I didn't recognize him). The cops can't really do anything, but at least there record of the event in the system. They think that they may have targeted my license number because I currently have temporary tags (perhaps a counterfeit deal?). Needless to say, I'm a little freaked out. Has anyone out there heard of anything like this happening?

Thanks!