Oh, my.
I mean, oh. my. goodness.
Yesterday, I was out shopping with my Grandmother and Bean all day and so I didn’t have email or computer access. When I finally sat down at my computer last night, I was bombarded with emails and Twitter messages all telling me the same, very important piece of information
THE PIONEER WOMAN IS COMING TO ORLANDO!
THE Pioneer Woman. Ree Drummond. My imaginary BFF is coming to Orlando.
You might remember the beginning of our friendship when Chris, Bean, and I made the trip into New York to see her at her book signing last year. She signed my cookbook. She took a blurry picture with us. And she made one, small, little comment that she recognized my name from the comments in her blog.
On anyone else, that comment might have been lost. But to me, she might as well have said, “Hey, do you wanna come over and watch Real Housewives of New York in our PJs and talk about boys?”
That was when I knew she wanted to be best friends.
Shortly after that, Chris and I attacked her on Twitter. Seriously. We sent her so many messages, forcing her to be our friends. It didn’t really work, but she did start following Chris and I on Twitter and we considered that a minor victory.
Once we knew we were Twitter friends and, like, totally meant to be real life best friends, Chris and I started begging – no, more like groveling – to come to PW’s ranch. We wanted to come out and spend a weekend with her and her family.
Was this creepy? Sure.
Was this weird? Absolutely.
Did this make us stalkers? Possibly.
Apparently, you can smell desperation through the internet and, naturally, PW ignored our requests. As any sane person would have done. Probably a good move on her part. We would have showed up and been so star struck all weekend that it would have left Bean to do the talking for us. And all he can do is say Ma-Ma and Da-Da and give high fives, so that might have been awkward for everyone.
After that desperate attempt to reconnect with my BFF, Chris and I moved to Florida from Connecticut. And WHO SHOULD FOLLOW US DOWN HERE BUT THE PIONEER WOMAN HERSELF! Obviously, she wants to be my friend and is just nervous about reaching out. So instead, she has followed me to Florida where she will casually hang out until I come see her.
I get it, Ree. I totally get it. I know you want to be my best friend, but you really didn’t have to follow me down to Orlando…
Bean was really excited about meeting PW in January.
Here is the part where you, dear readers, come into the picture. CLEARLY, Ree is unsure of the next step to take in our friendship. I can understand that. Imaginary friends don’t often come to life.  But if she just had a little encouragement, then I think it might be possible. SO… If you love me as your blogger at all, you can do a little something to unite two long lost imaginary friends. If you are so inclined – and I do hope you will be! – you can do one or more of the following to help my cause:
1. Go to Ree’s blog and leave a comment on her Orlando post telling her that you think she should meet me, Chris, and Bean while she is in Orlando. We’re BFFs, so she will TOTALLY know who you are talking about… (but you might want to mention Confessions of a Young Married Couple just in case…friends can’t remember everything, you know…)
2. Send Ree a message on Twitter telling her she should meet us while she is in Orlando. Ree’s Twitter name is @thepioneerwoman. My Twitter name is @MarriageConfess and Chris’ is @MrConfessions.
3. Send Ree an email telling her she should meet us while she is in Orlando. Her email address is ree@thepioneerwoman.com.
I think if we just flood her little heart with messages, I might actually reunite with my imaginary BFF! I mean, its the LEAST I can do for her since she followed me all the way here, bless her heart.
01Apr
1. I REALLY miss our doggy door. If I have to get up one more time for a dog barking at the back door! UGH.
2. I miss my old Mr. Coffee Coffeemaker. Let me tell you MR COFFEE… Your new coffee makers suck. Why did you change everything!?! Why the hell are there springs? I had my old coffee maker for the last ten years, and there were no leaks. My coffee pot was a sad loss in the move. The glass shattered. I’m so sorry old friend. The 2010 Mr. Coffee sucks and I might shatter his glass myself.
3. I love that my deep fryer made it back to the counter top! YES! I have missed you too old friend.
4. I feel like we are on dial-up internet again. Its really slow and MUST change in the new place.
5. I really love to work, but I also really like not having to work right now. I get to do things like play 18 holes of golf on a Wednesday.
6. I hate our bathroom. Have you ever done something the exact same way your entire life, and then that something unexpectedly changes without notice? The sink spout is so short I can’t properly bend over and fit my mouth under it to get water after brushing my teeth! Now I have to do the “one handed gulp” method, and I can never get the correct amount of water. And I don’t even want to tell what happened when I tried the “two handed gulp” method, I almost drowned.
7. I like being close to my sister again. Its been so nice having her just stop by for lunch or dinner.
8. I love that it is sunny almost everyday right now. I need to get my tan back. I look like a snow bird. Actually right now I have a golfers tan. Haha whatever..
9. I love looking for houses with Katie. Usually we start looking at houses we can afford and then wander into the really nice neighborhoods. We just drive through and talk about the million dollar homes. What we like and what we would do differently to them, you know, if we ever had a million dollars to buy one…
10. I can’t wait to get my season pass to Universal and Islands of Adventure. CANT WAIT.
11. Its awesome to be back in Gator Country. Football season is going to be so much fun this year.
12. I can’t wait to see the final Space Shuttle launches this year. Did you know that they are retiring the shuttles? So sad but the next phase of the space program is exciting!… If only they had the money 
13. LOVE LOVE LOVE hanging with Bean Man everyday. I know it won’t last, but its so much fun right now. I can’t wait for the little man to grow to 42″ so we can ride roller coasters together at Universal.
14. I miss my Man Cave. I miss my pool table. I miss my Ping Pong and World Domination with great friends.
15. I know that the tough times will not last forever. I know that we came here for a reason. I know that old friends will always be there, and I know that new friends are out there too. I know that even though Florida doesn’t feel like home yet, it will. I know that Kate will find a job because she’s brilliant. I know that I as long as we communicate to each other, everything will be fine.
01Apr
I told Chris I wanted a baby girl. He better start cooperating. Bean’s getting pissed.
One of the best parts of living in Orlando is that I get to reconnect with my oldest friend, Sarah.
I’ve known Sarah since we were in 6th grade. She sat behind me in our Social Studies class and we’ve been friends ever since. We went away to college together and even lived together for a year. As we’ve grown up, we’ve gone on to do different things and lead different lives, but we still have stayed good friends. She’s the kind of person you can call after three or four months and you can just pick up the conversation like no time has passed at all. Fortunately for me, we won’t have to go three or four months anymore because Sarah lives in Orlando with her husband Scott.
Correction. Sarah lives in Orlando with her husband Scott who has one of the best smiles I have ever seen. Yes. That’s better.
Anyway, Sarah invited Bean and me over to her house tomorrow for lunch and a little swim in her pool. I was so excited!
I was excited right up until I realized that I would have to wear a bathing suit. And then I started drinking heavily. Bathing suits have that effect on me.
So, tonight I put Bean to bed, kissed Chris goodbye, and went to the only place that I could feel better. Target. I walked in the doors whispering, “Sanctuary! Sanctuary!” But then I took a left into the bathing suit section and suddenly my sanctuary was gone and I was in the pits of hell.
I haven’t worn a bathing suit in five years. And in about five minutes of flipping through suits, I remembered why.
Bathing suits are cruel.
After having Bean, my body is…well…its not what it used to be. I’m rounder. I’m softer. And while my stretch marks have faded significantly, they are still very visible. So, I bypassed all the bikinis and went straight to the one-pieces. And, it wasn’t really so bad at first. There were some cute suits. They’re all cute suits when they’re hanging on the hangers.
But then you step into the dressing room. That tiny little dressing room. Where its just you and the suit.
They really should make those dressing rooms bigger. They should have little couches in there so that when you try on a suit and realize that you are two sizes bigger than you were last year, you can faint onto a soft surface. And they should have padded, sound proof walls so that after you come to, you can scream and throw yourself up against the walls without worrying that anyone will hear or see. And they should have mini-fridges filled with those little bottles of alcohol like they have on airplanes so that after you scream and throw a fit, you can drown your sorrows.
Alas, my dressing room had none of these things and when I tried on the 3,000 suits I picked out (give or take a few), I had to cry quietly in my little room so that the skinny little eighteen year old college freshmen who were trying on bikinis next to me for their Cancun spring break couldn’t hear.
I did find one suit though. And while it definitely looked better on the hanger, it wasn’t horrific.
I mean, it had polk-a-dots, for crying out loud. How scary could it be?
And it has this fun little ruffle at the bottom.
Let’s talk about that ruffle for a minute. What is the purpose of that ruffle? I mean, really. Look how small it is. And it goes across your hips – the widest part of a woman who has birthed a giant baby. If the designers really wanted to help us out, they would make that ruffle a whole lot bigger. Like, REALLY big. Or, if the idea is to distract the eye so that you don’t notice the large ass that is under that tiny ruffle, then maybe a few strategically placed, enormous fake birds could be sewn on the suit somewhere. That’s distracting. Or, maybe the suit could come with a set of flaming hoops and I could juggle those when I wear it. I’m positive no one would care about my wide hips and tiny ruffle with flaming hoops flying around…
Oh, to hell with it all. I’ll just wrap myself in my towel and have another margarita.
So, I come home feeling so defeated. So vulnerable. So pissy. And what does Chris say when I try to explain the past hour of torture to him?
“Well, how much did you spend?”
Are you freaking kidding me? I just spent an hour of my life stuffing my mushy, stretched, flabby stomach into spandex. As if that isn’t traumatic enough, I had to come home to harassment about money. I just couldn’t take it. So, I sat down on the couch with my Target bag in my lap, and I ate a bag of Easter candy and a loaf of bread.
Boys just don’t understand.
