What Happens When Caitlin Gets Sick

I don't mind telling you lovely people that I am a whiny sick person.

It makes me cringe now, but when I was younger being sick gave me the opportunity to get attention--which I craved after I had cancer and was the center of a whole lot of attention--and to this day I'm still pretty childish about it.

What's funny about this is that when I'm being whiny I start to second-guess myself and become convinced that I'm making it all up for attention.  After I got tested for celiac disease, even when I had the diagnosis in my hand, I told my husband with total confidence that I probably didn't actually have celiac disease, that they made a mistake and that I caused my own intestine to damage itself with my mind.  I figured that if hysterical pregnancy is a thing, then so is hysterical celiac disease.

Aaanyway earlier this week I felt pretty under the weather and by Wednesday my whole body ached.  My skin ached.  As a side note, has anyone else had that symptom before?  Where it hurts to have things touch your skin? I actually winced when I put a bra on and jumped when Rob walked by and rubbed my back.  Bizarre. I'm probably making it up.

Suffice it to say I felt pretty awful and spent the entire day in bed, working and watching Arrested Development episodes on Netflix.

20 miles to Lego Laaand!

Pictured: Most pathetic thing ever. And my tyrannosaurus wrists.

The upside of being sick and whiny was that my husband made me a delicious gluten-free chicken pot pie using this recipe. It won't win any awards for being healthy but damn, it was yummy and perfect for a sick day.

Today I'm feeling much better but my laryngitis is for some reason horrible so I sound like Lindsay on Arrested Development when she's hitting on Steve Holt (Heee thinks I'm cuuuute).  

In other sad news, No Shave November ended and my husband's positively majestic beard is gone.

Taken after I killed him for not having a beard anymore.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.  We're going to lay low and snuggle a lot.

Sisterly Good Times

So today I finished up with work (one awesome thing about the consulting I do - Monday-Thursday schedules!) and drove the two hours to my older sister's apartment. We see each other relatively often, given the fact that we work for the same company (nepotism what what?) but she still is 8 hours away from me at any given time, so I really enjoy the time I do get to spend with her.

After arriving we quickly went to Wegmans to stock up for delicious gluten-free snacks, then to Moosewood for a yummy vegetarian dinner, margaritas, wine, and smoothies!

I took some pictures, but I didn't have my super awesome fun-time camera so all I got were phone shots.

This is Megan (we don't really look alike, I promise we're sisters):

Water! And menus!

As an appetizer we had chips with cilantro salsa (cilantro = crack, face it):

For an entree, I ate a Chilean casserole thing with a cheddar-egg custard and more cilantro crack:

Megan had stuffed eggplant and pappadum:

And of course, a blackberry margarita that was amazing.5:

Yeah, I drank most of it before taking this picture. Judge away!

We came home, and Megan gave me my belated birthday gifts: money to NY&Co (one of my favorite stores of all time because it fits me so well) and this 1st edition book about marriage written by the people who wrote "The Berenstain Bears."

I was a huge fan of The Berenstain Bears so this...was a pretty perfect gift.

Plus, I think it will go well with our other 30s-40s married/dating guides that so enhance our bathroom. Seriously, we have like three of them.

Perhaps a comment on our marriage? Nah.

And of course, we're spending the night with wine, vodka cranberries, and 30 Rock.

For the record, I am basically a less witty, less gorgeous Liz Lemon.  These are facts.

Anyway I am loving spending time with my favorite older sister and best friend, despite the fact that we are at least 78% sure that most people around us think we're a couple (short hair, tattoos + lovely young lady...creepy, but true).

Another fact: I just opened a Dove chocolate and the message was "Be free. Be happy. Be you." What a good message for all of us!

What did you do this Thursday?

One Very Full Memorial Day

Yesterday was just a really awesome, fabulous day.  Robbie and I didn't really do anything amazing or interesting, just enjoyed each other's company and had a wonderful time doing it. 

We woke up relatively early and I was determined to wear a summer dress out of the vast collection I have amassed over the last few weeks. I settled on the lovely little blue dress that I bought in Washington. Since it was almost 90 today I didn't need a sweater and it was absolutely awesome.  As we walked the dog I was filled with happiness with the sun and the green and the happiness...what a great start to the day.

For lunch, Rob and I had a little picnic in the yard while Cypress ran around like an idiot and begged for our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. We also clipped some lilacs (my favorite flower) from the bush in our yard:

I need 85, my husband needs 15. Let's hope our kids turn out more like him.

Next we drove to a large field near our house to let Cypress frolic in the river and enjoy the weather.   It was an amazing day so a lot of people had the same idea we did.

My LL Bean sandals. Didn't look amazing with my dress but sometimes function must trump form.

Our town :)

Rob had this little dinosaur in Iraq, still holds a lot of sentimental value.

Love this dress!

Derrrp

Behold, my new favorite picture of us:

If you can guess what Rob and I are referencing in the next two pictures, you get 10 blog points:

Rob asked to take over camera duties:

  

Afterward we got some yummy gelato - because I found a dead mosquito in one of the pans (ew ew ew) we got my gelato for free! Ever one to take advantage of such a stroke of luck, I combined banana and dark chocolate sorbetto to create what I call the "Bluth Banana."

Emphasized above: mosquito!



Yum!

 Cypress also loves sweet treats:



Later I took Robbie out to eat, which we do every year for Memorial Day and Veterans' Day.  We had a few drinks in honor of the comrades he lost, and others that have fallen over the course of the last few years. I find that it is very important to honor this holiday and make sure that we don't forget the sacrifice of our vets and the fallen.

Going out to dinner gave me an excuse to wear a new dress I bought a few weeks ago...it needs a belt and some accessories, but still adorable:

And finally, we had a few drinks out on our patio together.

I really wanted to write a blog about today because it was such a wonderful day for us.  I ended the day feeling very fulfilled...more fulfilled than I have in a long time.  I've been in a funk for awhile, which I have discussed extensively here, and today I finally felt like I was emerging from that.  It was also great to spend some time with my husband...time with him always reaffirms how freaking lucky I am to be married to my soulmate, partner and best friend.  He also enjoyed today, so much so that he posted a somewhat-mushy Facebook status...if you know him, you know that this is a pretty rare occurrence:

My apologies for posting another picture-heavy post so soon after the last one, but one of my Summer Goals was to take more pictures and what better place to share them but my blog? I hope you all enjoy them :)

What did you do on Memorial Day? 

Wednesday Hump Day

Today was just your typical work day. Working from home gives me the ability to take breaks by walking outside and spending time with my husband and beast.

I walked Cypress at around 2 p.m. today and it was B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L out! 65 degrees, sunny with a light breeze. I more or less sang out my happiness to Cypress for the entire trip (she was quite receptive, though disagreed with my optimistic assessment of the weather due to her double coat meant for -30 degree temperatures).

I nearly squealed when I noticed GREEN:

Might be kind of hard to see here, but IT'S THERE. I PROMISE.

I even walked around without a sweater for a lot of the trek, allowing my half-sleeve and the rest of my pasty white arms frolic freely in the sun and breeze after 5 months of huddling inside.

Later in the day I visited Adam, my tattoo artist, so he could take some pictures of my half-sleeve for his portfolio. I'll have to share them once they're up on his Facebook page. I've never had a tattoo entered into a portfolio so this felt like quite an honor. It makes me wonder if someone will tell him one day, "I want that exact tattoo, right now." Would definitely be weird to be walking around Western Maine and find someone with my awesome tattoo, though not all of my pieces are custom so I suppose that is to be expected regardless.

Remember how I took a picture of a "moment" the other day? This is a different sort of moment I captured during dinner-cooking time:

I promise I didn't pose this. A boy with his dog. :)

One final word: some of you may remember that I'm considering a matryoshka tattoo. I'm currently debating replacing the matryoshka face with a SKULL just to spice it up and make it a little more unique.

It is perhaps lamentable that this has become a bit of a tattoo blog, but it is what it is I suppose.

Inspiration:

This is not my picture, but I can't for the life of me find the original. So it's not mine, and I'm sorry.

Oh hey, also, here's a picture of Robbie and I from Easter:

I look like I'm clinging to Rob to keep him from leaping up and leaving.  Also my hair looks weird.  But still, nice to have a picture of the two of us together :)