Pretty Pretty pink

As I was walking to my car to drive to work this morning, I noticed something different about my wild flower garden. Yes it is still lush and full of bright greenery. But there was something different. There was a flower - a beautiful (albeit tiny) pink flower in the midst of all that green! I am so excited that my first attempt at gardening is officially a success! Now I can only hope that in the following weeks more little buds will bloom and I'll have a variety of colorful wild flowers! Until then, I'll cling to this beautiful, lone, pink flower...




(It's in the middle...you kind of have to hunt for it...)

The Hazards of Running

After the half marathon, I've slowly gotten back into a running routine. Last week I had two good runs - 4 and 5 miles each. And I kicked off this week with a six mile run on Tuesday and I'm feeling good. My quad is back in shape and my mind is in the right place (sometimes its your mind that prevents you from running, not your body...you just have to tell yourself, I can do it! I was reading a running magazine the other day and some people have a mantra they repeat over and over in their head when they hit a rough patch during a run and the one I liked the most was a quote from Star Wars - "Do or Do Not. There is no 'try'." Spoken by the Great Jedi Master Yoda.)

Running, as everyone knows has great health benefits. It can help keep your weight down, keep you looking and feeling young, tone your muscles, as well as reduce stress (gotta love those endorphines). However, running is not without its, sometimes annoying, side effects. There are the shin splints, which I experienced training for my first half. Then there are the occasional quad injuries and the painful blisters (I'm lucky in that I rarely get blisters). And then there is the tragic blow to the pedicure.



I believe I am a true runner now, as I have officially lost my first toenail and I contribute it 100% to running. But I have a dilemma - is it appropriate to paint nail polish on the skin where the toenail should be so that my pedicure looks consistent? Or is it better to just have 9 bright red toenails and one oddball? What's a girl to do?

Walk This Way

It's official, our nephew has started walking! In true Cesare style, he's a little ahead of the curve! He turns 10 months later this week and the average age when babies start walking is 13-15 months, and boys are usually later than girls (no shock there - just kidding!) So he is a super star, although we all already knew this! And he of course chose to start walking when his mamma and daddy were on their first vacation since he was born...coincidence, I think not. He had taken 2-3 steps before they left, but during the week they were gone he really took off, and I don't think there's any stopping him now!

He's such a cute little guy and his auntie and uncle are so proud of him! Go Stu!

Mr. Cob, Esq.

This weekend wasn't our most productive weekend for house projects because lawyer work got in the way (sigh). I kept telling myself (and the hubby, since he was the one working) that we can't complain since in this economy, we are very lucky to both still have our jobs. It seems that every time I read any of the law blogs(especially www.abovethelaw.com) there's another story about the continued law-firm layoffs going on in every other firm. My firm hasn't been able to escape the crisis without laying off some associate in one of our offices, but I've been lucky that it hasn't gotten that bad in our Atlanta office, at least not yet. All I can do is keep doing my best on the assignments I'm given and keep chugging away - as my Aunt Becky says, "Only worry if it helps." And in this situation, worrying does not help now.

But I digress, this post is not about me. This is about my husband and his lawyering skills. I am very proud to report that all of his hard work paid off and they successfully won their hearing this morning and kept an innocent woman from being arrested!!! Even with all the stress and emotion that goes in to being a trial attorney and dealing with families, I often think that his line of lawyering must be more personally rewarding than mine. I don't get too emotionally attached with any of my institutional clients, whereas he gets to know the families and really makes a difference in their lives. If it hadn't been for Todd, this mom of two could very possibly have gotten arrested and gone to jail for something she did not do.

However, his case brought to light another seemingly silly thing about the state of Georgia. While we all already know you can't buy alcohol on Sundays in this Bible Belt state and Gay Marriage will probably never be legalized in GA, I learned something from his case that I never knew (yes, even after 3 years of law school and 2 years of lawyering, there are many things about law that I do not know. Contrary to most non-lawyer's beliefs, us lawyers do not know all things law...and I do not do anything close to litigation and shyed away from those classes in school, so I know very little about trail work). Well, rather than taking out a civil suit against someone you think has harmed you personally (which would be the rational thing to do), Georgia provides that any citizen can file, for $10, criminal charges against someone and then it goes before a judge to decide if the charges have merit and are worthy of being prosecuted. This is just preposterous to me. I really hope some of the great friends (and lawyers) I made in law school decide to enter politics in Georgia and change some things in this state!

But I'm so proud of my love!!! So here's to you Mr. Cob - You are my "Litigator of the Day"!!!

Wedding Album

We just (finally) ordered the "Art Book" for our wedding!!! We'll have to wait 4-6 weeks for it to arrive, but I'm so excited. Here's a link to the final layout:

http://jparkerstudio.com/gallery/2008/SwansonWedding/ArtBook2

If you need a wedding photographer, J Parker is AMAZING!!!

28 and counting

Today concludes the best birthday weekend ever! My love threw me a surprise bowling party with all our friends and family on Friday night. It was so much fun and so thoughtful!!! I didn't bowl very well, but I had an awesome time, so I didn't mind losing (multiple games) to Mr. Cob. Thanks to everyone who came out to celebrate - it was wonderful.

On my actual birthday (Saturday) we had our monthly girls supper club meeting at Julia's. Typically we meet once a month at a restaurant in town - we rotate picking the location. Since it was Julia's month she decided to do something a little different. She invited us all over to her apartment and her mom, Stella, read our tarot cards!!!! I'd never had a tarot card reading before - but it was very cool and I'm a total believer. Stella told Ashley that a woman from her past would be calling to offer her a new job and sure enough, last night, not even 24 hours after the reading, a woman Ashley met 6 months ago called her out of the blue and offered her a job! Now if that doesn't show that Stella is good, I'm not sure what does! So if everyone else's readings were on, then two of my girlfriends will be having babies in a year and a couple others will be getting engaged and one has a mystery man coming into her life...her love life that is! As for me and my life - the cards said things were pretty good! Me and Mr. Cob love each other very much and are going to be together forever (while I didn't need the tarot cards to tell me this, its always good to hear!) The cards didn't foresee any change in my job in the near future (also reassuring) and said our house woes are behind us (whew)! The cards also said I have wonderful friends and am a very lucky person. Though I do have to beware of a blond girl - she's out to get me....hum, wonder who that could be???!!!

We then rounded out the weekend with a mother's day dinner at my mamma's house. And, my oldest friend Erin had her baby boy this weekend! It really has been the best birthday! And as I said earlier, my mom's birthday present to me was finishing the sun room. Here are some pics of her work - so cute!

Silly Questions

So Andy Roddick just married a beautiful model and she was quoted (in People magazine, yes, the source for news...) as saying "Married life is amazing!" I have to say, this made me laugh because I never know what to say when people ask me, "So how is married life?" It's not that its such an odd question - in fact, its a rather appropriate question for a newlywed. Rather, I think the reason I have a difficult time answering the question, is that my "married life" is not much different than my "not married life". And I don't think that's a bad thing. My "not married life" was "great/wonderful/superb", so I guess I could truthfully respond that "married life is [insert happy word here]!" But it seems that I'm not answering the question people are asking. They're really wondering, how has being married changed you and your relationship? (Or maybe I shouldn't look so much into the question and just realize that the poser of the question is just trying to be nice and make small take and show that they are interested in my life...)

So, to answer the question, I love being married. I love having a husband because the husband I have happens to be the man I love with all my heart and who think the world of. I love being marreid to my best friend and someone who makes me truly laugh every single day.

I am going to enjoy filing a joint tax return next year and getting some tax benefits from this relationship. I love that I can call up one of our utility companies, even if the account is in his name and say I am the Mrs. and here are the last four digits of his social and they don't ask any questions. And I suppose if he's ever in the hospital, I'll appreciate not having any difficulty getting into his room to visit. Oh and I also appreciate being on his health insurance, et al. But those are the only few things that I now love/appreicate that I didn't love before August 31, 2008.

Before we got married, I loved spending time with Mr. Cob, playing board games with him, traveling the world with him, waking up next to him and saying good night to him each night. I still loves these things. And I think the reason I don't think my married life is much different than my nonmarried life, comes down to the fact that we officially lived together for over a year before we got married (and unofficially for some time before that). Way before we said I do, I'd learned about all of his bad and gross habits, and he's learned mine. I knew that he doesn't close cabinet doors and it drives me crazy, but it also makes me smile, because it's part of him. I knew how he handles money, because we'd commingled accounts a long time ago. I knew that he needs his alone time and I need mine, and this is OK. I think that I would answer the question of how married life is a lot differently if we had started living together for the first time on September 1st - that must be a shock to your life! And don't even get me started on couples who have their fist kiss on their wedding day, in front of all their family and friends right after they say "I do"...that's another subject for another day.

But its true, I do agree with the new Mrs. Roddick: Married life is amazing. And I really will "cherry" my love for all the days of my life.

We are bad parents

We lost the cat. Well, truth be told, my mom inadvertently lost the cat. I should start from the beginning. As you know, Ms. Bailey Ann has had a taste of freedom the past couple of weekends when we've been doing work outside the house. We've let her explore the back yard and she's always stayed very close to one of us. She seems to enjoy the outdoors but never wanders far from home. Well this all changed yesterday.

Mom was at the house preparing my birthday present - she recovered a love seat and chair and made adorable window treatments for the sunroom (it is so cute and bright! You cannot help but smile when you walk in the room. Thanks mom!! Love you! I'll post some pix soon.). There is a door off the sunroom that mom opened and the cat darted outside and jumped over the porch running for the back of the house. This was at 9:30 in the morning. When I came home from work at 2:30pm, Bailey was nowhere to be found. When Mr. Cob came home at 5:30, Bailey was still no where to be found. We yelled out her name, searched the yard, walked the neighborhood and began to worry. You see, she has never been gone for more than a few minutes, so when she was gone for HOURS, we were worried. Would she come back? Did she know how to come back? What if she had gotten eaten by one of the many dogs in the neighborhood? We were imagining the worst....

Around 8 at night, still without a cat, Mr. Cob and I decided we needed to eat dinner (our new fridge did arrive (yay) but we still had no food...so we had to go out to eat). So we tried a little pub, The Grange, in downtown Decatur - it was one of the best restaurants we've ever eaten at. I think it will become a regular dining spot for us. Reasonably priced food and a great beer/wine list. We hurried through dinner since we both couldn't stop thinking about Bailey - at this point I was in tears and convinced I was never going to see her again. And to make matter worse, it began to rain. Hard.

We finally got back home and the rain was still coming down. Mr. Cob dropped me at the front door and he was off to search for her in the backyard again. So I went in the house and went to the back door in hopes she'd be waiting there. But no, she was not just sitting at the back door as I hoped. I opened the door and called her name - tears rolling down my face again, and all of the sudden I saw these two frightened eyes peering up at me from beneath the grill - BAILEY!!!!! I was never so excited to see our little girl! She came quickly running into the house and has not left our side since. Mr. Cob bought her a light blue collar with her name and number engraved in case she ever gets lost again - it also has a little bell, so now we always know where she is. We've now started calling her "Jingles."

I hope she enjoyed her joyride all day because now Jingles is grounded...indefinitely!

Ode to Cold..er, Joy

We finally get a new refrigerator today!! We have been out of cold food and beverages for 11 days straight and I am honestly sick of eating out. I'll be glad when this power surge escapade is behind us. But we are excited about our new fridge and I learned a few things in the process, primary of which is that I deduced that Home Depot is in fact better than Lowe's - and by better, I mean has better prices and customer service. Home Depot's prices in general were cheaper, but they also offer FREE delivery (Lowe's does not), their extended warranties are cheaper and the people are more willing to help. So there's my plug for Home Depot - also, they're a Georgia-based corporation, and I like to support the local folks. (Though, a big corporation isn't exactly "folks"...)

We also get the kitten back today (again after 11 days away - she's been staying at my parents since the "surge"). Mom brought her to the house this morning and the first chance Bailey got, she darted past my unsuspecting mother when mom opened a door...hopefully she will come back!

I also had my first piano lesson this week (thanks to our friends for loaning us the electric piano cord...turns out my piano was not damaged by the "surge", just the cord! I was really worried because it can't be a good omen when the wedding present your spouse gave you dies before your first anniversary!! Not to worry, the piano is working beautifully.) So Jessica, my piano teacher, is great and I think I'm more like her 5 year old students than she thinks...she even gave me a pink star sticker! In our first 45 minutes, she taught me how to read music (at a very elementary level), know what each of the notes means, play Ode to Joy (seriously) and play part of Taylor Swift's "Love Story" (again, seriously). I'm so excited and really loving learning something new. I'm even fitting in 10 minutes of "practice" before work in the mornings and again in the evenings - I love my new hobby. Any ideas for songs I should ask Jessica to teach me (she asked what current songs on the raido I liked, and of course, I blanked).