Read-aholic

Hi, my name is Jamie, and I'm a read-aholic.

I've always known that I've had a slight addiction to reading, ever since I was a child. I never had any problem completing the required reading lists (and enjoyed it). I rocked at Accelerated Reader. True story: the Librarian in elementary school gave me a special award at the end of 6th grade for how much I read. Yes, I fully embrace my nerd status.

I started out on the good stuff, the stuff it was okay to read all of the time... the classics. As an adult, I've slipped into the stronger, not so good for you stuff: chick lit. It's not something I'm necessarily proud of, but I guess that's the way addiction is.

It wasn't until this summer that I really noticed that the problem might be getting out of hand. Like when I read all 7 Harry Potter books in less than three weeks. And then last night when I finished The Help in less than 24 hours. I read some at work (it's really, really slow right now), then I started reading when I got home from work and only stopped to talk to the fiance on the phone for half an hour, and finished around midnight. I couldn't put it down! I was hoping to spread the book out over a few days... maybe even through the weekend, but no such luck.

I wonder if there's a cure for this? Or maybe I should embrace this addiction and use it for good?

Chocolate Cupcake Martini

I spent this past weekend in Bastrop at the Lowe-asis (my friend Zia's house) for our DAR Texas Junior Membership Committee planning weekend. It was such a fun and productive weekend with some of my favorite ladies! Everyone came with their great ideas for Junior Membership and their recipes for cupcake martinis. The cupcake is the symbol for the National committee since we are celebrating 75 years of Junior Membership this year... so cupcake martinis were of course, the drink of choice.

Here's how you make a cupcake martini:

2 oz. cake flavored vodka
2 oz. chocolate liqueur
.5 oz. Bailey's

Combine in a shaker, shake and pour. Top with alcohol-infused chocolate whipped cream. We also dipped the martini glass rims in frosting and pink sprinkles.

It's very sweet and you could definitely drink your dessert with this creation!

What a weekend...

This past weekend I did a very brave thing. My precious niece Madelyn came to visit for the weekend! This was the first time for me to have her 1) overnight and 2) for three days. I'm still recovering from her visit!

On Friday afternoon, I drove to Waco to meet Lindsey, Madelyn and Jace since that's about the half-way point between Austin and Dallas. From Waco, Mady and I went to Navasota for the C.A.R. State Workshop. This was her third trip to C.A.R. Workshop, and she always has a blast, but it was the first time for us to stay overnight. I'm pretty sure she didn't stop talking from the moment we got in the car at 3 until she finally fell asleep at 11:30. We went to McDonald's for dinner, played on the playground, swam at the hotel pool, and played with her friends while the big kids had skit practice that night.

The next morning we headed to Washington-on-the-Brazos state park for the actual Workshop. I was the Workshop chairman, so I had actual work to do besides watching a rambunctious 4 year old. Madelyn is always sweet to help out and she passed out stickers to everyone who registered and then helped with handing out the boxed lunches. Besides that, she did a whole lot of running and playing. One of these days she'll actually pay attention to the meeting...

After the workshop we headed back to Austin to Uncle Steven's for a slumber party. I figured it would be best to give my cats some peace and quiet the weekend before their big de-claw surgery on Monday. For dinner we headed to Dave and Buster's. It's amazing how much you can get the girl to eat when you're bribing her with video games afterwards! After lots of video game playing we left and stopped for ice cream on the way home. Uncle Steven is a huge sucker and not only let Mady have a blizzard, but bought her a second round of ice cream before we left.

Madelyn had said all day that she wanted to stay up all night long. She made quite a valiant effort in doing this, we watched Shrek and Shrek Ever After and she finally dozed off around midnight. I had to be sneaky with my sleeping on the couch because anytime she noticed my eyes were closed she'd wake me up! We enjoyed donuts for breakfast and a nice bubble bath (Steven has a huge garden tub with jacuzzi jets) before heading back to Waco to meet Lindsey and Jace for lunch and give back sweet Mady.

It was a wonderful but exhausting weekend with sweet Madelyn, and I look forward to many more visits with her... I'll just make sure to get plenty of rest in the few days prior to her coming.

The CAts had their declaw surgery on Monday. All went well, minus Smokey biting a technician. She had quite the reputation at the vet, when I went to pick them up I had to get her out of their cage and into her cat carrier... she had scared everyone else with her hissing! They seem to be doing okay with the recovery, very much like their normal selves, just a little slower and a little lazier. And let me tell you, I'm very glad that they don't have claws, otherwise there's no way I'd get them to take their pain medications without some serious damage to myself.

A very special birthday...

Just thought I'd give a quick shout-out to two very special birthday gals. See, I'm not quite sure when their birthday is, but I know it's about this time of year. And this year they turn 5. That's right, Happy Birthday Smokey and Giada!

For their birthday, I'm getting them declawed on Monday (don't judge me). I think Smokey knows she's about to lose them because she's been using them quite a bit the last few days. I have cuts on my finger and wrist to show for it. I'm hoping that the lack of claws will not only save my furniture (and Steven's once we move in), but will also keep Smokey from wanting to knock everything over all of the time. She either really hates the sight of my family or feels the need to try to sharpen her claws on picture frames. I'm not completely convinced it's the second one.

One month

I promise not to become one of those wedding-obsessed people, but I just have to relish, if only for a moment.

One month ago today I said YES! One month ago my life took THAT step to forever. Everything changed while staying the same. I'm so excited for the journey I am on and so fortunate to be blessed with this journey.

I reminded the fiancé today about what he was doing one month ago. He said it was the best day of his life to date. I can't wait to spend and discover the ever after together. Cheesiness done.

Wedding Funnies

I went home this past weekend in order to see my fam and to do a little ever so important wedding research. The research kept me very busy!

I just had to share two quick little stories that made me giggle while I was at home.

While visiting with two of my favorites, Ella and Eric, I decided I would go ahead and ask them if they would be a flower girl and ring bearer in the wedding. I asked Ella first, and she immediately said yes. Then I asked Eric, and he shook his head no. Ella informed me that he was nervous. So I told Eric that he didn't need to be nervous and we wouldn't make him do anything he didn't want to. He thought about it for a few minutes and then said "Okay, I'll do it. But I want to be a Panda." His mom and I were perplexed for a few seconds until Brook realized that he thought I had said "bear" instead of "bearer". So we're going to have a Ring Panda.

It also made me giggle with how involved and interested Ella and Eric are in the whole planning a wedding process. Ella wanted to know what I was going to wear, and what she was going to wear, and how I was going to do my hair. She even offered to let me borrow her pink flower clips for my hair! Eric wasn't so sure about having to dress fancy, but he does want a pair of dancing shoes! Never expected so much interest from a 6 and 4 year old!

The other thing that made me giggle was my Dad.

In talking with my parents about some of the various wedding festivities, I mentioned that I would like to do the Bridal Brunch at our house and have it be a very similar event to our annual Christmas Morning brunch, since it's by far the best meal of the year in the Durham household. The next morning I see my Dad walking into the house and he's holding two packages of bacon. This would probably not seem so bizarre if you weren't aware of the fact that my parents don't actually live at our house and there is hardly any edible food on the premesis. I asked my Dad about the bacon and he said that it was on sale and he had to get it for the brunch. The bridal brunch. In April. (nevermind that Christmas will come before then) He's going to freeze it.
It reminded me of how my Mom says that my Dad immediately went out and planted a vegetable garden upon learning that my Mom was pregnant with twins. Guess that goes along with what my co-worker Tony always says, "There's no substitution for thorough prepwork?"

The proposal

I actually sat down to write this post weeks ago, but never got around to finishing it.


Hopefully if you're reading this blog, you're aware by now that I'm engaged! Steven surprised me in Washington, DC on July 1 with a proposal. And, you've probably already read about how he did it by reading the President General of DAR's blog (http://blog.dar.org/2011/07/02/a-surprise-marriage-proposal-at-continental-congress/).... but I figured I should probably tell everyone (and put down in writing) my side of the story... so here goes...

I left for Washington, DC for DAR Continental Congress (our annual national meeting) on Friday, June 24 with plans to return back to Texas on Sunday, July 3. Because of the current position I hold on the National level (National Vice Chairman of the Junior Shoppe), I have to be in DC for that long. Set-up for the Shoppe began on Saturday morning and continued through Sunday and then the Shoppe was open for business from Monday-Saturday from 8 am-4 pm. In the Shoppe we sell various DAR products (think embroidered bath robes, patriotic jewelry, notepads, etc.) to raise money for the Helen Pouch Memorial Fund which supports the DAR Schools (there are 6 schools across the country which DAR supports). This summer we did a little over 54,000 in sells in 6 days.

As you can see, I was a busy girl. Managing the Shoppe required me to be at the hall no later than 7:45 am and to leave sometimes not until 6 pm. Talk about long days on vacation! My evenings were full, too. I either attended meetings or made plans with friends who live in the DC area, or DAR friends whom I don't get to see very often. I tell you all of this so you can understand just how surprised I was to see Steven when I walked into the President General's Reception Room.

Friday was no exception to the busy days at DAR. I spent the morning working at the Shoppe and then we had the official Congress Page picture with the President General. Following the Congress Page picture, I went to lunch with the Texas girls at Cosi up the street. We always plan this lunch on Friday because there are quite a few of us, and we've all got various duties and positions, so this is a time we can all meet and socialize. After our lunch, I returned to the Shoppe to work for a bit before the Junior Membership committee report. When a National Chairman gives her report, the Vice Chairmen of the committee are invited to be seated in the President General's box in the auditorium, so they can be recognized at the end of the report. They run that box like clockwork! You are escorted in at the beginning for your Chairman's report, you listen for the two minutes, stand at the end, and then are escorted out of the box.

As I exited the Hall after leaving the box, my friend Lindsey grabbed my arm and said that Zia needed to see me in the President General's Reception Room. Zia is a page in the Reception Room, so that's where you would normally find her. She had been "sick" all day, so I immediately thought something horrible had happened. Little did I know that she had just been pretending to be "sick" all day just to have a reason to get me into the room!

I come into the Reception Room and I see Zia, standing in a line with a number of other Texas DAR ladies. She looks perfectly fine, and the professional photographer Marshall is there, so I think that we must be taking some kind of picture that I wasn't aware of. After many years of picture taking, I take my cue and go to the end of the line to be in the picture.

At this point, my DAR mother Pamela, looks at me and asks if I'm okay. I tell her yes, I'm great; I've just been in the PG's box for Morgan's report and now I'm here (I was a little perplexed because I was supposed to be meeting her at Hamilton to look at pins at 2, which was right then). At that point, the waters parted and the ladies revealed a handsome fella in a suit sitting in a chair. After a second, I realized that it was my handsome fella!

I think it took a few seconds for me to process that Steven was sitting there because he was supposed to be in Houston visiting his parents for his Dad's birthday. I had been too busy that day to even think about calling him, so I had no idea he had actually spent the morning on a plane to surprise me in DC!

He says I immediately started crying when I saw him, and I believe him, though I can't really remember. Figuring he shouldn't waste any time before he loses his nerve, he grabs my hand and drops to one knee and proposed, though neither of us can really remember what was said. I know that he said "Jamie Perry Durham, this has been the best year of my life..." but that's all I've got.

It was a beautiful proposal, and quite a surprise(which was what Steven wanted most for our marriage proposal)! Afterwards, I found out just how many people had been in on the secret and how long they had kept it from me. Let's just say I won't be playing poker with any of these DAR ladies anytime soon.

I walked out of the Reception Room with a look of shock on my face and word began to spread that I had been proposed to at DAR. Our afternoon was filled with lots of phone calls to family and friends, lots of introductions to various DAR ladies, and then a fun evening of celebrating with some dear friends. Couldn't have been more perfect if I'd planned it myself!

And there you have it, our proposal : )