Ronni's Journal | Anything But Ordinary

How long have you and your significant other been together?
We’ve been together for nearly six years.

How did you meet? {What’s your “love” story?}
We met in 2006. I’d known about him because I’d read his Live Journal, I was friends with his agent at the time, and also some of his agent’s other clients, namely Mandy Hubbard. Mandy was my critique partner and best writer friend at the time. I was in Chicago with the agent and other writers (now authors!) at a Writer’s Conference. Adam was running a ghost tour and had invited all of those people along. Mandy asked if I could join, and Adam said “sure.” The day I arrived in Chicago, Mandy and I had lunch and spent ages speculating on what Adam was going to be like. I said that he’d probably be full of really weird facts and wear penny loafers with the pennies in them. That led to all of us later making predictions on what sort of shoes Adam wore. The night of the tour, I walked onto the bus and thought he was the cutest thing ever. The advantage of having a crush on the tour guide is that no one thinks you’re weird for staring at him while he’s telling stories.

By the way. He IS full of weird facts. But he wears walking shoes or boots.

If married, how long have you been married? If not, is this the guy you hope to marry? {do tell}
We got married on July 27, 2008.

If you are married, where did you get married at? Big or small wedding? If not, where would you like to get married? And will it be big or small?
We got married at Edgewater Beach in Chicago. It was a small wedding. It was technically an elopement. See, I had been married before, and he had no interest in a fancy ceremony. So we told our friends “Hey, we’re eloping on July 27 at 10:30am at Edgewater Beach. Feel free to come if you want!” And people showed up! It was a short and sweet ceremony, a beautiful day.

Random Note: A few years ago, some meany-heads on The Knot decided to completely tear my and Adam’s wedding apart. They made terrible fun of us, called us names, threw in racist and ableist remarks, and really had nothing nice to say. (Apparently, these people have nothing better to do but troll wedding pictures of random people and make fun of them.) I didn’t go visit the forum where they were doing it, but a friend of mine told us about it, after she realized they were hotlinking her photos from our wedding. Chris (Aidan’s dad) got the thread shut down and deleted. No, I didn’t have a huge, fancy $10,000 wedding. It wasn’t formal at ALL. I don’t care. The day was perfect for us. Plus, we took all the money we’d have spent on a fancy wedding and spent it on our Disney World honeymoon.

Do you have any nicknames that you call one another? Do share!
I call him “Baby Adam” and he calls me “Little Ronica.”

Name 3 things you love most about your honey.
a. I love that he’s such a smart ass. His brain is always working. OK, you know how you get into a confrontation with someone, but you never think of the right thing to say until way after the fact? He not only thinks of the perfect thing to say, but he actually SAYS it at the right time.
b. He’s intensely loyal. I’ve never had a partner have my back so solidly.
c. He takes care of me. He cooks me dinner, he has no problem doing a lot of the household chores. He’s there for me when he sees that I’m not doing so well. He does everything he can to make me happy.

Tell us how he proposed? Or your ideal proposal?
I flew in for an impromptu trip to Chicago one weekend in September 2007. See, he’d already mentioned that he was ready to propose. So when he said he was eager for me to come visit, I had a feeling it was going to happen that weekend. I had no idea it was going to happen that NIGHT. He proposed over a chocolate phosphate at Margie's Candies. The full story is here.

Here’s the ring:

I also use it for my wedding ring because why the hell not? It’s an antique, it’s beautiful, it’s a perfect fit, and I can’t think of a ring I’d love more.

Is he a flowers and teddy bear kind of guy for v-day, or strawberries, champagne, and rose petals?
NEITHER! Adam’s not huge on overly romantic/cheesy gestures like that most of the time.

Are you a sunset dinner on the beach kind of girl, or pop a movie in and relax on the couch?
Pop in a movie and relax on the couch. For sure.

Tell us one thing you’d like to do with your significant one day. If you could do anything? Go anywhere?
I’d like to enjoy the millions of dollars we’ll surely one day have. We’d get homes in Florida, Chicago, Ohio, and England. We’d travel to Europe. Hit all the Disney parks in the world. Start some scholarship funds. Help people.

I dream big.

Tell us what you plan on doing on this Valentine’s Day.
We’re going to be at Epcot at Disney World! We’re going to have dinner at Garden Grill, our favorite Disney restaurant, and we’re going to get our pictures taken with Mickey Mouse.

Are you asking for anything this Valentine’s day?
I’ll try not to because HELLO I’ll be at Disney World, but you know, the Japan store is in Epcot with tons of incense, and the England store is there with JAMMIE DODGERS and I’ll need to replenish my stock of those.

Give us one piece of advice of keeping a relationship strong and full of love.
Patience and communication. Patience because you will get on each other’s nerves sometimes. There will be habits that aren’t necessarily harmful but can be annoying. Personality quirks that make you go what the hell? You’ll have to learn to deal with it. And communication is so very important. Don’t hold in resentments until they build up an explode. If he says something that hurts you, tell him so. He might not realize it’s hurting you. Also, be sure to communicate appreciation! Don’t just bring up the bad stuff.

Show us a picture of what love means to you.

Look how he’s looking at me.
It’s like he knows I’m crazy, but he loves me anyway.

Today was kind of a poopy day. I woke up in an OK mood, but then the people on the radio stopped talking about funny stuff and started playing their procession of really stupid songs.

I used to LOVE pop music. It was fun to dance to, easy to sing along with, and just generally bouncy happy fun for my ears. Now, it’s all these alarms blaring and people talking about what they’re going to do to someone that night and people getting drunk and having kinky sex on a Friday night and well… people can do what they want, I just don’t want to hear about it first thing in the morning. Or ever. And that stupid song about some chick wanting someone to take control and that screechy alarm noise GETS STUCK IN MY HEAD ALL DAY and nothing I do, not even HOURS of listening to other songs, takes it away. So, I think that I might be done with B96 in the mornings because they play that song to death and it really offends my ears.

I used to listen to Tom Joyner, but they took him off the air and replaced him with Steve Harvey. I haven’t bothered to see if they’ve rectified that yet. I also used to listen to another station that was just shenanigans in the morning. I LOVE radio station shenanigans. But then they replaced the one DJ I liked, got rid of another, and the new guy just sucks and all he does is say teasers instead of getting to the shenanigans. So there was that. Oldies don’t wake me up, talk radio is OK, but once it gets good, I have to leave. So, I don’t know. I miss 97.9 WNCI in Columbus.

So anyway, that song put me in a FOUL mood. Then Adam came home and was pacing, and I rarely snap at him about it, but this morning, I was just like “Adam, sit down.” We headed out so he could take me to work (I’m temping at an educational publishers for a few days–LOVING it, by the way), and I didn’t like the music he was playing. He asked if I wanted to put on the radio and well, I’d been burned by THEM already so I was like “No, they’re playing crap.” Then he was like “Are you OK?”

I told him I was cranky. So he bought breakfast at McDonald’s and they gave us an extra hash brown! Then I got to work. The licorice scent of the building calmed me instantly, and my work day was pleasant enough. I get paid to sit and learn World History, basically, and let me tell you, it was NOT this interesting when I was in 9th grade.

Heard from more than one person that they heard my husband on NPR this morning because he is JUST THAT AWESOME. That was cool. Then I found out that I’d screwed up some stuff in the lastest monthly newsletter that went out from the yoga studio–most unhappy about that. It was stuff that we’d never think to check because it never screws up, but this time, something funky happened all around and well, just crap, really.

Coming home was OK. Traffic, but not unbearable. I was exhausted, but whatever. McDonald’s for dinner because well, it was that sort of day. Free cookies–they were giving them out for Halloween. Came home, ate dinner, went to the corner grocer and paid way too much for two Whatchamacallit bars, but I really don’t care. Found out Crookshanks had not only pooped on the floor (again) but he’d also peed on the bed. Guess whose side?

Adam took care of the laundry and everything, then HE was off to work. I went to work on my website. Messed with code and made it all pretty. Then BAM. Suddenly, it was NOT working at all. You don’t even want to know what it was doing. I tried deleting and re-adding the theme. I tried a new theme. An old theme. Most of them were causing the same problem. I finally figured it out, and I am breathing a big sigh of relief.

One of these days I’m going to try to make a custom theme again. I used to do it all the time. I just have no idea how to code it for Word Press…but you know, that’s what Google’s for.

Now, Crookshanks is wailing. Just want I need to hear to rock me right to sleep right? Sike. It’s going to be all about the White Noise app tonight. Now if I can just get that STUPID SONG out of my head.

Night, y’all.

After I have something to eat first, though.

Jen Hathy’s taking pictures again!

(Originally published at Anywhere Is…)