It's a Christmas Miracle!

So due to the crazy blizzard in the Northeast, my Hubby is stuck here until Saturday! He feels guilty because he was supposed to work (and close) on NYE, but I'm as happy as a clam! I get him for over a week total!
AND to top it all off, I DON'T have rehearsal all week. I've had rehearsal the last few weeks and will once I get to Tucson, but I don't this week.
Because we had time yesterday and he wasn't going to the airport, we got to do this...

Glow-in-the-dark miniature golf! That's what we did on our trip to Niagara Falls, our unofficial first date!

So Merry Christmas from the Hose Family! (We couldn't figure out if it would be 'from the Hoses' or 'from the Hose's')

Christmas in Indy

I haven't been very inspired to write much lately. Probably mostly due to the fact that it's depressing to be away from home (or any semblance of home) for the holidays. BUT I am living with an amazing, wonderful, incredible cast mate, Lauren, and we're doing our best to brighten up our dull apartment. We're also cooking a full Christmas feast on Christmas Eve.

Yes, our angel is made out of coffee filters and a wine cork, with an ornament hanger for a halo. Lauren is very creative and we enjoy crafting :-)

My wonderful family has sent our presents here to Indy so that we can open them on Christmas morning. Plus it fills the space under the tree!

For those who are curious about the finished product...

the stockings turned out GREAT!

Just no fireplace...

Adam gets here tomorrow morning! Hooray!

Merry Christmas to all!

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree...

In between cities, I went home and saw my Hubby for about 24 hours (before a travel day from hell to get to Kalamazoo). We put up our first Christmas tree! I won't see it again until after New Year's (if it's still up). But here it is for all of you to enjoy!

The Finished Product

I bought this ornament right after Adam proposed, December 2008. I was working at Disney doing a Christmas show (and getting my Equity card). I've been saving it for our first Christmas.

Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving Care Package Results

 Before

 After

Delicious! It was my breakfast at 1pm.

Things I'm Thankful For:

The ability to laugh and love

A good cup of coffee in the morning (or anytime) to get me going

A good glass of wine after a long day

Great friends who make me smile and who are a shoulder to lean on

My job and the opportunity it brings to make people happy eight times a week

A wonderful tour family who understand the ups and downs of life on the road

An incredible, supportive family whom I love very much

A husband who loves me and who means the world to me

Happy Thanksgiving!

Turkey Day Care Package

I had a surprise at work last night. I got to my spot in the dressing room and had a big box waiting for me from Grayson, GA. My mom sent me this:

It was a box full of the ingredients to make two of my favorite Thanksgiving dishes: Cornbread Dressing (my family doesn't do "stuffing," we do "dressing") and Green Bean Casserole (which we grew up calling  "Beans and Crunchies" and it was probably college before I realized that isn't a universal term). Also in there was a can of turnip greens and cranberry sauce, which goes really well on top of a piece of Dressing. All I needed to buy today was milk, since Vanilla Silk might not go well in Dressing, and an onion. 

At the moment I'm cooking the cornbread so I'll be all set for tomorrow!

Even though I don't get to be at home on Thanksgiving, at least it will smell like my mom's cooking and it will (hopefully) taste like it too!

My mom is the best.

Stocking Project Progress...

Since Monday is supposed to be my day off (not this week so we can have Thursday off, but I'm pretending I have the day off as usual) I spent some time working on our stockings today!

Just crossing my fingers that the glue holds...

Stupid Airline Prices

So my hubby originally was going to work on Thanksgiving Day and then fly on Friday to see his family. He just recently changed jobs and now has Thanksgiving off AND the day before. I was hoping to see if he could fly to visit me in Tulsa and then go see his family as planned... but the prices of airfare is so ridiculous that it's not possible. Why must it cost an arm and a leg to fly these days, especially during the holidays?
I don't know why I had gotten my hopes up that he could come here when we'd been planning all along to be apart on turkey day. So he'll be celebrating in NYC and I'll be having dinner with some of my cast in Tulsa.
First Thanksgiving as a married couple and in different time zones. That's the price of having a wonderful job...

New Project!

I have a few projects going on at the moment, but the one I spent my evening working on tonight was making our Christmas stockings!

Adam (jokingly) asked if I was going to make our stockings for Christmas, and, although I was so close to buying ones from Pottery Barn, I decided it would make a fun newlywed project to commemorate our first Christmas.

The final project might be really bad and if so, I'm getting the ones from Pottery Barn, but here's what I did tonight...

I cross stitched our names to go on the top of the stockings! Yep, that's all my handiwork. I haven't cross stitched since elementary school... but what can I say, I'm a fast learner!

Side note: we'll be celebrating Christmas in Indianapolis, and I have a show on Christmas evening. 

Probably Will Make You Gag...

It's the little things that Adam does that really proves how much he cares about me. This is the picture message that I received last night while setting up tables for BC/EFA in the lobby (not the most exciting task in the world but whatever)...

Made my night!!!

Finally, a Full Week!

I haven't written in a few weeks because I'm not feeling very insightful but since a momentous occasion occurred, I figured I'd write about it.

***********

Adam and I spent our first full week together since the wedding (which was seven and a half months ago). He flew in on a Wednesday and left on a Wednesday. That's HUGE for us. We usually do the two days in between cities and I'm usually useless from waking up for a 6 am flight.

The main reason we were able to do this is because he was a patient at St. Jude when he was a child. They now have this amazing program called St. Jude Life where they fly former patients in and give them a complete physical and blood workup. It's to see how they are functioning as adults. My hubby was in the control group since he never had chemo, just surgery.

ANYWAYS, when they contacted him to see if he could give up a few days to come to Memphis for the study, they left it up to him when he wanted to come... so of course he picked while I was in Memphis! Thank you St. Jude for his round trip airfare! Oh yeah, and also for my hubby ;-).

Here's a little highlight from our Memphis trip:

In front of Rendezvous

Adam dropped his last two ribs on the dirty floor... let them sit there for over a minute while he gave me the pouty face, then continued to rip a piece off the top and eat it.

Not amused.

Adam with the Peabody Ducks

The incredible National Civil Rights Museum

Watching the sunset over the Mississippi

After we had our fun in Memphis, we headed to Hot Springs, AR for two days (in between cities for me). As with all of our little mini-vacations... it rained. It always rains. Lake Lure Inn in NC, LBI wedding (though thankfully not on the wedding day), and now Hot Springs. I feel like I'm missing one too...

Oh well. We made the most of it. We stayed at this wonderful Bed and Breakfast, called Lookout Point Inn. 

They were so nice and the place was beautiful. 

We relaxed by swinging on the hammock by the lake (in between the rain showers), 

touring an old historic bath house from 1915, 

getting massages, and walking around the Garvan Botanical Gardens.

(I guess it looks like it didn't rain all that much, but obviously we don't have pictures from the rain... and as you can tell from my frizzy hair, it was certainly humid still.)

It was a really wonderful week and went by WAY too quickly.

Now I'm off to try to find the bright side of being in Little Rock...

Memphis Greenifying!

Putting the word out there if you happen to be near Memphis,

To help raise money for Broadway Cares/ Equity Fights AIDS, Wicked is auctioning a chance to tour the backstage, see Elphaba transform into her green makeup, and then watch the show from great seats! All proceeds go to charity!

Wicked Greenifying Auction

Domestic Weekend

Made it to Memphis!

On my days off, Hubby and I had a domestic few days. It felt nice. It felt right.

We had a theme night on Monday! I took my own advice and turned just sitting around watching tv into an event. Hubby is a HUGE Atlanta Braves fan and the Braves' playoff game was actually on tv (a rarity in New Jersey). We decided to grill hot dogs and make french fries and try to create our own ballpark atmosphere.

Isn't he handsome?

Just remember I woke up at 3:40am to get a cab to the airport and hadn't slept yet...

And with that in mind, I think I made it until the 9th inning before I fell asleep. That's pretty good for me! Especially while cuddling... 

Then, after he made me breakfast again, we went on a little shopping spree! On the eve of our seven month anniversary, we finally started using our gift cards from the wedding. We made a Crate and Barrel and Macy's trip (at a mall in New Jersey... how suburban of us) and picked out items we did not receive from our registry. It was such a tease to be shopping for things for our house and then to leave them all wrapped up in storage. But it was nice to start picturing what our home will look like one day.

And a miracle happened... we agreed on a comforter for our bed! We have differing taste when it comes to bedding. I'm all about duvets and he hates them. I like more feminine prints and he hates them. But we decided on.... the Plaza coverlet from Crate and Barrel in 'flax,' which has a slight metallic sheen to it. I couldn't believe we agreed on one! 

Plaza Flax Coverlet

Now I'm getting settled in Memphis. The day I leave is always the hardest....

Wrapping up Madison

Some ideas from The Nest online:

20 Dates Under $20
- Hubby and I have the movie night thing down pat. It's usually not themed but we do love to snuggle on the couch. So maybe now we can try to add a theme...

10 Ways to Surprise Your Spouse
- In Charlotte, he turned my desktop to a cute picture of him blowing me a kiss
- He's crazy about Braves baseball and I've been to a few with him. I'm happy as long as he's happy.

Dinner and a Movie Ideas
- Casablanca is a movie we've watched a few times and now we have a theme!

...............................................

We had a great weekend in LBI. Shanna and Justin had a gorgeous wedding on the beach and the weather was picture perfect. The rest of the weekend... windy and rainy. But we made the most of it! It was nice to get away, as much as I do love my job.

 The Happy Couple

 Yes, that's Wicked chapstick!

Reunited!

 First Event as a Married Couple!

Rainy Lighthouse

Anyways, it's off to Memphis for me! By way of NYC...

Normalcy

I'm about to make you very jealous...

This is my view while sitting on my computer. That's right. It's a nice break from endless hotels. Occasionally you can find rentals on vrbo.com and we can have a taste of normalcy (although lakefront property is not what most people call 'normal,' living in a house with a regular kitchen and washer/dryer is).

This post is more about a reminder for myself, something to re-read over and over again. I've been thinking a lot lately about how different our lifestyle is and have been wondering if we will ever have regrets later in life. Regret that we will have spent the first year of our marriage apart. Regret that we don't have regular, stable jobs (but what is stable nowadays) or even have holidays off. Regret that we don't live near our families. What is this going to mean for our future?

But as I was laying in bed last night, I started thinking about how there are no certainties. I hope that wherever life takes us, in twenty years I will look back and realize that all of those choices we've made have made us stronger people. I hope that as long as we are happy and healthy, that will be enough. It should be. Those two things are so essential.

There will always be many 'what ifs' in life and I hope to make the most of what path we choose and what cards we are dealt.

And now I'm off for a weekend... a normal person's weekend! Usually our 'weekend' means Monday since that's our day off. But I'm heading to the Jersey Shore tomorrow for a wedding... meaning I have a three day weekend with my Hubby! Hooray!

First weeks in a city are always busy...

So it's been a minute since I posted anything. I was so gung-ho and excited to begin with and then was busy and dropped off the planet. Nothing much insightful in this post, just catching up.

We closed Minneapolis a week ago and I was able to spend 48 glorious hours at home. Hubby was true to his word and we watched the Top Chef finale together and just enjoyed being together. It's those things that we can't do over the phone that mean a lot when we are together. Lying on the couch, exploring new places and people watching, and going to restaurants... makes me a happy woman.

He made me breakfast too. Blueberry pancakes with sliced strawberries and bananas, which were incredible. He is such a great chef. I do love to cook and am very competent in the kitchen, but he's the master. I'll be his sous-chef any day.

Enjoying Madison, WI right now. Some of us are renting a house on a huge lake, complete with our own little dock!  It's relaxing to be right on the water and finally, with a day off tomorrow, I can really spend some time enjoying it. Of course, I wish my other half was here to enjoy it too...

Oh, and I've got the 'nesting' itch really bad (not the 'I -want-to-have kids' way but the 'I-want-our-own-place-to-decorate' way)...

New Reading Material

So after a bad weekend (one where I just want to say "to hell with it all" and go home to Hubby), I started trying to find a good book that could maybe shed some insight to our living situation. There are books about being newlyweds and learning to co-habitate and all that which sounds nice but doesn't help us right now, but then I found a book called "The Commuter Marriage" by Tina B. Tessina.

I overnighted it from Amazon.

It's good, not always relevant, but fairly insightful so far. It mostly comes from the viewpoint of having been married for some time before separating (and also has parts about parenting which I skip over), but overall it's been a good read. I have discovered that Hubby and I have even more to be thankful for that we realize. The book starts by talking about the different types of long-distance relationships, and ours is lucky in that our time apart is scheduled and set. We can plan our times together and build a routine. I go home in between cities (which is two days) and his work usually lets him off so we are together the whole time. The book does mention that the more the person travels and the longer the trips are, the more the stress can be... hmm.

Also, this is completely voluntary. I don't have to do this. We both agreed that this is an amazing, incredible job for me. And I can't think of any job I'd rather have. I love this show, I love dancing this show, I love teaching this show. My professional life is a dream job that others would absolutely kill to have. It just pulls my life away from my Hubby. Big Debbie-downer. But there are many couples out there who have no choice but to be apart. We are in control of this.

One thing that has been troubling me about life on the road is how my life here is completely separate from his. I have been feeling guilty that my day to day life is foreign to him. I have my tour life and routines and people I see and interact with, and he's not a part of that. We try as hard as we can to catch each other up on our daily activities but in reality it's completely separate from him. For instance, we've had a handful of new people at work whom he hasn't met. These people are in my life, all day every day, and they have only heard about him and vice versa. It's weird for two large components of my life not to overlap.

I was reading today that it's healthy to create separate lives. While we are apart it's good to live our lives and have new friends and such. I understand that, but now my fear has been that I have this routine that I've had for a year now which doesn't involve my partner... how much harder is it now going to be to include each other in our daily mundane decisions once we live together? Even grocery shopping... I know what I like to buy is not what he's going to want (I LOVE Vanilla Silk and he can't stand soymilk... but now I'm used to getting it). So are we not only making or lives harder now but making it harder in the future too?

Please feel free to leave comments or insight or helpful hints for navigating this time of our life!

Special Surprise at Work

During rehearsal at work today a co-worker told me that I had a delivery at the security guard's desk...

My incredibly thoughtful husband sent me a gorgeous arrangement of gerber daisies in honor of the one year anniversary of my Wicked debut! (I joined the company last August in Austin but made my first stage appearance on September 17th in Nashville) I didn't even remember that it was today! But he had not only thought about it but had remembered in advance so that he could do something special. They are really beautiful and are now the envy of the dressing room!

 

I have to say, it really made me feel loved and special. It shows me how much Adam cares about me and goes out of his way to make me a priority in his life. I'm a very lucky lady ;-) and he definitely won some major brownie points in my book!