we had a ball

We give the Winter Ball 2 enthusiastic thumbs up! The museum was pretty sweet, and the company divine.

Thanks to VCU for the casino, the dancing, and the sweet 80s cover band. Oh, and the complimentary VCU wine glass.

day of st. valentine

Sometimes you get dumped on Valentine's Day (Jackie, 2003).

Sometimes you don't want to say "I love you" yet on Valentine's Day and it makes things weird (Doug, 2006).

Sometimes you sleep in and eat french toast and help someone move and clean the house and feel surprised that this is your type of Valentine's Day celebration just because you're together (Jackie & Doug, 2009).

Whatever you do, wherever you go, we hope you have a Happy Valentine's Day.

XOXO

i have no explanation

I had to call our IT services today, and the lady helping me needed to look me up by last name. I kept telling her “Shafer” and then spelling it, but she couldn’t find me. She even kept confirming the spelling, and every time I’d say yes. After seriously 3 or 4 minutes of this, she confirmed the spelling with me one more time. As I automatically started to say “That’s correct,” my brain triggered an alarm.

It was then that I realized the whole time I had been spelling it “S-c-h-f-e-r.” No a, and suddenly with a c.

What the…?!?

going to the ball

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but we're going to a ball on Friday.

Funny, no?

VCU is hosting their annual Winter Ball on February 13. It’s going to be held in Richmond’s science museum, and we consider it a great opportunity to shake our groove thangs, eat hors d’oeuvre, and score some prizes (preferably free tuition, but I bet we'll get a nice VCU wine glass instead).

However, finding an outfit has become surprisingly stressful. I refuse to wear a prom dress and most people don't anyway, but how do you pick an outfit that’s worthy of a ball? A dance, sure. But a ball?!

Where’s my dang fairy godmother when I need her…

running fools

Well, we haven’t given up on this crazy 10k idea yet. Our very very loose training schedule consists of running at least 3 times a week. We started the year as non-runners, so we wanted to be able to run 2 miles by the end of January, 4 by the end of February, and 6 by the end of March.

I’m happy to report that we met our January goal. Thanks to the chilliness that is Richmond in January, we’ve been running on treadmills mostly. We did run outside last Saturday, and those 2 outdoor miles—to put it lightly—SUCKED. But I experienced that weird, twisted runner’s high afterwards and kinda liked the whole experience. I’ve even found myself looking forward to running on some days. Yeah, it’s NUTS.

Our iPod has become my soulmate as I run, and I’m discovering which songs to use at different treadmill speeds: “Survivor” for 5.3 MPH, “Let’s Get it Started” for 5.7 MPH, etc… I can put together a spreadsheet for you if you’d like.

So it turns out there is something good about (a) exercise and (b) achieving personal goals. I’m by no means a running fool yet, but with the continued encouragement of Doug, Destiny’s Child, and Gerry the guy that runs our complex’s gym, I just may be converted soon.

grocery shopping for 2

Doug and I compromise on a lot of things, but grocery items aren’t one of them. We oft come home from the store with things like this:

Jackie’s bread (multigrain)
Doug’s bread (white)
Doug’s cereal (a/k/a pure sugar)
Jackie’s cereal (a/k/a boring)
Mayo (for him)
Miracle whip (for me)
Dill pickles (for him)
Sweet pickles (for me)

We do compromise on the milk (I like Skim and he likes 2% so we buy 1%), but we both know in an ideal world we’d just buy two milks each week. And we really do refer to it as “Jackie’s bread” and “Doug’s bread.” It keeps the segregation alive.

Some may say this is evidence we’re preserving our personalities in our happy, healthy marriage, but I suspect it’s simply evidence Doug refuses to like delicious things. Either way, that's a lot of bread and cereal.

how to laugh your face off

1. Paste the following link before any other website address: http://bacolicio.us/ (for example, http://bacolicio.us/http://dougandjackie.blogspot.com)
2. Laugh.
3. Prank someone.

Go on, give it a try.