Easter in Kentucky

Stephanie may well write about this too, but I wanted to put something in soon before time goes by and we have more things to write about. I get bad at blogging when I’m with Steph as I get engrossed by her and what we’re up to; that’s understandable I think when we’re together for too short a time.

I had an awesome time over the last three weeks; I was lucky to get such a long break from work and I was glad to be able to get as much time away (it’s never enough, but that’s why we’re getting married – so that we don’t have to leave so often!) and I think we made it count. To start with we rested a lot so that Stephanie could get her strength back, and caught up on some great movies – she had never seen Seven, which we had to remedy, and at the end of the trip we also saw Ray, which is simply brilliant and I would recommend to everyone if you haven’t seen it.

The wedding planning has got to the speeded up stage where there are lots of little things that combine to make the day special, but which sometimes seem hard to fix up. Table centrepieces – so important to get right, but never something I thought I’d care so deeply about – but I do, and we had a great time buying lots of glass things and sticking floating candles and fake rocks in them (it’s funny how things excite you sometimes). And I think we’re doing ok on the details now. My big worry is that back here in England I have to do the flowers on my own. If there are any girls who want to help me, please step up! I know that may sound sexist but you ladies seem to be better with flowers. I may just get photos of the options and put them onto the blog like we did with the engagement pictures so you lot can decide.

We also had a couple of awesome poker nights. Sad though it may seem, although I love cards I had never played poker properly before. Steph had bought Scott a poker set a while back, and we went over to Mike and Erins to play poker the first Saturday I was in KY. Somehow I managed to clean up, tho I think the others went easy on me. I just couldn’t bear to go all in early in the game and I think that saved me. The next week, we got Scott, Dustin and Katie around and played again, and this time Steph won (it didn’t go so well for me) – no money involved, but a nice evening. At the first poker night I also heard episodes from Mike’s podcast, Sky Pieces Radio, and since then I’ve subscribed; it’s great! If you listen and you hear an English accent, it may well be me as we recorded some stuff that night. I’ve always wanted to be on a radio show.

Later on I played my first round of golf of 2006 (I’m not a great golfer but I really enjoy it as long as the weather is good – the original fair-weather golfer!) and that and the poker-playing reminded me that I find it hard to stick to things until I get really good at them. I’d much rather do lots of things (jack of all trades, Scott?) and just be ok at them. I suppose I could play golf a lot more, but that’d leave less time to do other things that I like to do; I could play cards once a week (actually I’d love to do that) but again, less time for other stuff. One thing I like about Steph is that she’s sort of the same; we like variety in our life together, rather than always doing the same thing. I think both of us are longing to get rid of our hectic life where we have little time and lots to do and have more time at home together, but at the same time we’re going to love doing lots of different things when we go out. The one thing we’re both agreed on is holidays; we like to get away as much as possible.

We also started some dance lessons while I was in KY, and although Steph is much better than I am, I think I’ll get the hang of it. Maybe that’s something we can keep up in London.

Apart from all that, we did what we do best; enjoying each other’s company and just hanging out. I think that’s a great sign for us; we like real life together and it hurts me when we’re not together – even when we’re doing nothing at all apart from sitting down watching tv or listening to music. She really is my best friend.

This is a post full of waffle; things are poring out as I think of them rather than being coherent, but sometimes that’s just how it has to be.