Wedding Update

Andrea and I have been busy little bees working out the details for our wedding. We have the locations for the ceremony and reception locked down. The ceremony will be at the church my family and I attended growing up and the reception will be at the Fargo Shrine on the El Zagel golf course. We met with the pastor once so far to go over some of the details and so that he could get to know us. He asked us if we had any siblings and we both said that we had a younger brother and sister. He looked surprised and said that usually when two eldest children date/get married, it doesn’t work out because both people are used to being in charge. I told him the reason it works for us is because sometimes, Andrea makes a suggestion and gets her way and then other times I make a suggestion and Andrea gets her way (she’s feisty for a little girl). I’ve got my four groomsmen all worked out and Andrea has her four bridesmaids worked out. Andrea and her entourage just had a second fitting for dresses and got them all finalized. An interesting tidbit that I found out is that if you register at Bed, Bath and Beyond you get free stuff for just registering certain dollar amounts of items. We registered for a bunch of stuff we don’t expect to get just for the free gifts, what a sweeeeeet deal! That’s it for now…..

Birthday To Remember

Andrea’s mom (Deanna) recently celebrated a very special occasion, her 50th birthday. Between Andrea and her mom, I am busy with birthday bashes during the summer. Deanna normally likes to have some sort of celebration for her birthday, but this year was bigger and better! She hired a karaoke DJ and had them in their large shop all night. At the beginning of the party, everyone was saying they weren’t going to sing. By the end of the night, just about everyone had performed a song at some point. Andrea, her sister and her mom kicked the party off with this wonderful rendition of “These Boots Were Made for Walking”.

left to right: Cindy, Andrea and Deanna

After they performed, the flood gates of karaoke singers opened. I managed to sing (I wouldn’t call what I do singing) a few songs and had a great time. I apparently rocked the joint with my performance of “Ice Ice Baby” and my excellent dancing skills. I think there might be video of it somewhere but I’m working to suppress it! Even the kids got into the fun and sang a couple songs. I channeled my inner mullet and belted out Ratt’s “Round and Round” in my high pitched 80’s rock voice. All in all, it was a Birthday to remember!

Broken

I don’t write blogs for anyone other than myself, if others enjoy them, then so be it. It amazes me that someone would make comments and pass judgment on blogs that they themselves have not read. If blogs about day to day life and stories about overcoming hard times offends people, then these people should avoid reading them instead of trying to censor them. It’s also very disheartening to have my character attacked by someone I greatly respected. At first I was extremely angry about being berated for no reason, but now I just feel sorry for the person. They ruined a relationship that will never be what it was based on a subject they are ignorant about. When we die, we will not be remembered for how much money we had or how many possessions we owned, but by how we treated those around us. I try to live a virtuous life and treat people with respect and hopefully I’ll be rewarded for that. To be good and true is the first lesson we are taught….

Riding Bikes and Starting Fires

This 4th of July weekend was a little different for me. Usually I go to the lakes and camp out for 2 to 4 days. This year we decided to take it easy and hang out at home for the majority of the weekend. We visited Andrea’s sister and her family in Hankinson, ND on their farm and had a great time. We fed some chickens, played with some quail and taught Andrea’s nephew how to ride bike without training wheels. Teaching him how to ride his bike on two wheels was way more rewarding then lighting off a thousand dollars worth of fireworks! Andrea and I are so proud that we got to take part in an event that he will remember for the rest of his life. Here is some video of his second try at riding without training wheels:



Andrea and I decided we wanted to do something different this 4th and would go out to her mom’s since we haven’t been out there to celebrate the 4th of July. We first went out to visit some of my family at the lakes during the day and enjoyed the summer sun. That night we went to visit Andrea’s mom and dad in Sheldon, ND. We had brought some fireworks to light off along with some other people in town. Anyone that knows me, knows that I love fireworks and try to make sure there’s a good show. With the addition of the fireworks from other people, we had a great time. The only damper to the night was the fact that we almost started a house and a car on fire. The incident with the house was caused by this hot air balloon type lantern. You light the lantern and it’s supposed to go up into the air and burn for 20 minutes. Everything was fine until the wind took the lantern and blew it into an evergreen tree right next to the house. We were all freaking out because it was stuck some 30 feet in the air and the garden hose wasn’t reaching the lantern. Luckily, the lantern went out within a few stressful minutes without causing any damage, except that I loss five years off of my life. The car was almost started on fire due to a firework tipping over and shooting underneath the car. It created a bunch of smoke but looked worse then it was. What would the 4th of July be without almost destroying property?

Life Changing Moment

Growing up I had a great childhood, nothing horrible really ever happened to me. Yet, during my teen years through my early 20’s, I suffered from depression. At the time I didn’t understand why I was always feeling down and unhappy. It affected me in my everyday life and I tended to not socialize with people all that much. I started to drink in my teens and that only enhanced the depression to the point where I was thinking about suicide on a regular basis. One day in my early twenties I was extremely depressed, I was at home by myself and I was crying non-stop. I wrote out a note to my family explaining how I felt and why I was going to commit suicide. I wanted to know what would happen when I died and all I could think about was at least I wouldn’t be depressed anymore. I planned on drinking some household cleaner and I poured it into a glass and brought it into my bedroom and placed it on the nightstand. I knelt down next to my bed and began to pray. I only remember one part of what I was praying for, I asked god to make the pain stop. I was about to pick up the glass when my phone rang, it was my dad. I decided to answer it and talk to him one last time. My dad was very frantic and told me that my little sister had just tried to kill herself by trying to take a bunch of pills and I needed to come over right away. I leaped up and rushed out the door. When I arrived at my parent’s house, my mom was crying and my dad was visibly upset. He asked me to talk to my sister, she might listen to me. I went into my sister’s bedroom and sat next to her on the bed. She told me why she was feeling the way she was and why she tried to kill herself. I talked to her a while and told her that she can’t let other people affect her happiness and she has to look for the positive in life and hold onto that. I told her that her decision would not only affect her but would affect her entire family and it would be a very selfish act. As I’m telling her this, I begin to realize that I needed to listen to my own advice. I felt like up to that point I had been wrapped up by a dark cloud but now the sun was breaking through and the cloud disappeared. My sister ended up getting through her rough spot and so did I. I can honestly say that from that moment I have made a conscience effort to only focus on the positive in my life and I haven’t contemplated suicide since. Since that day, I have never doubted the existence of god. I feel that I had a moment of divine intervention and I will always remember that. I think that the experience helped me be able to relate with people more and allowed me to become closer to the people in my life.

Birds...

For the most part, birds and I have had a good relationship in the past. That has all changed within the last couple months! I think I’m stuck in a sequel to the Hitchcock movie “The Birds”. It all started when my fiancé and I were in the living room watching TV and we heard a loud thud come from the spare bedroom. We jumped up and rushed to the bedroom to see if something had fallen. When we got there we discovered that the bedroom window had a small chip out of the middle of it and it had spider webbed out from there. The only thing we could think of is that a bird had flown into the window and caused it to crack. The next day, Andrea was doing the laundry and complained that the dryer wasn’t heating up. While walking past the outside of our building I noticed that the birds were flying into our dryer vent with grass and twigs. The vent had to be cleared out and a bird prevention cover was put over it. One thing that I enjoy during warm weather is grilling out on our deck and the birds have tarnished that too. They sit on our railing and crap everywhere, they sit on my grill and crap all over that, they even try to get into my grill to create a nest (luckily, they have yet to succeed). I decided I would do something to keep the birds off of my deck, so I put a plastic owl onto our deck. From what I understand the plastic owl is supposed to scare birds away from the area it is placed. Our birds are some sort of super-bird species because the owl didn’t change anything, they even sat on top of the plastic owl and crapped on it. My next great idea was to make a spike strip to set on top of our railing to prevent the birds from being able to land on it. I took some electrical tape and punched 200 brass tacks through it and then attached it to the top of the railing with the sharp points pointing up. Yet again, this did nothing to detour the birds, they just landed with their feet in between each tack. I tore down the spike strip and I have given into the fact the birds have won. The only satisfaction that I get is, knowing that come winter, they won’t be there anymore. DAMN YOU BIRDS, DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL

Wedding Progress

It’s been a couple weeks since I first proposed and I’ve found out just how much work planning a wedding is. We have yet to actually finalize anything, but we have managed to narrow down most of our ideas. We want a basic ceremony and put more focus and energy into the reception. We have decided on our colors for the wedding (when I say ‘we’, I mean Andrea..haha) they are going to be: Tiffany Blue, Chocolate Brown with some accents of pink. We are going to have 4 bride’s maids and 4 groomsmen. We are also going to have some of our younger nephews and cousins be our “Executives of Fun”, they’ll be in charge of handing out bubbles and getting people to dance at the reception. Andrea has narrowed down her dress decisions and has a good idea of what she wants for the bride’s maids. I’ve been debating with Andrea about what me and my groomsmen are going to be wearing, I think I’ve worn her down though. We are planning for the wedding to be in June of 2010, so, be ready for “Zen in 2010” Mike and Andrea’s wedding!!! haha

28 and Engaged

I always imagined myself proposing in an elaborate and romantic way. So, when I look back on the way I did it, I'm somewhat embarrassed. It’s Friday night and my girlfriend of 5 years and I, are returning from grocery shopping. I look over and I see the most beautiful woman I have ever met who makes me feel happier then I could have ever imagined. My entire body starts to get warm and I don't think and just react to my impulse and ask her to marry me. She turns her head to face me and has a look of disbelief, I make sure to add that I was "for real". She says yes. Now I'm 28 and engaged.