Too blessed to be stressed

OK, so maybe the bumper sticker expression went out of style years ago, but it's not a bad idea to remind yourself of the concept every once in a while, you know?  Things at both of our jobs continue to be pretty stressful, but we both feel blessed to still be collecting paychecks and regularly make decisions to be purposeful about being charitable with our giving.  And with a roof over our head, a happy marriage, and good health, well, you get the picture.
 
We are grateful for our loving families as well, in fact, we had a nice holiday weekend with the Barton's parents in town from Illinois.  They like to joke that they are always well fed when they come for a Michigan visit, and this time was no exception.  Friday night we dined at the Royal Kubo in Clawson, they even let me pick the Filipino fare to sample.  But there was no karaoke indulgence to be had, instead we headed up to Paciugo's for gelato, seriously good stuff, folks.  Saturday morning found us walking on Paint Creek Trail, so we just had a little breakfast & lunch at home before cleaning up and heading down to the DIA to see the Norman Rockwell exhibit, which we all enjoyed.  Afterwards we took them to Polish Village in Hamtramck for an early dinner, they couldn't believe the affordable prices or the line out the door at such an early hour.  We also stopped into the New Palace bakery to pick up a few sweet treats for later before ending the evening walking around downtown Royal Oak and cooling off with some refreshments outside of Bean & Leaf.  Sunday after church we enjoyed a delightful brunch at Josephine's in Ferndale, and in the afternoon we loaded up and headed to my parents house for a little family/friends barbecue, good times and good food!  Monday took on a slower pace, Mr & Mrs Mac headed to Somerset Mall, I stretched my legs with a bike ride before a little work (boo) and some errands in the afternoon before I left the crew with dinner in the fridge so I could visit for a couple hours with my friend Karin who was in town from Florida.  I arrived back home after an apparent Scrabble showdown (hubby won again, that bugger! :), just in time to join the group for a short walk to the local Dairy Queen.  They headed out Tuesday morning to zip up north for a quick trip in Traverse City before driving home.
 
Wow I should really buckle down on the whole calories in/calories out thing, I'm pretty sure that the yoga class that I forced my tired self to last night didn't quite cover the spread, but we had a good time and that is certainly something to be thankful for!

Weekend funny

Clearly, no one will find this as funny as I did, but I had to share.  One Saturday morning I dragged the hubby to the gym, the poor guy hadn't even had this coffee yet, but I was on a tight timeline to get to my next destination for the day so off we went for a quick workout.  Wrapping up the hour, I looked up from the bike to see him just a few feet away perched on the abs machine.  So I mouthed to him "I have two and a half more minutes" and he replies "I know".  So then I say, out loud, "What, how can you know that?" and he says, quizzically, "You just said 'I'm hot for you', right??"  Needless to say, it's a good thing I was just on a stationary bike, or I would have fallen off, laughing!  He's so funny, ha.

A day at the park

They're just so funny/cute!!  Happy Friday, friends.

Birthday sisters

To add to the list of coincidentally similar dates between our two families, the Barton and I both have sisters celebrating birthdays this week!  My younger sister Aimee's birthday is today, his younger sister Allison's is tomorrow.  The first time they met was when Allison came into town for my bridal shower last summer, and it was so nice that all sisters got along swimmingly.  While they are certainly different in many ways, they are both high-spirited and energetic with a love for gab and laughter.  I for one think it's nice to both have sisters who are always fun to be around!

Happy birthday to you both, ladies!

International Super Spy

Saturday night I accompanied Olivia to the annual dinner of the Asian Pacific American Chamber of Commerce at the Royal Park Hotel. It was a black tie or "ethnic garb" affair, and I chose the former (though I will have another post later about being a White Guy in a Barong.)

When I wear a tuxedo, there's a part of me that feels like I'm Chuck Bartowski pretending to be Charles Carmichael, International Super Spy. (And yes, I have been called International Super Spy, by my nephew Kieran, who picked up the phrase from the Backyardigans.) It's like I don't feel that I belong at a black-tie event, I'm just pretending to be someone who does.

I've been thinking about this recently after reading Malcolm Gladwell's new book Outliers. In his book, he mentions that one of the major differences between children raised in middle and upper class househoulds is that they are taught to be comfortable in situations, to be confident enough to ask a doctor questions, for example, when compared to children raised in lower class households. Failure to feel comfortable in situations helps to explain the difference in achievement between children from different economic backgrounds.

I've been learning a lot about this through my wife. I am amazed at how she is able to feel comfortable and be herself in all situations, from public speaking to formal situations down to looking in the clearance aisle at K-Mart for cheap ways to help stage my house last year. When I'm with her I feel more comfortable with who I am. I'm no longer playing the role of International Super Spy, I'm me. And that's just one of the reasons why I love her!

New wheels

My husband bought me a new car last week, a new 2009 Buick Enclave.  Yes, that's right, one day he sold my Lexus while I wasn't looking and is now forcing me to drive a GM just to get around!!  Okay, perhaps that is a bit of an exaggeration.  I'll admit it, I was a little bit in love with my last car, but since I'm more than a little bit in love with my husband we made the decision together to get some new wheels.  I'll post a picture after I have a chance to run through the car wash since a little birdie decided to leave me a present, ahem.
 
But let me just take a moment to complain about the 3 GM dealerships we went to, because I found the common thread to be quite interesting - no one tried to sell me a car.  And no, I don't mean people ignored me or flat out lied to me (like at Suburban Mazda where I walked away from when shopping for a previous car-boo), I mean the sales staff could barely be bothered to answer questions that I had, much less encourage me to spend quite a few pennies on one of their cars.  It was completely bizarre, and the hubby mused that perhaps it was because they are so used to people with employee-related discount sales that they don't put in a big effort.  But even that explanation doesn't sit well with me in that they still stand to make a little money off of even those sales, so why not try to have people buy through you?  Oh, and also I could have done without the loud gripes about GM by some employees at two of those places (we had to go looking for someone to even greet us at the third place), not helping matters folks.  Lastly, had I known about the discriminatory remark one salesperson made about some other customers after they left the dealership, I would've pitched a famous fit but alas I had left the dealership feeling ill and I let the Barton deal with all the paperwork.  Don't worry, as the manager will receive a copy of my strongly worded survey reply!
 
Anyway, so far so good on the new car, now only if some of the people within the GM supply chain could hop on the don't-call-it-a-comeback bandwagon, perhaps we'll see light at the end of the tunnel yet.
 
P.S.  Hey OnStar chick, I didn't appreciate you being so flirty with my husband even after you discovered that I was in the car too!  Now if only he didn't enjoy it so much :).