We got some bad news earlier this week. My mom’s best friend has been fighting pancreatic cancer for the past few years (yeah, you read right and if you know anything about pancreatic cancer, it’s really amazing that she is even still here).  On Monday, she had to be put in hospice, which is usually a signal that the end is probably close.

This woman is absolutely amazing. She had breast cancer several years ago. She fought it and was cancer free for almost five years. About three years ago, she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer totally separate from the breast cancer. She has literally fought tooth and nail to stay alive. Pancreatic cancer is incredibly difficult to control and spreads easily. Many times, pancreatic cancer patients may only have a few months to live just because the cancer is so difficult to handle.

I can honestly say that this woman is just about the bravest person I have ever known. She’s continued to work throughout her illness and even joined a crewing team. She’s not one to simply let things take their course. She’s stubborn and every time the doctors gave her a grave diagnosis, it’s almost as if she fought harder when so many other people would have just given up. She was even able to come up to my bridal shower a few weeks ago! And this new bump in the road is not defeat. She is absolutely amazing.

There are some things in life that set people apart and above so many of us. Thirst for life is definitely something that not everyone has. While I was on vacation, a man jumped out of one of the skyscrapers close to where I work. He meticulously cut a hole somehow through a glass window and jumped from the 7^th floor of a building to his death. While no motive was ever given as to why this man jumped out the window, I feel that there definitely had to have been some infinite despair there. What if he had been able to find the same kind of fight? It makes you wonder… what if everyone had that fight in them? How would the world change?

Will or the absence of will makes all the difference really.

I’ve never really been a shoe person so searching for a shoe to wear for the wedding has not been all that fun.
I haven’t found anything that I’ve really fallen in love with but I wanted to get shoes soon as we’re planning to take dance lessons (the Architect and I unfortunately have four left feet between us) and I want to practice dancing in whatever shoes I’m actually going to where on the day of the wedding.

Here is the shoe that I ordered from Zappos.com. I got them in the mail yesterday and they’re just not going to work out. They aren’t very comfortable. They’re both too big and too small at the same time. They are really big in the heel but my toes stick out over the edge. Sigh, at least Zappos has an amazing return policy.

Tomorrow, I’m going to try to actually go to a store so I can touch and try on before I buy.

Here’s to round 2….

Where do you like buying shoes?

American readers and perhaps (and probably) international readers are celebrating the 50th anniversary of To Kill a Mockingbird now. The book is personally one of my favorites. It’s so artfully written and speaks volumes about where our country has been; definitely something that we should all keep in mind.

The book is personally one of my favorites. I’ve read it a few times and while the story within the book intrigues me, I am also very intrigued by the author herself, Harper Lee. Mockingbird is the only book that Lee has ever published and Lee is also notorious for not granting any interviews or making public appearances. Quite odd for such a famous author, no?

Lee probably could have published bestselling books based on the reputation she created with Mockingbird alone.

I would think that the success of her first book would have driven her to create more works. I find myself wondering why she stopped. Perhaps she writes for herself but why wouldn’t she want to share her creations?

It’s just interesting to me. To me, art is better when shared.

Throughout this whole wedding planning process, the Architect and I have asked each other several times about what we think it’s going to be like when we actually get married. Will anything change besides the obvious? I’ll have a new name. We will be legal. But will the relationship change?

When he asked me this sometime last weekend during one of our talks, I just looked at him and said “Well, we’ve pretty much been married for about two years now.”

It’s a bold statement to be sure…

We have been totally committed to each other and each other only for a little over three years. We have lived together for the past two years. In the scheme of things, it’s not a long time to live together. We budget together. We divide up chores. We work out our problems to keep peace in our home. It’s a lot of commitment and I cannot imagine having anymore commitment to the Architect than I currently have. I don’t think it’s possible.

This being said, it is important to both of us to make our union official both legally and religiously. I’ve heard others say that marriage is simply a piece of paper and from my point of view right now, I think that is true. But a little part of me still wonders if anything about the relationship and the commitment within that relationship may change a little bit…

Any insight?

PS: The song I’m currently listening to is our first dance song

Distance isn’t my favorite thing. Although I’m not sure anyone really likes it. I would do anything right now to sit across from a few choice people right now. We’d catch up. I like face to face talks better than mail, better than phones, better than Skype. All of those modes of communication are great when you have nothing else or no other way but you lose something even when you have someone on video chat. It’s not the same.

One of my favorite people in the world is a dozen states away and another favorite is a continent away. That space is hard to bridge with any order. One I haven’t seen in six months and the other I haven’t seen in a year. There have been emails and phone calls but as I said, nothing can ever really take away that geographic distance.

I get to see the one that is a continent away in a week and two days. I get to see the one that is a few states away in less than three weeks.

Life is good

I mentioned something about going to the Lego exhibit at the National Building Museum in my last post. On Saturday, the Architect and I went. The exhibit was awesome. The guy who built all of the models was actually there answering questions and working on a model of the White House.

Here’s a few pictures:

St. Louis Arch (Eero Saarinen) and the Transamerica building (William Pereira)

Sears (now Willis) Tower (SOM) and the corner of 7 Dearborn (also SOM)

Trump Tower and Jin Moo Tower (both SOM)

Fallingwater (Frank Lloyd Wright). I’ve actually been to this house and it’s definitely worth a visit.

John Hancock (SOM) and part of the Empire State Building.

Burj Khalifa (also by SOM) which is now the tallest building in the world.

Pretty impressive for Legos, no?

I’ve been aching for a vacation for awhile now and with this four day weekend coming up, I’m at least getting a little taste of a vacation. We don’t have plans to go anywhere really. I’m going to visit my family tomorrow and see Eclipse with my mom and sisters (don’t make fun!).

Saturday, we are going to try to brave the touristy crowds in DC to go to one of our favorite restaurants. The place is called Matchbox and it is a lovely, lovely place located in two renovated row houses. They have awesome drinks, awesome pizza, and awesome sliders. It’s definitely one of my favorite places in the District (there’s one in the Chinatown area and one in Capitol Hill).

 We’re also going to see an exhibit that we both really want to see apparently. The thing I love about this man that I’m marrying is that we both know each other very, very well. We’re both avid readers of DC-area blogs (yes, I cheat on Xanga sometimes). In the morning, I saw a post on the local blogs about a Lego exhibit going on at the National Building Museum so I “shared” it through the interwebs (bless you, Google reader) with the Architect. A few hours later, I get the same post back from the Architect. I was a little confused and sent something back to him saying that I sent that to him this morning and he needed to look at his emails. He never got my email. We figured out that my email must have gone into his work spam folder. I love that we sent each other the same link. We do things like that every once in awhile. It’s funny how in tune we are with each other. I like it; I like it a lot

Sunday, we’ll probably go to the pool and find someplace locally to watch fireworks.

I have no idea what Monday will bring.

What are you doing for this holiday weekend?