Montage and Then Some

To bridge the time in between moving to Austin and thinking of a baby, I’ve decided to provide you with a montage. I love a good montage and in fact believe that every good action movie (think the original Rocky) needs a montage. On the flip side of that, bad action movies (think Rocky 3 – Rocky infinity – yes Mr. Stallone, you did owe us the apology of Rocky Balboa) usually have 2 – 3 montages so let’s hope this is the one and only in this blog. This montage will cover April 2006 – July 2007 (also known as the beginning of the conception quest – yes, we are almost there).

The first thing we did was unpack boxes and figure out where our furniture from the New Jersey house would fit in our new house. In some cases we knew right away, in some cases it took us a few months (or years) to figure out.

We paid for a custom sunflower glass sculpture to go over our fireplace (this would be due to my obsession with sunflowers – born the first time I saw an entire field of sunflowers in Italy and watched them swivel to capture the rays of the sun – breathtaking).

Next, we found a young man who was just starting out doing Venetian plaster techniques to walls and had him come in and do our dining room (incidentally, the only room for which we needed to buy furniture). The house wasn’t finished but we were settled. Now, what about us?

Brian acclimated to his job, found out his boss was a son-of-a-*** (my mother expressed dismay at my potty mouth in my last post so I’ll try and keep it clean), and fell in love with Austin. He bought a new Jaguar, tried swimming in Barton Springs Pool (the verdict is that the bottom was too slippery), and visited the Sea World in San Antonio.

We went to Walt Disney World for Christmas / New Year’s and Brian somehow was “tricked” into riding on Splash Mountain (long story) – it didn’t go over so well as you can see (he is wearing the red Seminoles sweatshirt and I’m the one next to him hysterically laughing). Friends visited, we went to the petting Zoo on I-35 and were attacked by some hungry zebras (seriously, we almost honked our horns to get the park ranger out to save us).

Me, I putzed around the house for a month or two and realized that if I didn’t leave the house I was never going to meet anyone. I got a job working out in Taylor, TX and discovered the best BBQ I’ve eaten to date (Louis Mueller’s – get the brisket… OMG) and some fabulous sausages in Elgin – oh, and I worked too, as a contractor.

This lovely photo is what my company posted to our website for other people in the company to see (I worked for a contracting company who had people across the US – we had something akin to an internal Facebook)… Brian was my prison photographer. I met a great friend, and native Texan, and learned why people said Austin was different from Texas. A giant ice storm shut down Austin in January 2007 and since we couldn’t leave the house, I thought what the heck – and quit smoking.

I gained tons of weight (come on, bowls of melted cheese, stress of moving to a new state and no one saw this coming?) and Brian lost over 80 lbs. We went on day trips all throughout Central Texas (best book ever: Day Trips from Austin) and saw all the lovely things Texas had to offer: wildflowers, small town festivals, farmed buffaloes and cattle, local wine and goat cheese, and a sky that just doesn’t quit. And I fell madly in love with that sky – to the point where the Jersey sky, blocked out by all the tree branches, now makes me claustrophobic.

And then we had the conversation. I have no idea how the conversation came about, so my re-enactment below is beyond a dramatization. I’m sure it followed a similar path… but don’t quote me.

The Conversation

Me: You know, Brian, I have been smoke-free for almost 6 months.

Brian: Uh-huh.

Me: We had always said that we wouldn’t start trying to have a baby until I was smoke-free for at least 6 months.

Brian: Yeah, you’re right.

Me: Well, what do you think?

Silence as I’m sure Brian tried to figure out what he thought and to see if what he thought was what I wanted to hear.

Brian: I think it’s time we start trying to have a baby.

Me: How about we start trying in August? This way I can get on pre-natal vitamins and we can be ready.

Brian: Okay, let’s do it then.

July came around and Brian decided he was impatient (no surprise there for those who know him) and we started a little early. He wanted to tell everyone we were trying. After we told my mom, she later said that basically we had just told her we were about to start having a lot of sex. She was right and that was just weird.

And life, at that moment as we looked towards our future, was as good as it gets.