Because the days are going faster and faster here lately, it seems, I will go ahead and declare this post the last blog post I will make as Monica Spees. As a kid, I didn't hate having an odd last name, but I didn't love it either. As you can imagine, having "pees" in your …
Who’s on first?
The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a suitable helper for him."... So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. …
The accidental treasure hunt
For those of you getting tired of wedding posts, this entry will be a welcome break because it's only indirectly related to my and Cory's upcoming wedding. (Sorry, I can't totally remove myself. It basically consumes my life right now.) To prepare for the wedding, which will be behind my parents' barn, we had to …
Crying over cookies
Let me tell you something pretty embarrassing. You can laugh, it's okay. I laughed at myself. But yeah, so I cried over some cookies on Friday. The setup: Three other people in my office building and myself organized a bake-off. We've had a chili cook-off four years running, and this year we wanted to add …
Wedding Planning: The registry
As someone who can't always take compliments well and shies away from attention she didn't deliberately bring on herself in the moment, the most awkward time of wedding planning has come: making the registry. Or, as my brain calls it: asking people to give me stuff. Cory and I feel the same way about this, …
‘But the greatest of these is love.’
I've never been fully pro- or fully anti-Valentine's Day. Some people have strong opinions either way, but I've simply used the day as an excuse to enjoy myself with friends or a significant other. The core purpose, for me, is that love be exchanged. I don't beg for a $200 dinner, two dozen roses or a …
Sweets for the (not always) sweet
Everyone told me the day would come. That day when, for the first time, my beloved would push me over the edge. "Did he burn down your apartment?" you ask. No. "Did he gamble away all your savings?" you ask. No. "Did he kick your dog?" you ask. No (not that I currently own one, …
Wedding Planning: Overall stress
I originally had something else planned for this post, but I decided to nix it because I thought I might hurt some people's feelings (and oddly enough, the post dealt with potentially hurting people's feelings during the wedding planning process). So instead, I'm just going to quote the late Ricky Nelson: But it's all right …
No better time than now
You know what we don't necessarily need? New Year resolutions. Lots of people still make New Year resolutions, and I have absolutely zero concern about that, because that's their life and none of my business. And I can understand why people still do it. It's a new calendar year, so any sort of change can …
On perfection
Anyone else have those things as a kid you assumed you'd grow out of when you became an adult, but found out as an adult that you don't grow out of something unless you actively work on growing? Maybe that's confusing. I'll give some examples. Two o'clock in the afternoon: I'm not afraid of the …
The Weight Is Over 