a guy and a bee
a collection of random thoughts and ideas from me, her, and sometimes us
Category Archives: life
well that was a fun vacation
from atop the great smokeys!
so for the last year or so, my wife and i have been talking about a cross country trip this year and we had settled on a 3 week adventure and she had all the plans put together. after 3 days into the trip, i was having bad anxiety issues and we decided to turn around. we had made it from maryland to elon, nc and then to just out of knoxville, tn where we stayed in seiverville, which is just a few minutes from the great smokey mountains. our next destination was memphis.
weird! wonder works in seiverville
it was a frustrating experience because i thought i had gotten past my anxiety issues and would be fine. apparently not. as i have explained it others, it’s like walking on one leg when you are having anxiety flare ups and for me, the nausea related to it. you can limp around, but you know you aren’t right and you can’t fix it like you hope you would be able to. had i really wanted to lose 10 or 15 pounds by not eating properly, it would have been a good way to do it, but would have only gotten worse and me being miserable wouldn’t been enjoyable for the wife either. so we decided to turn around and went to the Outer Banks instead. having vacationed there all my life and a free place to stay allowed us to get to a place we knew would be okay. after a few days, i was feeling better and we enjoyed a week and a half at the beach. since it was a joint decision to not continue, i don’t feel like it was the wrong decision, but disappointed it’s how it ended.
sunset at the OBX
when we started out, we said we were going to go as far as we could go and that was what we did. ultimately, i am annoyed, frustrated, sad, disappointed, upset, and happy that we tried. i am disappointed for her more than anything because we were supposed to visit her dad in nebraska over this coming weekend for father’s day and that would have been a great time for her to see him since we last saw him in october. he will be out here july so we will at least get to see him soon.
pass and stow
upon returning to maryland from the beach, we took a couple day trips to annapolis and philadelphia to see America’s first Zoo as well as the Liberty Bell. if you haven’t seen the Liberty Bell, it’s smaller than you might expect but still worth a visit!
unfortunately, it’s back to work and telling them the same story. at least someone told me they were happy i was back.
i will post some more pictures of our trip and the fun adventure in the great smokey mountains, the Appalachian trail, gambling in Cherokee country, the weird towns of seiverville and gaitlinburg and more.
MRI
So the other morning, I went and had an MRI. Nothing major, mostly for exploratory reasons. Everyone has seen an MRI machine on TV before so I knew what to expect. Ultimately it is what I would expect space travel to be like.
You get slid into a tube that isn’t much bigger than you body and they start the machine. At first, I was wondering if I was in Star Wars or outer space with all the wild noises, but after the internet radio kicked on, it wasn’t bad. A little Jimmy Buffett to sooth the soul.
I can understand why anyone with spaces issues would flip out, but I was really calm. Really the hardest part was trying to lay still for 45 minutes. Not to sound rude, but the tube was only a little bigger than me, especially after they strap a cage over your face and put a mirror over your face so you can see your feet/end of the tube, so is there a special MRI machine for obese people? Was thinking about that after I left.
Anyway, just thoughts that were on the mind.
one year
This time last year I was rotating jobs and getting married all within the same week. What a way to go about things. Knocking out two big events in 6 days. Well here I am a year later and still in the job and more importantly, still married. It was a crazy year.
From the time we got married until now it’s been one thing after another. We went to another wedding, we made two trips to our alma mater were we serve on an alumni committee, we celebrated her birthday, enjoyed the beach, went to our Homecoming, another wedding, drove to Nebraska, went to a third wedding, ate lunch on the Mississippi River in Mark Twain’s hometown, celebrated the holidays with our family, celebrated my 28th birthday, laughed, cried, smiled, and just kept swimming.
This year, we have some fun plans too and we (read “I”) hope to document it with our cameras so we can show all our family and friends (and readers) what we are up to.
So with that, this Sunday, we will share in the newlywed tradition of eating your cake from last year and toast to an interesting year and exciting years to come. Happy Anniversary B! Love you.
Ps… why is it a tradition to eat freezer burnt cake anyway?
what are you thankful for?
every year at this time, we look back and think and talk about what we are thankful for. it is something that we need to do more often, but is often looked past in the daily routine of work, friends, social activities, etc. thinking about this year and what i am thankful for, it’s hard to just think of one thing, but most of all, i am thankful to be putting this wild year behind us.
the prior year ended with a wild finish and the 
2010 got started off the same way. 40 some inches of snow in february postponed her bridal shower and had many of us sweating bullets that it would melt away in time for our big day. well it did and almost 9 months ago, bee and i got married. it was everything we wanted it to be and more than we probably wanted to handle. we celebrated and quickly returned to reality with family issues that caused a large divide. lucky, she had me to lean on and we yelled, cried, screamed, ran away, and have started to move forward from those days.
summer came and went. some things changed and some things stayed the same. we spent some time at the beach, but not as much as usual and we even spent her birthday apart, although, she got to see fireworks in disney world on the 4th of july. it was her first time there and she loves fireworks and magic, so where else would one want to be. everyone i’ve talked to this year has talked about how fast it has gone by. well the same seemed to happen here. october came around and we drove to nebraska to see her dad. it was a great trip and brought up a lot of emotions. it was a very good, but trying trip and we got to see some more of this great country. (ps… i started choking on fritos while typing this, so i apologize if any spit is on this post 😉 )
so as we come to this thanksgiving and the holiday season and look back on this wild year, 
we can both be thankful for the experiences and thankful that the year is over. we are thankful that we are moving forward to new experiences and hopefully better ones. with that, i ask you, what are you thankful for?
oh yeah, i took the picture of the flower to the left at the omaha zoo in nebraska.
hey there
a guy and a bee 