Season's Greetings Everyone!

Season's Greetings to all my blog friends. I hope everyone's been having a wonderful and relaxing holiday with loads of love and laughter with family and friends.

I certainly am enjoying this long-awaited holiday season. Unfortunately both Bo and I have to work during the holiday season but Monday and Tuesday after Christmas were official public holidays and boy, did we really take advantage of that! Bolaji even left work early on Friday (which is an entirely rare thing!) and by early I mean he left at 6pm, :-) I had a half day on Friday so we were just really happy to have the time to ourselves. We had put up our Christmas tree and decorations about a week earlier so all we had to do was wait for Christmas! Even though it was our first Christmas together we wanted to keep it low-key and just enjoy this amazing year that was and bask in our own baby family and that's just what we did. I thought we had agreed to not give gifts to each other but my darling hubby snuck in a nice cozy little gift. I know he had mentioned getting me a gift the week before but then I think we had a teeny weeny little tiff and so I thought forget it. I figured it out when on Christmas day we were coming back from visiting one of our neighbors and he said he had something in the trunk of the car that he needed to get. Of course that was weird so I knew he had gotten me something. Honestly, it's so sweet and I appreciated the effort especially because I'm always ragging on him about his nonchalancy about gift-giving or celebrating any occasion. He's been really trying, what more can you ask for if not a man that tries to keep you happy?

Other than that we've just been sleeping, hanging out with friends, exercising, and then sleeping some more! We've also been reminiscing about this wonderful, amazing year that has just passed us by and daydreaming about our future. Bo has an exciting new opportunity coming up so we're anxiously waiting for everything to fall into place for that, I will also be making a big career move this year by God's grace. And then we are just enjoying this phase of life, of our marriage. We've never been more comfortable in our relationship than we are now. Everything just seems right. Exactly right where we are supposed to be.

I look back on the past year and I just can't believe it all. I mean the bountiful and generous grace of God is awe-some, in the full sense of the word. Through paying for our weddings, paying rent, travelling to a few places we wanted to go, unexplained illnesses, fighting possible infertility,successes in our career, and all the arguments and "storming and norming" of the phase into marriage. It's incredible to think it all. My experience has been that getting married is very similar to a larvae turning into a beautiful butterfly. It's definitely a journey and I had to put the old me to rest and embrace my new life, my new phase. It was difficult. I lost a lot of friends, family, dreams, illusions in the transition but more than ever I gained a new confidence, a new appreciation of life, a new outlook. I think I'm in a more healthy place of being now than I've ever been. I have an incredible, amazing partner and feel confident going into the world because I know his love envelops me.

I'm also hopeful for 2011. Some friends of mine are in really great relationships and for some reason I'm convinced this is THE year so I'm looking forward to bridesmaids duties and easing them into the transition as well. I had a dream last week that three of my friends got married, and one of Bo's friends who recently got married had a child. And I'm a dreamer, so I'm very much looking forward to those experiences. I need a few more friends to join me on this side of the fence!

Anyway, I wish everyone a very happy new year ahead and pray for safety, health, success in everything you do, prosperity, and a year of laughter and love ahead!

Lastly, PLEASE do take a moment to pray for one my blog friends. I don't know her and she doesn't know me but I read her blog faithfully and have followed her journey through wedding, to pregnancy, to the premature birth of her baby, Brayden. Their lovely family have been through a lot as they go from complication to complication with Brayden and my heart really really goes out to them. Prayers are one way of plugging into our community as Christians so please if you can do visit Live. Love. Laugh and then pray for Heather, her hubby and her cute baby Brayden. Thanks.

Husband-y

I was making my regular blog rounds this morning (instead of working) and I came across Dawn's post at The Happy Nappy Bride. Basically the post is about the things that she loves that her husband does, not because she can't do them but she'd just rather not and enjoys it when the hubby does them. She's labeled these things her "husband-y" list. Great idea! I have quite a few of those things to that I can classify as husband-y, so I've adopted her idea (and picture, thanks Dawn!) and created my own list. Some are similar but most are not - I can only WISH Bolaji would help set up the christmas tree, he's a regular grinch and I'm still working on converting him. :-)

Kemi's 8 Things That are Husbandy

• Laundry. Yep. You read right. Bolaji is a laundry freak. I don't know why but he's got laundry on his mind pretty much at any time. The first thing he thinks about when he walks in the door is if there's electricity, and whether the clothes in the washer need to be dried or put through the wash spin. He's also very particular about how much softener goes on vis a vis detergent. Yes. It's weird. But hey, so long as I don't have to add that chore to my list, I'm happy!
• Arranging Kitchen Cabinets. Especially the spice cupboard. I have an unhealthy obsession with spices. I amass them and then shove them in the cupboard. It's inevitable that at some point the Thai 7-spice bottle after being used just once and shoved to the back of the cabinet will expire. This is Bo's job, clear out the spice cabinet. It usually starts with me complaining about how I can't find my lemongrass and he coming to the rescue and then rolling his eyes and then re-arranging the whole cabinet. This happens with the tupperware cabinet too.
• Cockroach Killer. I hate cockroaches. I just don't like them and they make my skin crawl. I also hate weevils, weevils give me goosebumps. There's also this weird flying insect thingy that gathers around the fluorescent light (admittedly these ones are seasonal). I remember when we first moved in together I made the rookie mistake of keeping our bag of beans in the cabinet. WRONG MOVE. I went in and the entire bag was filled with weevils...I ran screaming into the bedroom and dear hubby had to dispose of it. This is usually my reaction to all three of the insects listed lol.
• Driving. I can drive and drive myself to work everyday. But whenever we're going somewhere together, I just let the hubby drive. Sometimes I feel ridiculous say if we're just going down the street, but I just like sitting back and letting him take care of it.
• Lightbulb Changer. For some reason I almost never notice when a lightbulb goes out, unless it does as I'm flicking the switch. Even then, I almost never remember when I'm going shopping to buy a lightbulb. Bolaji ALWAYS remembers such things and then when we get home promptly changes all the bulbs that need to be changed.
• In Charge of Washing Dishes. Since I usually do most of the cooking, Bo usually does the washing up. Our agreement is that whoever cooks does not do the washing up. At first this was a bit touch and go but now we've settled so nicely into it. Again, here Bo can go a little crazy, he likes the kitchen sterile-y spic and span. Yesterday I went to bed at 11pm and at 12am, I woke up and had to drag him away from the kitchen. When I say sterile, I mean sterile. Like household magazine sterile. Yes. I know I'm very lucky he does this.
• Travel Marshall. As everyone figures by now, Bo is more organized than I am. Nowhere is this more evident than when we're traveling. Generally, if we're traveling together all I do is pack my bags. Everything else is already sorted. This was annoying at first as I used to tell him "I'm a grown woman I can keep my own boarding pass thank you" but now, I just settle in and enjoy not having to worry about anything.
• All Around Cheerleader. The best thing about Bolaji is that he's my number one cheerleader. When I'm down, he gets me up, when I don't feel pretty he holds my head in his hands and tells me I'm beautiful, when I'm tired and work has kicked my butt and I don't think I can, he reminds me that I can do much more than I think I can.

Bonus: We have this ritual in our home. Every morning Bo wakes up first then, showers, then coming out of the shower, jumps on the bed and plants what we call "thousand kisses" all over my face. And THIS is how I wake up, every weekday morning. I love it! So he's also my Alarm Clock!

OMG

Wow. I just put on my wedding dress again!

This is how it happened: I'm doing research for one of my client's at work whose work involves weddings. I suddenly felt like looking for the copies of the program to our wedding that I thought was in the bag in which my wedding dress is kept. I opened up the bag and next thing I know I take out the veil and head to the mirror in the bedroom. Bolaji's best friend's wife (they just recently got married) told me she still occasionally prances around in her veil. At the time I gave her a nutty look. That's just so nutty right? So why am I now prancing around the apartment in my veil?

Next thing I know, I take out the dress and put it on. There's a wide smile on my face and I remember how magical that day felt and how magical the wedding was. After turning every which side in front of the mirror I decide I better take it off. In my mind I'm thinking to myself, I'm NEVER giving this dress away (I've always in the back of my mind liked the idea of gifting the dress to another special bride). But now? No way!

Bolaji is away (obviously). He's travelled to the UK for a training course for work and won't be back for a week. Is it this loneliness that's making me behave nutty-like?

I can't believe I just tried on my dress and pranced around my flat. We must NEVER tell Bo about this. Lol. (Of course I will have to - full disclosure, #1 in the BoKem relationship rulebook!). He's going to be freaked out. Lol.

I'm still shocked and a little embarrassed myself.

Coco Chanel & Other Musings

The hubster and I are getting a dog! We're getting one that looks almost exactly like this one:

It's a pure breed Lhasa Apso. We actually decided we wanted a pet a while ago. I grew up with cats and dogs in the house (names: Pepa, Roger, Randy, Kitty, Shadow). Of course we also raised rabbits in our house but I digress. When I was living on my own while in college I also had a cat, unfortunately I had to give the cat away to a friend as a result of excessive travelling once I joined the working world. Bo on the other hand had never grown up with pets and has never owned one. We were visiting a friend who's dog just gave birth to a litter of puppies and for some strange reason, Bo just fell in love with the dogs and became determined to get one of them. This was actually shocking because we really had just been considering cats. I love cats, and I love them especially because they are very low maintenance and very apartment friendly. No need to take them for walks for example, and they are almost naturally housetrained. Just when we were about to get one, Bolaji vetoed this option saying that he didn't want the cat to damage our mosquito netting (flimsy excuse) and also that we knew nothing about the vet costs, etc. Fine. All of a sudden now he REALLY wants a dog. What gives? Men can be really funny sometimes I think. Dogs are much more difficult to maintain!

After begging, I agreed. So we are getting a dog. Personally, I prefer breeds like labradors, retrievers, or bulldogs. But I guess this will do. I'm sure this has something to do with nesting on both our parts, but that's okay I think. Last night at date night (yes, we still faithfully do date night once a week!) we were trying to come up with names for our dog and so far we have the following:

1. Coco (as in Coco Chanel)
2. Che (as in Che Guevara)
3. Bead
4. Bobbie
5. Xin (pronounced Chin)

There are listed in no particular order but let me tell you only one name out of the list is mine and that is Coco. The others are from my dear husband. I mean Che Guevara? Who names their dogs that? Lol. I've said I would have to find a cute name to call him if Bo insists on Che. Xin is because Lhasa's are originally from Tibet and again my dear husband thinks giving the poor dog a Chinese name is a good way to honor that. I had to tell him over and over again that Tibetans don't tend to have Chinese names! This my guy. :-)

So we had a barrel of laughs about this and haven't come to a conclusion yet. At some point I yelled out "I'm not naming my child Xin..." to which Bo replied, "It's not a child Kemi". I think I have babies on the brain ha! After that an uncomfortable silence. Any thoughts or ideas on a name for an all white male Lhasa?