Off my shoulders

Well I'm no SJP or Charlize Theron, natch. But here's what I came up with...

Apologize for the terrrrible pics. The Werschaible camera is crap and I've never mastered the art of the self-portrait.

Obvs, not that short. My hairdresser recommended against it. I believe she used the word, "poodle." I don't even own a hairdryer so this was probably the way to go. Lo-maintenence. Curl tastic. Jeff friendly?

New wave

Ever since I got married, I've sort of been dying to cut my hair. It's not uncommon, they have a phrase for it, the "post-wedding chop." Most women grow their hair out for their weddings, and thus have no reason to keep it so long after the wedding is over.

I've been wearing my hair long for years now. The shortest it's been was last September, when I got it cut to this length:

And now, almost a year later, with almost no length cut off... probably close to 6-8 inches longer.

So I'm sick of this hair. I'm sick of my whole look, if I'm being honest. I can't wait to buy a new pair of glasses, but that's a whole 'nother story (Can I pull off this thick frame madness? I think it looks cool on everyone else. On me I'm afraid it will look wonky. Stay tuned).

I want to cut it all off. Shorter than I've had it in years, probably dating back to sixth grade, when I got a perm ;) We don't need a perm, my hair is curly enough as it is and THICK, so who knows what will happen in I cut it. Will it curl better? Be bouncy and cute? Or will it frizz out or lay flat against my head?

One thing's for sure: Jeff's dead-set against it. He does not want me to cut my hair at all! Poor guy, I'm disappointing him already.

My thought was maybe to donate my hair to Locks of Love, but I'm not sure I have the 10 inches they require. They also say the hair can't have been highlighted, and mine has. I might send it to them anyway, as it says on their site that they can sell the hair they don't use to offset the cost of the wigs. We'll see.

I've been perusing the internets for a few days to find some cute, shortish haircuts for wavy hair, and I'm afraid I'm not having much luck. Unfortunately, most of what comes up is from celebrities, and their hair looks great because they spend time blow drying and styling, etc. I haven't blown-out my hair myself in more than two years. I don't really feel like starting.

Here's what I've found that I don't HATE.

As always, this is the time for honesty. And if you know any good sites for hairstyles, let me know. What I've found so far for examples is pretty dismal.

When your heart was an open book

Lest you think I've been sitting on my butt since the honeymoon, staring out the window, longing to wear the white dress once again... I haven't. But I have.

Quick recap of what's gone down since the honeymoon. Then we get back to the irregular regular schedule of my thoughts.

• Pats training camp: Went the day after we got back. Met up with AFCE blogger Tim for a chat.
• Concerts: First, Paul McCartney concert at Fenway: Awesome Awesome. He played for over two hours. He still has it.

Had this exchange though, with an elderly gentleman who sat next to me. (This was while Jeff went to go get me some water.)

Him (with no sarcasm, or condescentment ? in his voice): "You know, Paul McCartney used to be in a band."

Me (in disbelief): "Yeah, I know. I just got back from Liverpool." (Holds up my Liverpool sweatshirt).

Him (again, no sarcasm): "Liverpool!? That's where the Beatles are from!"

We continue this exchange of him throwing B-level Beatles trivia at me while I answer him right back. Yeah sir, Pete Best, Stuart Sutcliffe, Wings, Linda McCartney -- I KNOW!

Finally...

Him: "Wait a second..... Do you go to Berkley? I'm not talking the Beatles with a music major am I?!"

Me: blank stare.

--Fin--

The Killers: Went last Friday, a wedding present from our friend Mike. I am such a fangirl for them. Definitely my favorite band... ever?

• Movies movies movies. One line reviews.

Away We Go: Saw this before the wedding and absolutely LOVED it. Three-and-a-half Werschaibles.

District 9: Best movie of the year. Four Werschaibles.

Inglorious Basterds: Might be my second favorite movie of the year. Four Werschaibles.

Julie and Julia: Oops, sorry Jeff. Two Werschaibles (On a side note, I did start reading the chick's old blog and the movie does it no justice. Her blog is genuinely entertaining!)

500 Days of Summer: Jeff and I both were disappointed. Two and a half Werschaibles.

Did I miss any babe?

• TV: We are now all caught up on How I Met Your Mother (hooked) and we also breezed right through the first two seasons of True Blood (I have a weakness for non-Twilight related vampire schtick.) Working our way through the third season of Dexter.

Now I'm in the midst of name changing baloney, writing thank you cards (a lot harder than I thought), choosing wedding photos, trying to get the house together and trying even less hard to get back to the gym.

More on my life upcoming. Working from the present, not the past...

Wedding Highlight video!

Untitled from Emily Schaible on Vimeo.

A few disclaimers...

1. No, I did not ask him to put that sesame street clip in (I've piqued your interest now) Yes, I think it's silly.
2. Jeff lost his voice so his voice is not normally so high. Yes, we both cringe when we hear our vows :)
3. I asked him to include a lot of the toasts because they were my favorite part!

4. No, there were no fireworks.

Enjoy!

And now it's time to say goodbye

And here we are. Day 8, the last day of our honeymoon. The last of a... 14 part? wedding series. I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I haven't.

Kidding.

This was perhaps one of our most jam-packed days. We started off, at 10 a.m., after breakfast... well I guess I have to back up to that. Because -- can you believe it -- my husband was coerced into trying HAGGIS! I think I've mentioned here before about how picky Jeff is, and I don't think I need to get into what exactly haggis is, but even I didn't want to try it. The lady at the B&B insisted that if you come to Scotland you might as well try it, and he even gave it 3 or 4 bites! I wouldn't say he liked it, but I'm proud he gave it a shot.

Anyways, first stop on our last day was Mary King's Close. You may, or may not know, that Edinburgh was sort of built from the bottom up, leaving a whole system of underground "closes" that supposedly were for lower-class people and got really grimey, especially around the plague. MKC is supposedly the best one to tour and we did, complete with an appropriately dressed Scottish tour guide who bordered on unintelligible, but in a camp, fun way. I wasn't thrilled about going, as these Close's have all sorts of haunted connotations, and are dimly lit, which is hard to navigate for someone like me, who's eyes don't function. But Jeff insisted, and I agreed, as long as we could go during the day.

The tour was fun, no pictures I'm afraid, they weren't allowed, and we unearthed to head over to Edinburgh Castle.

Jeff bought a tour book and was my tour guide for the day :)

And honorary Scotsman.

And King Schaibleous the Rambunctious.

And just... be careful ok?
After we left the castle we headed out to the street and over to the Camera Obscura, which is basically a museum of illusions, which was fun and a good way to kill time. At this point, I needed some rest so we headed off the Royal Mile to go relax in the B&B for a while before our last dinner.

We headed over to a place called "The Basement" and ordered two steak and ale pies, two hard ciders (then two more, then one more ;) and then a sticky toffee pudding. It was another great night, and a good sendoff to the honeymoon.

A subtext of our honeymoon was me stopping at internet cafes twice a day to check to see if we'd gotten any wedding teasers. On our very last chance of the honeymoon, we stopped at a cafe... and they were up!!! (Here's a link to the teasers and wedding slideshow if you want.) What a great capper for the night to be able to swoon over the pics.

We got up early the next morning and got the airport no problem. We had an 11-hour travel day, which was exhausting, but we arrived in Boston in the early evening where my earth angel Meg picked us up and drove us home.

Our land in Boston smooch. Greasy, tired and happy.

And back to real life.

Thanks for reading ya'll. Here's some links back to my entire wedding series should you decide at some point you have no life.

Part I -- The Rehearsal Dinner.

Part II -- Wedding Day: Getting ready.

Part III -- Wedding Day: Pre-ceremony.

Part IV -- Wedding Day: The ceremony!

Part V -- Wedding Day: Post-ceremony and the toasts.

Part VI -- Wedding Day: The reception.

Part VII -- The post-wedding brunch.

Part VIII -- Honeymoon (London) Day 1: Flight, Trafalgar Square, Harrod's.

Part IX -- Honeymoon (London) Day 2: London Tower, the Globe and Gordon Ramsay's.

Part X -- Honeymoon (London) Day 3: Abbey Road, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Parliament, Les Mis!

Part XII -- Honeymoon (Cotswolds) Day 4+5: Benz'in, Relaxin', Castle-n'

Part XIII -- Honeymoon (Liverpool + Edinburgh) Day 6+7: Beatlemania, BK and the Crags.

Part XIV -- Honeymoon (Edinburgh) Day 8 -- Edinburgh Castle and going home.

OK, I didn't even realize there were that many posts....

It's real love, It's reeeaaaaallll...

Liverpool!

We said goodbye to the Cotswolds and made our way to Beatle-town on day 6 of the honeymoon. We got there by mid-day and headed over the "Beatles Experience" -- a museum dedicated to the Fab 4. I gotta say, I was disappointed. It was entirely an audio tour -- which I hate because it makes you rely on a tape, and you can't really talk to the one you're with. I felt like I was being shuffled through, and I didn't see much I didn't see/know before. It was cool to "be" there, where it all began, but replicas just don't do much for me. Of course, Jeff and I had fun anyway.

Here we are on "Albert Dock." It was windy. That night we went out to dinner at an "American" restaurant where I decided, against all common sense, to get a quesadilla. Yuck.

Jeff wanted to buy some Liverpool F.C. regalia and we kept seeing people with bags from the official store but couldn't find it. Finally, I stopped a police officer and said, "Can you tell me where the Liverpool soccer store is?"

Hey-o, could I have been any more American? We found it anyway and Jeff got a jersey-shirt and I got a sweatshirt so now we're proper football fans who never watch proper football.

In retrospect, I regret a bit that we decided to stay in Liverpool for a day and didn't drive straight to Scotland. Because let me tell you. Scotland was amazing. But we're not there yet.

The drive from Liverpool to Scotland on Day 7 was 4 1/2 hours. And it was A-Mazing. I've said it to everyone who I've talked to since the honeymoon, you have to go see Scotland sometime in your life. I almost felt bad for Jeff being the driver because the view was so amazing.

We stopped along the way at a rest stop. We got Burger King. Jeff enjoyed it.

We drove the car to Edinburgh airport, took a bus and then a cab to our B&B. It was almost too easy! As we drove into Edinburgh on the bus, it was a beautiful day, and the closer you get to the center of town, the older the buildings get, and then you turn the corner and BAM! there's a castle in the middle of the city. I'm sure you can imagine how amazing that would be to see?

We got to our B&B, checked in, and immediately went out to explore. What a cool city, with a mix of modern and ancient. The "Royal Mile" in the middle of the city runs from the Palace (where the Queen stays when she's in Edinburgh) to Edinburgh Castle and is filled with shops, restaurants, tours and ... street performers.

This dude swallowed a sword. Can't say I've seen that in person before.

The Royal Mile.

We decided to walk towards the Palace side and when we got to the bottom, we came upon the "Crags," which as you can see was sort of a giant hill. At the top, the highest point, is called 'Sir Arthur's Seat" and is supposed to be an incredible view of the city.

My feet were aching once again by this point so I refused to even attempt to climb this. But you know how persistent my husband is, so I said, "OK, we'll go halfway."

It was a steep incline.

But when we got up there, it was totally worth it.

Another amazing aspect of Edinburgh is it's city on one side, mountains on another and sea on the third. Isn't that the best kind of city? We spent sundown just enjoying the view, it was so peaceful. For dinner, I had another steak and ale pie and for dessert we had sticky toffee pudding and some hard cider which is, oh, so, good.

It was the absolute perfect day. My favorite day of the honeymoon.

What does this do?

OK this is getting embarrassing. Let's just finish this thing (or get close) already.

Day 4 of the honeymoon we packed up our London hotel room and headed to Heathrow so we could pick up our car and drive two hours to the Cotswolds, aka England countryside.

We got to the car rental place and waited forever in line only for the people at the desk to tell us they didn't have what we reserved, which was an automatic car with a GPS.

Say what?

Good news, they said. We have a manual with a built-in GPS. Not good news, we said, neither of us can drive a manual. OK, they said, we have an automatic and I can give you directions, I know how to get to the Cotswolds...

Cue pained faces.

So the dude went in the back and I mentally pictured the scene from Seinfeld where Jerry's at the car rental place and the lady goes in the back to "talk with the manager."

You know how to take the reservation, but you don't know how to HOLD the reservation. Anyone can take them!

When he came back, to our short-lived delight, we saw he had the keys to a Mercedes. Jeff and I had a mental conversation ala How I Met Your Mother that went something like.

Me: You see that, those are keys to a Mercedes.

Jeff: Yeah, I see them, we're getting a Mercedes?

In unison: Sweet!

But no, the dude told us, yes, we can give you this totally sweet Mercedes with a built-in GPS, but yes, we still have to charge you more. Almost $200 more. WTF.

Anyways, we were ready to just get out of there already. We went out to the parking lot, and after two trips back in and out to figure how to find/operate the damn thing, we were off. In a brand-new Mercedes no less. It had nine miles on it. It had all the bells and whistles. But we were still pissed off about the $$ on our carefully budgeted honeymoon... more on that later.

So we channeled all the calm we had stored up and Jeff safely navigated us to the Cotswolds, despite a brief emergency when he somehow put on the parking brake while we were on the highway ;)

Since the Cotswolds in the countryside, the roads are particularly narrow, which you can imagine makes the driving experience harrowing, so we were so relieved when we got to our LOVELY B&B and found "town" to be in walking distance.

But first, some tea.

OK, it was coffee. But it was still good.

And how LOVELY was our B&B? Well, take a look.

View from our window.

Our room.

Our two days in the Cotswolds (Chipping Campden to be specific) were supposed to be our "relaxing" days. I think this street sign pretty much tells you all you need to know about the area.

We had a nice, relaxing dinner that night and woke up refreshed in the morning.

We had a lovely (I know, I'm overusing, but that's the best word to describe it!) breakfast made by our host before we headed out for the day. Remember when I said this was supposed to be the relaxing leg? Do you think Jeff would really let me relax?

I have to tell you though, this morning brought the worst experience of the honeymoon. We decided to stop in town at a genuine silversmith. We walked around the workshop and it was truly incredible. If I had had an unlimited souvenir budget, I would have definitely bought a little silver spoon or cup or something. But alas. Anyways, while we were there I had to go to the bathroom. I bought a bottle of water from so I could use the bathroom there and as I was... um... finishing up, I happened to glance up at the ceiling.

It was COVERED in HUGE spiders. At least 20 of them. Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod!!! I hustled out there something fierce. I ran out (literally) into the courtyard, threw off my jacket and screamed at Jeff to check me. Then I started to cry. It was awful. I hate spiders.

Anyways, we decided to head off to Broadway Tower, which which wasn't that fascinating. It was actually built in an era where Towers were no longer being used.

From the bottom.
From the top.

After that we headed to another relaxing lunch before going to Sudley Castle. Sudley Castle was home of Henry the VIII (see, him again) and his last wife, Catherine. Of all the Castles/Towers we saw, this was definitely my favorite. It was on a huge estate, and it was impeccably maintained.

These last two pictures were taken inside the chapel on the Estate and the last pic is actually the burial place of Queen Catherine. Cool and creepy huh?

Dinner that night was back in town and was our introduction to perhaps the culinary creation most suited for my husband: Steak and ale pie. Oh my, so delish. I got a burger (WHY???) that was absolute CRAP and I spent the end of my meal scraping whatever I could out of my husband's dish. It's like a pot roast, but with a thick ale sauce and a pastry crust. How can you go wrong? Soooo good.

OK, if you've made it this far, I'm happy to say I only have our day in Liverpool and two days in Edinburgh left to cover. I promise to end this in the next two days. But if you read this far, let me wrap up the car $$ situation.

At the encouragement of everyone we told the story to, Jeff demanded the extra money back from the car rental place via e-mail. He forwarded the email to me which absolutely CRACKED me up, since my husband is not really a shake my hand in your face sort of guy. He's more of a brooding, complain under my breath guy. Here's a snippet of the e-mail.

Be it known, I will never rent from [car rental place] again.

I’d like to thank you for throwing a wrench in our carefully planned honeymoon budget. Thanks to your customer service we had to scrap our plans to see a show while in London.

Congratulations on squeezing a few extra dollars out of us. It will be the last time.

For my own gratification (I’m sure), I am including our original reservation and a copy of my bank statement.

Thanks for nothing.

********

Two weeks after the honeymoon, we got our money back.