But, by far, the most stunning evolutionary tale I’ve seen over the past three or so years is that of Baby Jonas from Just A Bright Idea to Gummy Bear Sonogram Photo to Little Glowworm to Little Turtle to Little Monkey.

Now, he’s no longer a Little Anything, except a Little Boy, and even that’s a stretch. But my Goodness, he’s going to break hearts with his giant glass sky-blue eyes and his curly blonde locks.

Jonas, earlier this summer in his first pool.

Daddy, Jonas, Mommy. {Ryan and Kristin in their past life.}

Can we talk about how precious his little curl-mohawk is?

The major topic of conversation today were Jonas' feet, which are now too big for the baby PUMAs I sent him before he was born. The issue is that he won't let Kristin keep shoes or socks on his feet. At all. Which only poses a problem if you live in cold-climate areas. Like CNY.

Jonas reminds me so much of Kristin with his tenacity and his spunk. He has this devilish little sparkle in his eyes, and every time I see it twinkle to life, I see Kristin shining out.

He now has 8 teeth. Count them. 8. Teeth.

But, of all the images I got, the one that proves to me that he’s 100% Ryan’s son was when he gave the remote control a great slam against the coffee table, then shrieked with delight at Kristin’s reaction to what James and I have dubbed: Baby Crazy Face.

Jonas was so pleased with himself. He is 100% boy and 100% Ryan's son. This photo proves it.

New York State Fair tomorrow. Y’all get your Mullet Counters ready now, ya hear?

-MM.

Can you do that? I asked myself. Well… I suppose you can, because it appears as though I have.

It’s surreal, almost– I sit here and I’m watching this amazing life happen around me. Events move past me, through me. I’m there, and then just as quickly, I find myself grinning ear to ear in the aftermath, wondering to myself quietly if this is all some happy, hazy memory. Or maybe a dream.

We had our engagement party this past weekend, hosted by Rosa and Maxine– it was amazing. It was the perfect night, with perfect friends, and perfect weather. It was enchanting.

Now I’ve spent three days with my head against the grindstone, trying to hone and perfect my design skills. I’m revisiting and rehashing and brainstorming on my writing sample. I’ve thought about edits I want to make to the thesis I wrote almost two years ago. My creativity hasn’t been this alive and active in a very, very long time.

It’s exhausting.

And creativity responds very poorly to order. It’s like trying to teach ducks to march in line, on schedule.

This is the first time in my life where I’ve had to create accountability for myself. It’s not something I’ve ever been good with. I’m great at coming up with good ideas and terrible with seeing them through all the way to the end. It’s a lesson that I very quickly need to learn. It’s a lesson that I’m very quickly learning.

Nobody ever bothers to tell you that your mid-20s are full of changes. There’s no manual, no indication that Baby Steps are gone forever, no road signs anywhere that say, “Huge Leaps and Bounds Ahead.”

I’ve produced more work this week than I ever have during any other week in my life. I’m just obliterated, and creatively drained, and completely hazy, and blissfully proud of myself and the steps I’m taking into this crazy new phase of my life. I’m doing my best to restore order– to get all the technicolor ducks into a row.

Until then, please don’t mind the clutter. Or the paint splats on the wall. Or the semi-discombobulated chatter. Or the water fowl.

Good things to come. All good things.

-MM.

It didn’t start out that way, trust me. The week started with me hating everything, including my body, breakfast cereal and both of the cats. I’ve come a long way since Monday.

But I’m thrilled to announce– quietly, a little timidly– that I’m starting my own company.

You see, the problem with quitting your job and not having a boss and realizing how amazing it is to make your own schedule is that it doesn’t put you on a fast-track back into the work place. Especially when you’re watching your lifelong dreams come true! {Being able to cook dinner whenever I want, for one. Never changing out of pajamas, for another.}

But the problem with being “unemployed” is that it sounds rather bad, doesn’t it? I also have a tendency to get stir crazy, and I can only plan so much Wedding Stuff on a daily basis before I want to insert my pen-knife into my own eyeball. Sorry, paper flowers. It’s not you, it’s me.

The only logical solution I could come up with was to go from being “Unemployed” to being “Self-Employed.” Right! How much better does that sound? Oodles.

Now, I’m announcing this timidly because the licensing approval hasn’t come back from the Department of State quite yet. Apparently, you can’t register your sole proprietorship as an Evil Empire. {At least not without going LLC, and we’re not there yet. Yet.} So we’re labeling it a Creative Media agency instead. Inc.

But. I have a logo, thanks to that ever-supportive Future Husband of mine, and a lot of cheerleaders, thanks to the level of Awesome all my friends and family maintain. Elephant is also very excited that my workstation is down in the basement, as it makes me fair game for snuggles whenever she wants them.

Ladies and gentlemen, the humble beginnings: Moxie World Media, Inc.

I’ll be passing along more information shortly. Posting might be a little light for a couple weeks, until I figure out what the new routine looks like. On the up-side, at least now I have something more interesting to write about than the cats.

-MM.

Through it all, James has been nothing but a gem, as always. I went downstairs last Friday morning to find this on my new design station screen.

I believe I’ll keep him, penmanship and all.

-MM.

This is juxtaposed against Moxie Missives and 11eleven11, who are constantly acting like Jack Russel Terriers, just waiting for me to take them out for a spin. And OMG! Can we play fetch?

Alas, this week, and part of next week, we cannot. I’m going to be taking a brief sabbatical from the websites until Wednesday or Thursday of next week, when I will come back with content and news so exciting your faces will melt off! OFF!

Until then, for your blogging pleasure, I recommend ambling over to the following sites, written by lovely and engaging people whose lives do not revolve around their cats. (I consider them some of the finest writers I’ve had the luxury of reading.)

Kyran of Notes To Self.

Alice of Finslippy.

Heather of Dooce.

Maggie of Mighty Girl.

Karen of Chookooloonks.

… You’re welcome.

And I hope you like what I have coming down the tubes for you next week. Until then..

xo. -MM.

It was pretty obvious right from the get-go that James was my match, trait for trait, quirk for quirk, smile for smile. Only once did one of my friends confide in me that after her only real experience with him, she thought he was sort of a douche.

“He is, sort of.” I told her. “That’s one of the things I like about him. Sometimes, he’s amazing, and sometimes he’s a complete asshole. But he’s never an asshole to me. And anyway, who are WE to judge someone for asking assertively for what they want? We do the same thing all the time.” She didn’t look convinced. So I confided that a lot of what I love about her– her tenacity, her noble nature, her willingness to self-sacrifice if it means fighting for what she believes in– are all things I saw and liked in James. She said she’d think about it.

That girlfriend of mine is going to stand up next to me when I marry James as my Maid of Honor. Life just seems to work out sometimes, doesn’t it?

Aside from that, I’ve never had to defend James. He makes a strong argument on his own behalf, what with the charisma and the intellect and that million dollar smile. But it hit me today that there are a million reasons I’m choosing to spend the rest of my life with him, and they all sort of boil down to this:

You know in action movies, when the stakes are high and every second counts and the two leads are walking high up above the ground, just ASKING to tumble to their death? One of them always slips, and the other one always reaches out and they catch each other by the wrist and hold on for all their worth. And at the end of the movie, before the credits roll, the one who did the saving makes a joke to the one who did the falling about the whole thing, and they have a laugh and walk into the sunset and life rolls on as the house lights come up.

That’s us.

Our life seems to insist on flipping through every orientation but Upright. We both lose focus and lose battles and lose patience. But whatever the ledge looks like, whatever one of us stumbles over, the other stops and helps brace for impact. We catch each other, set everything right again… Then we joke about it (to ease the sting sometimes, but more often because it’s so surreal) and let life just keep rollin’ on.

We take on the world together every single day, and you know what? We make one awesome team.

That’s why I’m marrying him. (That and, as always, his tee shirt collection.)

-MM.

For the most part, though, I understand that we all have bad days, and sometimes we are not at our best, and if someone shoots you an icy look when you already feel like crap, it can send the day into an irreparable downward spiral. More than once I’ve cried to James {who is excellent, and never even implies I may be too sensitive, even when I am} that people in this city are so horribly MEAN. I never want to be the one to send someone home crying, so for the sake of empathy, I usually handle my displeasure with Awful People by taking a huge dose of Suck It Up.

Not today.

Today I choked {fine, on air, but STILL, not breathing is not breathing} while waiting for the ferry back to Manhattan, home of the gloriously snobby, who never would have done anything more about my coughing fit than take a courtesy step away from me, lest I be a contagious leper.

But there was this couple behind me. And they were so damn obnoxious. I first overheard them and all I could think of their banal conversation was, “GOD I hope James and I do not sound like that when we talk in public.” {I’m sure we do, which is why I’m now shuffling “Captain America” and “1970s horror film” into our “Private Discussions” folder from here on out.} The guy, especially, was ridiculous. Condescending and self righteous and just loathsome. He kept stomping his Haviana knock-off and demanding to know how long it TAKES to disembark a ferry. GOD.

She was no better. Her voice was nasally, and her hair was over-processed bottle-blonde. To each her own, as far as style goes, but you could tell she wasn’t naturally unattractive. She made herself unattractive in her choices of makeup styling and improper dress for her body type. {Yea. I admit to wearing leggings for pants today, but you can bounce a quarter off my ass. So, I don’t think the look is overtly inappropriate because I can carry it off.}

I was ready to let them just be– not turn around or shoot them a look. Whatever, right? Besides, I was too busy choking.

The coughing fit lasted longer than it should have, admittedly, because I tried to stifle it. Toward the end, I thought I heard the guy make a bitchy comment about “swine flu.”

Uh–pardon me?

Maybe I am mistaken, I thought. But no, I distinctly heard him make another, more audible and more articulate comment about swine flu, and then the blonde giggled.

I looked up at the doorway out to the loading docks, which at the Staten Island side of the ferry are retractable glass walls. As I was in front of the horrid couple, I could clearly make out their reflection. And what happened next got me so angry I couldn’t help but stand up for myself.

In the reflection, I saw him pantomime slowly hitting me in the back of the head with his umbrella. Blondie erupted into giggles again, as he pulled his arm back and repeated the motion. I had just, JUST regained my composure and I have no shame in admitting I used my first breath to whip around, look him in the face and say, “I can see you in the door’s reflection.” I held his eye contact long enough to watch his pudgy, white cheeks flush crimson.

He shrugged, nervously but indignantly. I could tell he was embarrassed for getting caught. I thought it was settled so I broke the glare and turned back around. But LO! He muttered something again about swine flu!

I whipped back around and said evenly but assertively, right to his fat crimson cheeks, “I’m not sick. I was choking. I apologize if that was inconvenient for you.” I shot his blonde girlfriend a look, to drive the point home, and started to turn back around again, when she actually had the nerve to mutter in my direction, “It’s not illegal to hold an umbrella.”

I summoned all the composure and contempt I could muster, locked my eyes on hers and glared so ferociously I could feel her soul quiver. “Neither is coughing,” I stated strongly, in a solid, we-are-not-negotiating tone.

That did it. Both remained silent for the next 60 seconds, before we boarded the ferry. I shook the whole ferry ride back to Manhattan, and called Maxine as soon as I had disembarked to scold her on how awful her people are. She commended me on refraining from both violence and cussing.

It’s true. I was assertive, not overly aggressive and completely in the right. It’s one thing to bend over backwards if your fiancée wants to fill the kitchen with smoke and burn the tips of his fingers off so you can put wax seals on engagement party invitations. Whatever. In life, I understand that you have to pick your battles or you’ll perpetually find yourself railing against the world.

But it’s something else entirely to be a doormat because people who don’t have any decency assume that they intimidate people who do.

No, sir. Not the case.

I’m sure they spent the whole ride to Manhattan talking about what an awful bitch I was, being so sensitive to their fun. I don’t care. I hope one day they learn to understand how their words and actions can be insulting and hurtful, how hard kindness is to come by and how we all choke in public {literally, metaphorically, whatever} eventually.

When it happens to them, I hope they are sent a person who shows them empathetic kindness– someone like the gentleman who sat next to me on the ferry and gave me a bottle of water because he saw me coughing.

But until that day, I hope their freakin’ flip-flops break. God some people are SO MEAN!

-MM.

Find it directly {here}.

-MM.

But my favorite thing to use coffee for is Waking Up In The Morning. {This the PG name for the process I’ve alternately dubbed “Morphing from Swamp-Creature into Human-Being.”}

Oh Coffee. If I were Shakespeare, I’d write sonnets about you. Alas! I am not. I am just a small girl with big sleep problems and lots of writing to get done.

When it’s Seven Hundred Million Thousand and Two degrees out, I still drink hot coffee. I swore I would always be that girl who doesn’t care what people think, my righteous indignation so adamant to overshadow my crippling insecurity: I simply did not know how to make Iced Coffee good enough to drink.

The water-grounds ration was incorrect. It was too sweet or too bitter, and the ice always diluted it. It was a mess, an aberration to the Life Elixir I hold so dear.

Mishelle Lane of Aiming Low changed all that this morning, and I’ll tell you what, not only do I owe her my first born, I am adding her to the List of Women I Must Become Friends With. She is first and foremost a funny, excellent human being with a great voice and very, very good coffee sense. She’s also a talented artist. You can find her website (SecretAgentMama) {here} and her photography {here}.

This is the blurb that melted my soul, and won me as a new reader:

“While I’m gone I will push myself a bit, stretch a little more in my passion, gather around those that I consider my people, and I intend to shine and feel good.  We all deserve to shine and feel good.  I wish that for every single person.”

Right? She’s so excellent. And she makes amazing iced coffee! You can find her melt-your-face-off Iced Coffee recipe {here}.

You can thank me later for all of the above. In the meantime… cheers!

-MM.

The thing about weddings today is this: everyone wants their stuff to look vintage. Don’t get me wrong, I am a sucker for warm lighting and faded colors. I love a good solar flare and think that aging effects on photos are lovely. I love all things vintage. They remind me of my Mimi, which we all know is something that is very dear to me all of the sudden. (Getting married, I think, has made me miss her deeper, more prominently.)

But in ten years, I am likely not going to want my photos to look Vintage because, at that point, they will be. And then, I will want them to look timeless. Under all the fun effects I’m sure I’ll apply to the images, I am going to want strong photographs that tell the story of our wedding day all on their own, solar glare or not.

So. Something I Love: Strong images, that transcend any trends we see in photography. Like this series of images:

Image from Jayd Gardina Photography

Other Things I Love:

This Alice in Wonderland themed engagement shoot, courtesy of Green Wedding Shoes.The details were just delicious– literally.

Then I found a great honeymoon idea from The Wedding Chicks. Essentially, you give people the opportunity to contribute gifts toward the adventures you’d like to have on your honeymoon. It’s perfect for the couple who already have everything they need for their home {unlike James and I, who have almost nothing} and want to offset the cost of their honeymoon as much as possible.

Brilliant, brilliant!

And my friend Crystal over at Budget Bride Chicago found her DRESS! So you should check that out. Because it’s also lovely.

Unrelated to weddings, my favorite writer {Kyran Pittman} added to my List of Reasons To Love Her with {this} post about family and life and how surreal it can all be sometimes. It’s soul-stirring, and very likely good for your heart. Read it and you will not be sorry.

But more than anything else in the whole world, I love my new desk, and the windows it looks out of, and Elephant, who protects me from squirrels. Bless her pudgy little heart.

-MM.