What is your dream job?

The question isn’t “What is your dream job based on your skill set and your college major?” This isn’t “what is the best job you can possibly have with a degree in speech communication?”

I’m talking about, if you could get paid to do anything in the whole world what would it be?

For years, my fantasy has been to be a back-up singer. Ideally, I’d sing back-up for Elton John or James Taylor. I’d get to sing the greatest songs ever written, but I wouldn’t be front and center wondering “does this outfit make my butt look fat?” I always sing along with the back-up singers when I hear a song and the harmonies are my favorite parts to sing.

I would wear all black and sway back and forth with two other people and harmonize to “Carolina In My Mind” or “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.”

I wouldn’t have to deal with the paparazzi because, let’s face it, no one cares about back-up singers. You get the fun of the tour without the pressure of the fame.

And maybe I could even sing back-up for Carrie Underwood! On the other hand, if they ever did background checks after I auditioned, and they found my blog, they’d discover my huge girl crush on Carrie and decide that I shouldn’t be allowed to be her back-up singer.

So what’s your fantasy job?

This is such a strange thing. In every other period in our lives, we’ve had people our age, with similar interests, handed to us on a platter with a sign that says “this is your friend pool. Play nice.” We had this in elementary school, middle school, high school, and even college. When we got to college we were able to be a little more selective about who we chose to be our friends. Even in a sorority, you weren’t close with every single girl. But in college, we were able to meet our dearest friends with whom we shared some of the best times of our lives.

After college, I moved here to Columbia for grad school. I made another fantastic friend during that year and we have remained close. Unfortunately, she moved away and I stayed. I met Todd. We have made our life here in Columbia. But my best college friends aren’t here and my one good grad school friend isn’t here. It was a tough transition.

As a newlywed, you want to have couple friends. You want to spend time with your spouse and friends that you both share. But isn’t it so hard to find friends that you can equally share? Where you both love both people in the other couple?

It’s so common for the wife to hit it off with another wife, but the husbands can’t find much that they have in common. Or vice versa.

We found a great network of friends in our Sunday school class. We’re surrounded by wonderful couples who love each other and are the most kind, loving people you’ll ever meet. It was like being a kid all over again. We walked into a room full of couples our age and we instantly had 8 couples that we couldn’t wait to get to know!

The next challenge has been finding friends who have children. We were the first couple out of friends to have a baby and I would be lying if I said it hasn’t been hard to not have another mom or another baby to hang out with and have play dates with. TC and I both grew up spending all of our time with one other family who had a child our age. Our parents were best friends with their parents and our moms had been pregnant at the same time as their moms. It sounds perfect, doesn’t it?

I was fortunate to meet so many bloggers (who are now some of my best friends) who were pregnant when I was pregnant and we got very close as we swapped pregnancy and birth stories. And now we swap stories about our precious babies. I’ve also met some great women in Hudson’s Little Gym class, so we’re coming along slowly, but surely!

I know a lot of wonderful girls through the Junior League who are also moms and I’ve made some great friends there, but I’m talking about family friends. Mom, dad, and children.

But even though none of them have kids of their own, our friends have been wonderful to us and have loved our little boy in a way that we could have only prayed for. And I know that when they do have children that we’ll do the same for them and Hudson will be a good older playmate for them!   *I usually keep their pictures off of the blog because not everyone wants to be on the internet! But this picture from when some of them visited the hospital is so sweet that I had to share it.

Has anyone else experienced this? Did you think it was hard to make friends as a couple? How about as a parent?

I watch entirely too much television. I just do. I don’t always watch the shows on the night that they originally air. I have to DVR a lot of my shows and watch during nap time or watch on the weekends.

I’ve always been this way except I didn’t have as many options before the invention of the DVR. Even as an elementary, junior high, high school, and college student, I loved my TV.

My television addictions from the past:

Top: Beverly Hills, 90210 (high school, college, post-college), Saved by the Bell, Dawson’s Creek (Team Pacey!)

Bottom: Friends, Sex and the City, and Felicity (Team Ben!)

I could write a book on each of these shows. Why Ross is whiney and Monica is my favorite “Friend.” Why I loved Brenda more than mean-girl Kelly and always thought that Brenda got overshadowed by Shannen Doherty’s real life troubles. I can tell you why Pacey is so much better for Joey than Dawson and why I love to hate Carrie Bradshaw. She’s selfish and was horrible to Aiden. Sweet Aiden.

This proves that I watched too much TV when these shows were on.

My television addictions today:

Top Row: American Idol, Damages, LOST

Middle Row: Mad Men, Glee, Grey’s Anatomy (this obsession is on and off)

Last Row: Dancing With the Stars, Project Runway, The Bachelor/Bachelorette

And I just realized I didn’t include the Real Housewives of New Jersey or Tori and Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood in my super fun collage.

The whole thing is borderline unhealthy.

What shows were you addicted to 10 years ago?

What about today?

We really didn’t do too much this weekend. You can guess what we did on Friday night. That’s right. We watched Dateline: The Secret Life of the Homecoming Queen. Whoa- it was a good one.

On Saturday, Todd had to get a lot of work done and I needed to run a few errands that aren’t easy while carrying a baby. I had to go to Kinkos, UPS, and I was going to get my nails done. I know, that’s not really an errand, but it was something I wanted to do.

So we loaded up the pack ‘n play, the portable DVD player, some Baby Einstein, and we set up a temporary nursery and play area at TC’s office for a few hours. I ran around to take care of everything and while I was gone, TC sent this picture to me from his phone. (Sorry about the super small size) So funny!

We were all home just a little after lunch time and we were all ready for naps! (I always get back in my pajamas) I usually crave something cold and sweet when I wake up from a nap, so I went to get a Blue Bell Fruit Pop. I’ve found that any time I eat something lately, Hudson is right up in my face trying to get a taste of whatever I’m eating. He really wanted that fruit bar and Boudreaux and Fiona weren’t backing down either.

Then somehow, they switched places…

Yesterday we went to church and Sunday school and then came home to relax for a while. The LOST series finale was last night and it was a really intense evening. They had a two-hour recap show with cast interviews and did their best to recap six years worth of seasons in two hours.

I thought the finale was wonderful. It was sad and happy. There were a lot of chilling moments. I definitely think that they did everything they could to bring closure to the show. I’ve been watching the show since it premiered in 2004 and can’t believe that it’s done. Nothing can replace it.

My friend, Megan, posted a link to this great recap and explanation on Twitter this morning. So if you missed it and want to read about it, here it is. Or if you watched it and just want to hear what someone else thinks, it’s a great link.

SPOILER ALERT:

I’m so happy to know that everything on the island did happen and that Jack really did save everyone from the Man in Black. I loved seeing them all together again in heaven (or where ever they are in fictional TV land) and happy.

The end definitely surprised me. I wasn’t sure where they were going with the alternate reality, but I’m happy that they chose to make that purgatory instead of making life on the island purgatory.

Did you watch? What did you think?

Dancing With The Stars ends tomorrow night. Who will you vote for tonight? I’m totally using as many votes as I can for Erin and Maks.

Also, The Bachelorette premieres tonight. I love to watch a good train wreck reality show like this. I never miss a season of The Bachelor or The Bachelorette. I really like Ali and I don’t believe for a second that any part of these shows are reality. Sorry- I read too much Reality Steve to believe that these people find true love and that none of it is scripted by the producers. But I’ll definitely be watching and coming up with snarky comments!