The truth of the matter is that life is complex. Life is complicated and busy as a pesky summer bee.

I feel that is all I can say after I look at the unimpressive amount of blogging done in the past few weeks. And sometimes I get so behind in this particular blog that I end up just drifting by important events – like the Charleston trip – without really showing the true brilliant colors of the experience.

So, let’s just start with what’s most recent: this past weekend.

Nick headed to Russia with his family immediately after Charleston for Abby Cordonnier’s wedding, his cousin, and I flew home to Cleveland to work two days before joining him in Russia. The two days were uneventful and full of sleepy catch-up days in the real world. Charleston is kinda magical. I felt like the architecture of the south has some sort of time-travel element built into its columns and bricks. I felt like I was in Gone with the Wind, Sweet Home Alabama, or Forest Gump at times. The houses were just beautiful. Our time there was filled with a lot of beach, exploration, Tripoly, and an euchre tourney.

But, we eventually returned to the real world and headed to Abby’s wedding. It was beautiful, as anticipated.

One thing I noticed is that I am getting much better at being on time for a wedding than I used to be. Now that the Borchers house is getting more and more snug with an expanding family, I have learned when to aggressively hog the shower first in the morning and iron my clothes before everyone else notices they need these amenities. With me, Nick, ( + Baby), Kelly, Tim, Jay, Keith, and his girlfriend Anna, it’s a tight run ship on Voisard street. Luckily, after 4 years of marriage and about 6-7 years of Russia trips, I’ve learned a few tricks to being on time.

Abby and Marcus’ wedding stood out for a few reaons, but like I’ve written before, there’s always one thing that will catch my attention. For this wedding, it was the speeches. Quite possibly, this wedding had the best speeches I’ve ever heard overall. And there were plenty – both of Abby’s parents spoke, Marcus’ father, the matron of honor, best man, and even Abby and Marcus themselves spoke. That’s a lot of talking and very impressive for each and every one to hold the attention of the audience with their wit, insight, and words. Bravo!

When I got home, Nick had to scoot off to work for a meeting and I decided to weed and prune some landscaping outside. I guess this was sorely needed because FOUR different neighbors stopped by to tell me what a great job I was doing and how wonderful it was that I was spending so much time taking care of our landscaping. Soon, the 30 minutes I had planned for myself became a 2.5 hour vendetta and I stopped only when Nick came home from his meeting and the sun had all but disappeared.

As Nick happily reviewed my hard work and the piles of branches, twigs, and greenery set out for pick-up, he threw his arm around my shoulder, “Great work, babe!”

I smiled an exhausted smile and mumbled how I wanted to go to bed.

Then he said, “Hey, what’s lighting up inside your shirt?”

I looked down to see a curious yellow light blinking, sandwiched between my green tank top and skin. All my gardening tools crashed on the driveway as I yelped and screamed and nearly tore my shirt in my frantic attempts to get whatever was in my shirt off my skin. Images of spiders, centipedes, and event tarantulas flooded my brain.

As a lightning bug innocently flew away from my shirt, Nick whooped a hearty laughter and picked up my gardening tools scattered on the ground. Too tired to tell him to stop laughing at me, I headed inside and collapsed on the couch.

Next weekend: Stacy Condon’s wedding and golf tourney for the Borchers clan.