Help us build the House that Jack Built!

Hello wonderful readers! I'm blogging watching and listening to a program on PBS called Digital_Nation. It is talking about multi-tasking, using several technologies (cell phones, lap tops, ipods, tvs, etc) and how it really is not making us any smarter. It's all a bit overwhelming.

Anyway, I'm doing something much easier. I am talking to you all a little bit about the story of Tim and Olivia. Many of you have emailed me or talked to me about some of the photos I've been posting. They span the relationship - the whole 12+ years of our relationship. The photo that I post tonight may be one of my favorites. This was taken in May 1998, the summer that Tim and I lived in Ship Bottom on Long Beach Island, New Jersey. We had been together for several months and Tim's roommate Dave invited us to live with him and his then girlfriend. We would rent the first floor of a house from May to August. This was great! We kind of told our parents what we were doing - I had only met Tim's parents one time, and I can't remember if he had ever met my parents yet. They were all kind of shocked when we told them - or I suppose in Tim's case, discovered what our plans for the summer were. A two bedroom apartment for 4 people - both couples. HEHEHE! The house we lived in was called The House that Jack Built. We loved this little home and had one of the best summers of our life!

Tim and I both worked two jobs. I worked at a bagel shop called Bagel Eddies from 5am to about 1pm. I loved working at the bagel shop. The owner, Eddie Costello, a retired New York City police officer with wrinkly tattooed arms, lovely white hair, and a great New York Italian accent. This was the summer that Frank Sinatra died, and from every shop and every car, you could hear ol' blue eyes' music wafting lazily into the summer streets. Every morning when we finished making the varieties of cream cheeses, set out the pastries, and finished boiling and baking the bagels, at 5:50am, 10 minutes before the bagel shop opened, Eddie, me, Eddie's wife, and a few other workers would walk out to the tiny patio with picnic tables, put our coffee down, look at the ocean, breath in the ocean air, and turn up the Frank Sinatra and dance around for the last few moments before our customers came in for their morning bagel and schmear.

After the bagel shop I would go home, sleep for about an hour and head out to my second job around 3 in the afternoon. I was a server at a tiny seafood restaurant called Seven C's. I worked there until about 10 at night.

Tim worked at Mr. Movie, a video (we're talking VHS here!) rental store/car parts store. He watched movies and carved Tim is GOD into the counter. And brought home some quality movies like Hardbodies and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes . During the evening, he worked at the Gateway Restaurant as a runner. His boss, John Griffo, a big Italian chef, threw him in the dumpster one night.

For the most part, we worked 6 days a week. We were lucky enough to have the one day off a week and even luckier to have that same day off together. It usually started by either doing laundry or going grocery shopping and then heading to the beach and then out to a fancy pants dinner. We discovered food on Long Beach Island. A new restaurant every Tuesday night. We would dress up and walk to the restaurant. We ate several course meals and would walk home on the beach, beside the ocean. Always holding our shoes and socks (well, Tim wore socks).

The summer ended, and we went back to college. We took so much back with us - we discovered so much about ourselves and about each other. Food, cheesy movies, cooking, and how to live with each other. We also learned that we could work ourselves to the bone and still have enough energy to make time for each other. And we learned that we really didn't need too much to live. Food and happiness was enough for us.

We went back to Long Beach Island for our 10th Anniversary. Happily, not much had changed since our time there. We went to an old restaurant (the last one we went to together in the summer of 1998) called La Spiaggia. We thought it was so awesome the first time we went there. It wasn't so awesome after 10 years of discovering restaurants in Los Angeles and New York. But, it was fun to remember that we had brought a bottle of wine to the restaurant even though we were 19 and 20! We thought we were pretty awesome! We also discovered a great new restaurant called Blue. Delicious. I had a pumpernickel fried oyster for an appetizer. I've never had anything like it.

Ok. It's time to leave memory lane and remind you all (as Tim has just reminded me, this post looks a little long) how you can help us build our very own house that Jack built. Let's call it, the House that Tim and Olivia Built with the help of those who love them - their family and friends. I'm not very good at asking for things nor am I good at receiving gifts. But this would be something so special to us, that I have to try right?

I've set up a pay pal account in case you do not feel like writing a check or putting cold hard cash in a card. See, this just feels weird to ask for or expect gifts! Anyway, here is what you do if you would like to gift us this way. Go to PayPal . Click on send money. Type in my email address positivgal@gmail.com. Type in your email address. Type in the amount of money that you would like to contribute to the House that Tim and Olivia Built. Click personal and then click (or mark the circle next to Gift. Then click continue. It looks like you have to have a paypal account already to do this. So, if you've ever purchased anything from ebay, you probably have a paypal account. Once you've logged in, you can type in the subject, you can choose and if you wish to send a message, you can do that as well. It will be like your virtual ecard to your virtual, but very much appreciated gift. If you have any problems, you can always email me or Tim.

And finally, on a silly note, I'm going to leave you with this very appropriate photo from icanhascheezburger.com - appropriate if you read my post from January 31. Happy February everyone!!