With or Without?

Ches is applying for a job at a university. If, by some long shot (which I’m hoping isn’t that long of a shot after all), he gets the job, he will have to shave his goatee. Now, I love his goatee. I know not everyone is a facial hair kind of person, but I love goatees in general. I especially love it on Ches. When I met Ches, he was completely clean-shaven (those were the rules at Ricks College), and so I never knew him with facial hair while we dated or when we were first married. As soon as he was done with Ricks, however, I persuaded him to grow a goatee. It really didn’t take much persuasion. He apparantly had one before his mission for a little while, and while on break from Ricks he would grow one. He loves it as much as I do.

Anyrate, I hope he gets this job (it would be so great!! Really!), but I would have to get used to a clean-shaven Ches again. Here is Ches when we got married:

And here is Ches with a goatee (this picture was in Preston in 2002, and it’s more scraggly than he likes, but I like it this way):

A Cause For Depression

Thursday started out as an okay day. I was running late, but that is not unusual. I was late picking up my babysitter from school, I was late getting to the band booster dinner. It was a lot of fun, though, and it wasn’t a lot to stress about.

When I got home, my sitter (who is one of my color guard girls) was talking about prom, so I wanted to show her a dress I have in case she liked it. I noticed there were some drops of water on the sleeve. Hmmm, that’s odd, I thought. Then I noticed the other sleeve was very wet. I started to get a little worried. I went into the back of the closet where the dress hung, and pulled out my wedding dress. Half of it was soaked with water, and there was black mold all over a lot of the applique and spots of mold up and down the rest of the dress. In the corner of the closet, coming in from outside, water and mold is running up and down the wall. The other dress seems okay, and an old tux jacket that doesn’t fit Ches anymore was a little wet and has a little mold on it.

My beautiful wedding dress is ruined.

I started to cry right away. It’s not like I’m ever going to wear that thing again, and I know that. Heck, I’ll never even fit in it again (I don’t know how in the world I was a size 4/6 in the first place!!). However, I never owned anything so beautiful before or since. I’ve never worn anything so beautiful. I never FELT so beautiful as I did on my wedding day in that dress. When Ches saw me for the first time, on our wedding day, in that dress, he smiled and said, “Wow!” He has never said that before or since. I will never forget the tone of his voice or the look in his eyes. We were in that pure, young love stage that you can only be in on your wedding day. It was still so fresh and wonderful. My dress is such a symbol to me, and now it is ruined. I don’t know if it can be restored. I have to make some phone calls, but what is the chance?

The worst is that a few years ago, while we were gone to Canada for Christmas, the pipes in our little apartment in Idaho froze then burst, flooding the kitchen and living room. Our wedding album was destroyed. The pictures are salvageable, but not great. That is now two things from my wedding, destroyed. It kind of scares me.

I know that I shouldn’t feel too bad. There a lot of people who have it worse than me. After all, neither Alyson or my mom even have wedding pictures! However, I love my dress. I had to fight for my dress! My father and stepmother wanted me to borrow a wedding dress!! My dress only cost $500, and my mom was so happy because she wanted me to have whatever dress I wanted, but we didn’t exactly have a lot of money. My total wedding only cost $1300, so the dress was definitely on the expensive side for everything else I had. That was the one area where I didn’t have to give something up because of cost or because relatives said, “Oh, you don’t really need such-and-such!” My wedding dress was the first dress I tried on, and I knew it was perfect right away.

Now I just have a couple of unprofessional photos that don’t do the dress justice to look at. Ches was right 7 years ago when he said I should get bridal pictures done. And now it will never happen. Yes, I am very sad.