Nine years ago on this day, twelve college students in central Illinois crammed a week’s worth of luggage and themselves into two too-small minivans. Bound for the East Coast and armed with little more than a pitch pipe and our voices, we were a college a cappella group on spring break tour, at the ready to sing for our suppers and crash on dorm room floors.

Traditional spring break destinations be damned! Who needs sun and sex in Fort Lauderdale when you’ve got freezing New England rain and a sleeping bag? With tens of fans turning out for your shows? This was a cappella, baby! Our rendition of Billy Joel’s “For The Longest Time” never sounded so good.

We departed at sundown, immediately after midterm exams, and drove through the night, the sun rising on us somewhere in eastern Pennsylvania with hundreds more miles to go. Somewhere in between, as I listened to the mix tape he made for me, Rob reached over and took my hand for the very first time.

Then we made out a little in the back seat.

Like oh so many great romances that stand the test of time, ours got started super classy.

These first few warmer days in March will always remind me of what it first felt like to really fall in love, and to be loved in return. It made me a different person. I remember those days as the happiest time of my life, and yet, nine years later, every new day together is still better than the last.

Happy anniversary to the one who finds my particular flavor of crazy not just tolerable but actually (sometimes) (maybe?) endearing. You still make me feel like being a better person, even though I’m too lazy to actually do anything about it.

And yes, even though we’re married now, you still “get credit for all the dating years.” All nine of them!

This photo was taken the day after we got back from that spring break tour. We are such babies! Look how fresh and unlined our faces are! And check out my crunchy hair, super sexy going-out top, and chipmunk cheeks. It’s such a wonder that Rob was the only guy who was after me.

So, I skipped my yoga practice for three days. During this time, I also ate half a jar of vanilla frosting with a spoon. And I lost two pounds.

Not a fluke. It has been three days. Two pounds. Vanished.

I may have found my calling as a dieting guru. A book called The Frosting Diet would fly off the shelves, don’t you think?

Proof once again that life is not fair. But boy oh boy, do I love it when it works out in my favor.

I want this dog’s life.

Oh yeah, that bathroom remodel.

It hasn’t been going well. Or going at all, that is.

Back in September, when work was slow and I was feeling all project-y, I decided more or less on a whim to paint the bathroom cabinets. The cabinets were fine, really — I just didn’t like the color of the stain on the oak. But apparently, my brain operates according to this adage: If it ain’t broke, break it.

The paint job didn’t turn out so hot. So I ended up taking down all the cabinet doors and drawer fronts and stripping and sanding them. This was a messy project, and because I was reluctant to use the stripping solvent anywhere near our newly installed hardwood floors, and because by now it was November and too cold to move the project outside, I ended up taking everything to my dad’s garage, where there is a floor nobody cares about, an installed furnace (not just a space heater — an actual furnace), an arsenal of tools and supplies, an utterly absurd collection of posters (seriously, that link is worth clicking!), and, most importantly, my dear old Dad himself, who I knew would take over the project in his usual, busybody, project-loving way.

As expected, Dad took to scraping and sanding and staining my cabinets with far more TLC than I would ever have been able to muster. I was there to take photos, which, you know, is just oh so helpful.

A conversation:

Dad: “Hey, do you want an iced coffee?”
Amanda: “Uhm, wha!?!?”
Dad: “An iced coffee.”
Amanda: “Are you seriously offering me an iced coffee? In your garage? Who are you?”
Dad: “Mom bought these Starbucks things at Costco. They’re in the fridge.”
Amanda: “You mean a frappuccino? Since when do you like frappuccinos?”
Dad: “Well, do you want one or not?”
Amanda: “Actually, yes. I’ll get them.”
Dad: “I’ll take mine in a glass with ice. With whiskey.”
Amanda: “OK, this is making a lot more sense now.”

Unfortunately, the project gods were not smiling on us that day. I had brought over the same sanding sealer and stain that I used to refinish my desk. Which, may I remind you, turned out fine. But the cabinets just didn’t want any part of it, and the sanding sealer, which is supposed to help the stain absorb evenly, ended up repelling the stain altogether, so that it didn’t soak in to the wood. At all.

We even double-checked the label to make sure we had used the sanding sealer as instructed. We double-checked it real good.

And yet. The stain rubbed right off.

So, I got frustrated and went home, leaving my Dad to have another go-round with the cabinets and the paint stripper. At least one of us was still in good spirits.

Then it was Christmas, and we had invited 50 people to cram into our tiny condo for our annual party. Which meant, inevitably, people would be trying to use our bathroom, where there were still no cabinet drawer fronts.

I suggested that this was a thoughtful gesture on our part as hosts: our guests could relieve themselves in peace, without grappling with the moral dilemma of respecting our privacy versus poking around in our medicine cabinets. It would all be right out there, for everyone to see.

Rob disagreed with this philosophy, so we ended up closing the door and posting a sign that said “OUT OF ORDER: Please use the other bathroom. Thanks!”

(But, people still used it. And they inevitably got an unobstructed eyeful of our collection of tampons and toilet paper and expired condoms and, wait, is that really a MacBook Pro? In fact, rumor has it that one couple went into the Forbidden Bathroom to make out, which is by far the most exciting thing to ever happen in that room, despite what the presence of outdated prophylactics and that computer might suggest. So don’t think I don’t know who you are!)

Suddenly, it’s February. The cabinets, still unwilling to absorb the stain because of that damn stain sealer, are essentially garbage. I’ve looked in to ordering new, unfinished cabinet doors, which would only cost about $200, but I don’t know that my dad or I have it in us to stain them, let alone deal with the frustration when inevitably the cabinets are not the right size and we have to start all over. Again.

I’ve got a guy who will order new cabinet fronts for us, stain them, and even create a new toe kick panel (which was also ruined, and I’m using the passive voice there for a reason!), for $700. That’s highway robbery, given that I know for a fact the doors themselves cost under $200.

But there’s that other adage: You get what you pay for. Which really is a better adage to live by than “If it ain’t broke, break it.”

I have learned the hard way that I do not have a Midas touch. On the contrary, everything I touch turns to crap. At least, as far as household projects are concerned. Have I mentioned the stain on my desk is rubbing off? Just rubbing right off.

(I assure you that, in person, it doesn’t look nice and/or rustic, as it does in this photo. That’s just the f/1.4 talking.)

I need to accept that I am really good at spending money, and not so hot at saving money by doing it myself (see also: Waffle FAIL). Bring on the self-loathing.

My sister gave Rob a waffle maker for Christmas, after hearing him gush about how he was once at a Courtyard Marriott and they made him a waffle at the complimentary breakfast buffet right before his very eyes and it was just the most amazing thing that had ever happened to him in his whole entire life.

I’ve never seen the guy so excited about an appliance, except maybe when he opened the Roomba we got for our wedding.

Rob had to go out of town on an intellectual property emergency over his birthday, but he was home for the weekend, a few days later. I decided to give him a birthday do-over on Saturday morning, so I woke up early to make him coffee, bacon, and, yes, a birthday waffle.

Sadly, trophy wives do not come programmed to use specialty kitchen appliances, so although the waffle iron itself came with several recipes for waffle batter, I thought nothing of instead using the fancy Williams-Sonoma pancake mix I had on hand (sitting in the cabinet for months while I instead went out to innumerable breakfasts).

However. Pancake mix is apparently incompatible with waffle makers. Do regular people really know these things without first encountering this disaster?

Rob woke up to the smell of bacon cooking in the microwave (where all the fat and other inherent values are absorbed into paper towels), took one look at this mess, and proclaimed:

“Good thing I had a birthday waffle at the hotel this weekend.”

Never light a cigarette at a gas station, lest you should ignite the few drops of gasoline that have spilled en route from tank to pump, or the gallons that have choked unstoppably forth from the nozzle when some yuppie idiot girl on her iPhone pulls it from her car before it’s done pumping and without making sure the nozzle lock is off — and as she stands there, unable to figure out how to make it stop, looking around idiotically for help, the highly flammable liquid spews and splatters all over everything (her car, her yoga pants, her knit Ugg boots, and yes, the ground), and her fluffy little dog leans out the window and sneezes in protest at the chemical smell, as if trying to tell the idiot girl to just shut the damn thing off already — before, finally, the gas station attendant comes rushing out to help, and they both proceed to wipe out on the little lake of gas that has formed and is, surprisingly enough, quite slippery.

And never use your cell phone while operating a gas pump, lest you should be that very girl.

Now, does anyone know how to get the smell of gasoline out of my boots? They’ve already been through my washing machine twice …

This is the first post in a new section of Vanity Fairest called Faves (see tab above) in which I plug my favorite things, for to possibly be renamed something more clever. Because, if Julie Andrews can do it, and Oprah can do it, why the heck can’t I?

Everyone on my Christmas shopping list this year is getting an Eddie Bauer Down Ice Scraper Mitt.

It’s a pretty sturdy scraper, but the handle is tucked inside a huge down-stuffed mitt, so your hand stays toasty warm while you go at the ice your windshield.

What could be better than that? There’s a reason “warm woolen mittens” are expressly mentioned in the song about favorite things. How have I gotten through 14 years of driving in Chicago winters without this?

I’m only slightly perturbed to discover, upon pulling up the Eddie Bauer website for this item, that Oprah has already featured it on her favorite things. At least I know I have good taste.

Price: $14.50, or, for a limited time, $9.99 with any purchase.

Bad dog mom that I am, I had almost forgotten that today is Molly’s birthday!

I always think her birthday is in February, but that’s actually the anniversary of the day we drove 20 hours round trip in a sleeting-sideways blizzard to pick her up in Missouri, Rob grumbling the whole way there about how he doesn’t want a non-human living in his house, and then the woman pulled from the back of her Suburban this quivering ball of fuzz, sopping in its own vomit and urine, and Rob took one look, gasped audibly and exclaimed, ”Look at that face!” the way only a man smitten with an animal baby can. And then Molly clung fearfully to me the whole way home, and I didn’t just tolerate it but almost kind of liked it, and it occurred to me that that is the way mothers must feel about their babies’ poop — not only is it just not that bad, but its endearing to the point of being pleasant. Almost. Especially if the poor thing is sick and frightened and clinging to you for dear life, and all you want in the world is for her to know she’s safe and to wag her tail.

Happy Birthday, Molly! Today you are three years old. Now that the Terrible Twos are behind us, I expect you will comport yourself with the civility and decorum befitting of your age.

To that end, instead of complaining about how horrendous of a little monster you can be, I’ll share some footage of you being the very dear little doggie that I love.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Happy birthday, Molls!

Seven months ago, I was in New York City for my big show at Lincoln Center, the culmination of a year’s worth of concerts and hard work. I had a television network coming to my event the next day to film a pilot presentation for their top execs, I had just unequivocally turned down another producer that had been clamoring for our attention, and I was rushing out to meet up with a top producer from a major network, who also wanted my involvement in their upcoming reality show.

Somehow, I failed to realize that 15 minutes was not enough time to get a cab in Midtown during Friday rush hour, even if I was only going 20 blocks.

So what do I do? I get in a freaking rickshaw.

That’s right. I pulled up for my meeting with a television exec in this classy ride, powered by human sweat.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Funny part is, the producer was waiting for me outside the restaurant and saw the whole embarrassing thing. Even funnier, I suppose, is that I ended up turned him down. We had better offers.

Today, I’m grocery shopping for Thanksgiving at the Drive-By Dominick’s (so named for its proximity to the projects) when my phone rings. It’s a New York City area code, and one of my event producers had just called me five minutes earlier from his office line, which has a New York City area code. So, although I am in the habit of screening unidentified numbers, I assume it’s him, pick it up and say, “Heya! What’s up?” (which, admittedly, is not too bad compared with the innumerable other ridiculous and unprofessional things I could have said and indeed have said to this person on the phone in the past).

It is not my event producer. It is the vice president of original programming for yet another television network. She wants to talk to me, while I’m pushing my cart through the kamikaze maze that is the grocery store produce section two days before Thanksgiving, about putting my programs on the teevee.

I think this is why I have a hard time giving myself enough credit for running my own business, or for having chosen an unorthodox career: even when exciting things happen — things that might finally lend some legitimacy to what might otherwise be construed as a whole lot of screwing around, even by me — I somehow inevitably end up taking a Third World mode of transport to an important meeting, or pitching a television concept while knocking down a display of cans of evaporated milk and having to pause the conversation because I can’t hear her over the loudspeaker announcement of a price check on aisle two.

If one of these shows ever takes off and I have to spend any amount of time in Los Angeles, in a city and an industry that is all about appearances, I am going to last about 15 minutes without supervision. My saving grace will be that, from what I can gather, these Hollywood types seem to find my unique brand of unassuming idiocy to be disarming. Or at least charming, in a Midwestern sort of way.

The producer lady today asked, “Do you have a host for your show? Wouldn’t it be great if we could get someone from Glee in to host?” and I’m all immediately with the verbal diarrhea:

“Ya KNOWwwww, I was in show choir in high school with the co-creator of that show. I was Wife #52 to his King in ‘The King and I,’ ha ha ha, though I personally did less acting than I did chasing around the two two-year olds that were supposed to be my children. Last year they hired a veejay to host our finals, and she did an OK job and everything, but it was a weird choice because she was friends with Kim Kardashian and was always on that show and right before our event she got in all kinds of trouble for appearing in some sort of sex video that was all over You Tube. She wore this odd side-boob top for our show, but it really was nothing compared with what everyone there had just seen her doing on the Internet!”

… as if that is of any interest to her at all, let alone help. As if you are ever supposed to talk about your high school acting career or utter the words “side boob” in any professional context whatsoever.

I wizened up shortly thereafter and told her to please call my agent, who fortunately understands the concept of playing it cool.

He was, after all, in a college a cappella group.