The best things about Jac's bridal shower

My mom and aunt threw a bridal shower for me last weekend. It was one of the happiest days of my life, for one major reason.

But a few other reasons made the day pretty kickass too.

5. Slumber party!! The last two times I’ve seen the bestie, we’ve had our others, which does not a slumber party make. Friday night, we stayed up for more than an hour in bed, talking. Every time I felt my eyes get heavy, I yelled at them mentally: “You never get this! You stay awake, you whore!!” (It’s not weird to call your eyeballs a whore, right?)

We rarely take normal pics together, so this is truly novel.

4. My mom got excited about it! She doesn’t experience excitement very often. Being elbows deep in trying to figure out where her adult son with autism can go during the day has pretty much murdered any other thought process. Now that my brother is in a daily program that is designed for autism, she could actually be happy. And that was cool to see.

3. For one of the shower games, Stephanie had asked me and Jeff the same questions. She read off particular answers, and people had to answer who they thought gave that answer. Some of the responses were hilarious. When Stephanie revealed that we both prefer to be the big spoon, my friend Kelly says, “That’s a silverware nightmare!” When Steph read off Jeff’s favorite thing about me, there was a 20-plus-woman collective “Awwww!” because Jeff is nothing if not detailed and sweet. And then there were those comments, “That had to be Jeff! Jackie doesn’t sound that smart!!” (The only people in life who call me “Jackie,” and can get away with it, are my cousins.) Steph told me she had to bite her tongue to keep from shouting back, “She’s a writer!” She got my back.

If they thought the response was mine, they held up the lips. If they thought it was Jeff’s, they held up the ‘stache.

2. This was almost No. 1, I swear it … my aunt Carol, bless her heart, spread what she thought was guacamole on a chip and ate it. It was wasabi. I am so, so sad I did not witness this firsthand. My poor auntie!!

1. So many people from so many different aspects of my life gathered together to celebrate me (that pic above, is only about half of everyone who was there). If I hadn’t been so happily overwhelmed (I swear to you, four hours went by in 15 minutes), I’d have probably spent the day sobbing — there was my mom’s side of the fam and my dad’s side, my mother- and sister-in-law to-be, friends I met in Cinci, in Kent, in Kankakee, at my current place of employment — it’s amazing. I am a lucky, lucky woman to have so much love in my life.

It’s just about two months away, my friends. Eep!