If you wanna feel better about your family, just read about ours...

Starring: a dad, a mom, a son & daughter-in-law, a daughter & son-in-law, another daughter & son-in-law, 1 teen, 1 grandson, 3 granddaughters, 4 dogs, and a whole lot of love.






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Tuesday, January 30, 2018

Courter of a Century

Last year, I posted about our wedding.
This year, I thought it'd be appropriate to post about our marriage.

There's a big difference, ya know.

If you read my post from last year, you know my regrets about our wedding. Even 25 years later, we still wish we'd eloped by ourselves.

But that same 25 years of marriage later, I can honestly say, I'd do it all over again. I'd do some things differently, but every moment of every day of every one of those 25 years has brought our family to where we are today, and I wouldn't change anything about that.

So if you're single, maybe this can be a heads up. If you're married, maybe this can be a reminder.

You know that show 'Say yes to the dress?' Well that's a bunch of crap.
Believe it or not, that dress is gonna get boxed away, forgotten, faded, outgrown, and one day you're gonna pull it out to show your kids and they're gonna laugh at the 1990's puffy Dynasty sleeves on that dress you dreamed of your daughters wanting to wear someday and then you're gonna realize you have way too much back fat for it to zip properly, you'll emotionally spiral, end up having a pity party with your best friend who's 12 years younger than you, and she'll be standing in your living room wearing her way cooler sleeveless dress eating sympathy pizza together...er, so I've heard...totally hypothetical here...ignore the picture.

So, not to steal your thunder or anything, but when you accept that ring he gives you, you ain't sayin' yes to a dress. Sister, you're sayin' yes to the mess.

Marriage isn't clean. He's a mess. Admit it or not, you're a mess. And together, you make an even bigger mess. And that's before the mess of babies, bodily functions, and then the baby's bodily functions.

On January 30th, 1993 Ron and I both said yes.
On January 30th, 2018, we can both tell you exactly what we said yes to.
Hindsight and all, y'all.

I said yes to a loud eater and drinker.
He said yes to me loudly yelling knock it off during every meal.

We both said yes to occasionally eating a cake by ourselves for dinner. In our bed.
(No regrets.)

He said yes to someone he accuses of "always assuming the worst" because I refuse to answer phone calls.
I said yes to someone who stashes loaded guns around the house, arms himself, and then sits in the rec room until the guys he hired to paint gets it done.

We both said yes to our kids sleeping in our bed with us for an average of 10 years each.
(Okay, we might have a few slight regrets.)

I said yes to an extrovert unable to stop himself from making eye contact with the timeshare salesman standing outside the Walmart in Hilton Head.
He said yes to an introvert with social anxiety who keeps walking with her head down until she gets to the van before realizing her husband is still back there talking to the timeshare guy.

We both said yes to allowing him to decide the length and color of my hair at any given time.
(Not that I had much say in that matter.)

He said yes to a woman whose trust is easily broken.
I said yes to a man who trusts everybody.

We both said yes to me being the one to answer any and all calls from telemarketers. Which means we don't. Ever.

I said yes to Good Cop.
He said yes to Bad Cop.

We both said yes to occasionally switching up roles just to screw with people.

He said yes to a woman who will tell people the blunt, honest, truth if they ask her a question...and sometimes even when they don't.
I said yes to a man who's motto is 'If I can't dazzle them with data, I'll baffle them with bullsh*t."

We both said yes to frequent apologies to each other and to our children.

I said yes to a  man who loves to take me away on getaways.
He said yes to a woman who finagled the Orkin inspector into giving her his private cell number so I could periodically text him pictures of suspicious looking bugs I find in hotel rooms.

We both said yes to lavishing our kids and grandkids with absolute UN-conditional love, no strings attached. Forever. Always. Period.

He said yes to a woman made up of many broken pieces.
I said yes to a man patient enough to stand by my side and help me heal.

We both said yes to saying I love you every single day.

I said yes to a man who shows little emotion.
He said yes to an emotional basket case.

We both said yes to refusing to ever allow our feelings to dictate the success or failure of our marriage.

I said yes to a man who fills up on pop at a restaurant and needs a take home container for his food.
He said yes to a woman who can easily polish off a pound of beef on a bun with one sip of water.

We both said yes to never sharing our meal. Seriously. Reach for a fry, lose a finger. Try me.

I said yes to a man who would get me anything I asked for.
He said yes to a woman who never asks for anything...except sex...and the occasional cosmetic surgery.

We both say yes to the sex...and the occasional cosmetic surgery.

He said yes to choosing to stay married to me through the good, the bad, and the mess.
I said yes to choosing to stay married to him through the good, the bad, and the mess.

We both said yes to making that choice. It's not a choice we made once. It's a choice we each have to make every single day. And trust me, it's not always an easy choice for either of us.

But when we said yes at that "wedding" 25 years ago, we weren't just saying yes to each other. Twenty-five years later, we have 4 children. Two of them are married. Two more that probably will be in the future. We have 4 grandchildren at this point and hopefully many more to come. So that yes isn't just about us and quite frankly, it never was.

That yes was to honor a commitment and covenant...to God, to each other, and to every generation that follows after us. It's not easy. And it's not clean. He's still a mess. And I'll always be a hot mess.

But daaamn...together?...What a perfectly beautiful mess...







Thursday, January 11, 2018

Panic-aZac

A day in your life can be altered with one phone call.
And yesterday, I received one.

I was having a great day. Sitting in the hospital, happily rocking our newborn granddaughter, while a team of student nurses went through some assessments on my daughter for practice. I was half listening to Aubrey answer their series of questions. They'd just begun asking about any family history of mental illness and/or emotional instability when my phone rang.

Since I know you're wondering, we always answer no to those questions and go ahead and wipe that surprised look off your face why don'tcha.

So my phone rang. I was receiving a call from Sexy. (That'd be my husband, Ron, if you're new here.) He was in Missouri on a business trip, so I quietly answered the call. Then a strange man's loud voice told me that he found that phone in a restaurant and got my number in the contact list. THEN, he demanded that I meet him somewhere with $50 to get it back.

So let's review. Me happy, holding newborn, in front of student nurses, no (documented) family history of mental illness and/or emotional instability, husband out of town, stranger calls from my husband's password protected phone, and demands $50 ransom.

This could only mean one thing. My husband had been kidnapped in Missouri. Obviously.

And I responded appropriately.
Cue hysteria.

I don't remember much of what he said or what I said. I think I asked what restaurant? I think I told him Ron's name?

I've seen kidnap shows. Make him real to the kidnappers. He's a person that I love and his name is Ron, dammit...all the while thinking, I don't know who you are, but I will find you, and I will kill you.

Then I basically broke every rule of negotiating with terrorists and hung up.
CURSES! I should've kept him on the line so we could trace the call! *Shaking my fists to the sky*

I broke down and started sobbing and the student nurses mysteriously vanished, probably to avoid having to investigate that whole "mental illness" line of questioning.

I was trying to tell Aubrey and Nick what had happened and realized I needed to call somebody. I couldn't for the life of me remember what co-workers he was going to Missouri with, had no clue where exactly he was, and wasn't about to call his phone back because I don't talk to strangers.

Take note, kids. 46 years old. Rule still applies.

So I called Ron's boss. He'd know what to do.

While I was doing that, a call from my daughter-in-law's phone beeped in.
I didn't answer it.

Ron's boss's voicemail came on just as Barbara's phone began beeping in again and I thought, what if they got her number out of Ron's phone and called her too?

Without leaving a message, I clicked over to answer her call.

It was my son. Laughing.
"Mom? Did you just receive a prank phone call from me?"

Turns out, he'd been sitting in his house eating a bowl of chili, forgot his dad was in Missouri, forgot that I'd be spending the day at the hospital, of course had no way of knowing I'd be sitting in a room full of student nurses, and he decided to use a prank app on his iPhone to hijack my contact list and send me a pre-recorded male voice who wasn't really having a conversation with me, but it just sure as hell seemed like it. It makes sense, doesn't it?

Then it sent him a recording of how the call went, because what fun would it be not knowing how I responded? And then he listened to it. And heard me hang up before I knew it was a prank.

Had I stayed on the line but 2 seconds longer, I would've heard it say I'd been pranked, butttt, my zero family history of emotional instability combined with domino effect...and well, see, some bells can't be unrung.

So he called me, and when I didn't answer, he knew I'd be on the phone calling somebody else.
Now, who would mom call?

He knew I wouldn't call Ron's phone back, because strangers, which left 2 options.
Ron's boss. Or the police.

Both would be bad. One worse than the other. Debatable which one that would be.

Thankfully, I never got a chance to leave his boss a message.
Unless heavy breathing, semi-silent sobbing, and a hiccup constitutes a message?

Ron, who sat completely clueless and un-kidnapped in Missouri, was shockingly unsympathetic to what our boy had done.

"Why didn't you just call me?"

*sigh*
STRANGER.DANGER!

I think I'm beginning to pinpoint that whole family history of mental illness thing here.