the poopy tent

for the first nine years of our marriage, chris and i had only one bathroom. we lived in several different houses, but always with just one bathroom. when we were newlyweds, it initially seemed like no big deal. i'd never lived with any man to whom i wasn't related and they certainly weren't going to invade my privacy in the bathroom. in my growing up house, doors were kept closed and knocking was strictly enforced.

this was not the case once i was married. suddenly there was an open door policy for the most part unless pooping was underway. but there came a time when eventually, even the poops had to be interrupted by the other partner. if i was down to the wire on time before i had to leave for work and the man was in the bathroom dropping a man-sized load, i had no choice but to brave the stench-o-rama that was my bathroom in order to get myself ready to go.

it was very difficult to stand in front of the sink slapping my makeup onto my face as fast as i could (there was no other acceptable mirror/lighting place in the house) while fanning the door with one foot to keep the air circulating and the stink to a minimum. meanwhile my new husband was sitting 17 inches to my left with his pants around his ankles and a magazine on his lap as he pooped just as care-freely as if he were completely alone. he'd sometimes turn and smile serenely at me and tell me he loved me.

even worse than chris pooping next to me, was when i needed to go, but he was in the bathroom shaving or brushing his hairs or whatever men do in the bathroom. i was mortified. i couldn't bear the thought of my beloved seeing my delicate self taking a dump, particularly while he was close enough to reach out and pat me while i did so. i would turn my face and scowl toward the shower so that he couldn't see me. i'd close my eyes and imagine i was alone or stare at the shower curtain, blushing at the shame of my predicament.

one day while staring at the curtain and trying unsuccessfully to rush the man out, i was contemplating how to go about wiping in a sneaky fashion. and let me tell you, it can't be done. you just can't hide the necessary motions from a person who is that close to your body, especially when they're amused by your discomfort. then the thought popped into my head that i could pull the shower curtain around my body and form a sort of shelter to block myself from the nearby viewer's prying eyes.

surely, it looked very silly to see a toilet with a big flowery shower curtain-covered lump perched on it, but it provided the much needed illusion of privacy. from that moment on, the poopy tent became the standard for any time one of us needed to go while the other was occupying that space. and the cat loved to join us in there for our stinky camping adventures.

sometimes i miss our early days of being married, with fewer responsibilities and the freedom to sleep in, but i never, ever miss having only one bathroom. 

honeymooning

i spent some time with my sister this weekend, hanging out, shopping, having lunch. she's getting married next year so we talked a little about wedding plans. one of the things that makes me love sarah even more than i already did is that she's not a wedding person. she's one of the few females i know who joins me in not wanting to have all the fluff and frills and fanciness of a wedding. we've always kind of thought that one day sarah would come back from a vacation married. no muss, no fuss. just boom - hitched.

but as it turns out, there will probably be a wedding. and that's cool. we'll muddle our way (we, meaning, she and her fiance and perhaps my mom and i if sarah wants some old female help) through the plans & surely end up with something really beautiful & memorable. but the part that almost everyone can enjoy, bride or groom, regardless of what kind of wedding they have, is the honeymoon.

i'm not talking about the bow-chicka-wow-wow of the bedroom hours (which better be enjoyable or =( sadface for you!) but the part after all the wedding shenanigans are finished. no more stress or pressure of getting things ready & making sure it all comes together perfectly. no people calling or asking questions or discussing their stresses with you. it's just the couple getting to calm the heck down, forget all the other stuff, just relax and rest and have fun. alone.

when chris & i got married 13 years ago, i wanted to do something outside of our scope of experience for our honeymoon, so i booked us into a bed and breakfast. we only had 3 days to spend honeymooning, and we didn't have a lot of money, but we wanted it to be memorable and that seemed like a good way to change things up.

when we arrived at the B&B a few hours after our wedding, we didn't really know what to expect. we walked into the gorgeous victorian house & i felt like we must be in the wrong place. it seemed as though we'd just walked into someone living room. there were a few people sitting around watching tv & another couple ladies sitting around the dining room table chatting and laughing. when we opened the door, they all turned to look at us. we stammered something about needing to check in for a couple days & a couple emerged from the group and introduced themselves as the owners.


we got through "check-in" and went going back out to the car to carry in all our luggage, along with the still-wrapped wedding gifts we'd received. since we were moving immediately following the honeymoon, we'd had to bring all the gifts with us. a couple of the men offered to help us carry our things in and up to our room. i thought that was odd, but friendly, so i walked back into the house with my arms most empty except for my gorgeous rose bouquet and a couple small gift boxes.

the ladies stared at what i was carrying and one asked me why i had such lovely flowers. i told her that we'd just gotten married a few hours earlier that day and it was like someone set the room ablaze with firecrackers of excitement. they all crowded around us, oo-ing & ah-ing over my flowers and asking a myriad of questions. we were completely overwhelmed by the invasion of personal space on what we'd thought was going to be a time when we could finally relax and be just the two of us.

but these people were persistent and jubilant on our behalf and it was hard to resist the pull of excitement coming from them. there were about 6 other couples there, all in their 40's in town for some annual seminar and thrilled to have some young newbies to play with. they broke out a bottle of champagne, poured glasses for everyone and piled all our gifts onto the dining room table & told us to open them, then and there.

chris and i kept looking at each other, not sure what to do, but we decided to just go with the flow. one lady took pictures as we opened everything. another got out a pad & paper and wrote down what each gift was and who gave it to us. they cheered over the great gifts and scoffed at the stupid ones. there was much laughing and squawking and hollering as we tore open every gift.

when we were done, a toast was made to the newlyweds before they helped us carry everything up to our room. many little jokes were made about keeping the noise down and not banging the headboard into the wall all night. back slapping and winks abounded while we half smiled and blushed, knowing all these people our parents age were thinking about us getting busy on our wedding night.

then the lady of the house informed us that breakfast would be served at 7am and they would see us then. we laughed. she didn't. she bristled. she said that she was well known for the fantastic breakfasts she serves and all of her guest were expected to attend and to be prompt about it. we aren't really morning people and the idea of having to get up the morning after our wedding and making ourselves presentable before 7 was not a pleasant thought.

however, the next morning, we arrived promptly at the breakfast table at 7am and we were not disappointed. the food was amazing and clearly a work of art, which at least made the early trip downstairs worth it.

our honeymoon didn't turn out to be what we'd expected, but it makes for a fun story and a great memory now when we look back.

i'd love to hear your favorite honeymoon story. write it in the comments or post it on your own blog.

and sarah, i can't wait to hear your honeymoon story after this whole stupid wedding business is finished. i love you!

sperm donation for father's day

i don't usually like to write a post that follows perfectly with whatever holiday we're sitting on, but this is a story that seems to be perfect for father's day. i've been thinking about writing it for ages & it finally seems like the right time.

this was us during the time this story took place.

when chris & i had been married for about 2 years we sort of decided that we were ready for kids. and by that i mean, i was frantically craving babies and he was thinking about how he liked the way our life was, but was willing to consider that maybe a baby wouldn't ruin everything. we "tried" for a few months with no offspringy results, so i went to see a doctor to see if there was something wrong with my girly bits.

as it turned out, there were some problems in me, but the doc thought we could overcome them with drugs. that didn't end up working, but before they would take the next step with me it was decided by the medical powers that be that chris needed to go through some testing of his own.

most of you probably have a mental picture of how that goes for men from seeing movies or sitcoms where some guy goes to a sperm bank donation center and provides his deposit after viewing some choice pictures or videos in a little sterile room.

that was not what happened.

we were told that they provide an easier way for the men to "deposit" by allowing a sterile cup to be taken home, filled up and returned to the clinic within 30 minutes of filling. that sounds nice, but we lived a minimum of 30 minutes from the clinic & that was barring any traffic delays. and if it took longer than 30, the process would have had to be repeated with a new cup.

we thought about that for a time, trying to figure out a way for chris to be able to do his duty and still get the cup to the clinic on time. hmmm... we had no friends who lived closer to the clinic (plus, that might be a bit much to ask of a friend). maybe we could drive part way there and pull over on the side of the highway for a car quickie. but that might contaminate the specimen as well as get us arrested. we could attempt to collect the deposit in the back of the parking lot right before our appointment time, but that didn't sound like a good plan because again, there was the risk of getting caught by security when doing such things in a public location. and i'm sure that my giggling at the situation would have been a "downer" which would not have been a good thing in that situation.

the appointment was at 8am, which is truly a stupid time for such an appointment. i mean, what man is feeling spermy and deposity at that hour of the morning? we finally decided that we would need to drive to the clinic a little bit earlier than our appointment, go into the building & find a bathroom where we could take care of business & still get the cup turned in on time.

we arrived and found a bathroom, but it was right in the lobby of this medical building. and there was no family/handicap bathroom into which we could go together in order to make it a team effort at collecting the juice of fate. so into the men's room he went, with a look of grim determination on his face. he was going to have to go it alone. no wife. no pictures. no videos. no sexy nurses. just a public bathroom stall. at 7:45am.

i waited outside the bathroom for about 20 minutes. i paced and wrung my hands, glad that there weren't many people around to give me the hairy eyeball for loitering outside the men's room.

he finally came out & plopped the little cup into my hand, lid screwed on tight. i stared at that wad as if my fate lay within it. i was trying to be like a fortune teller with tea leaves, but i was a sperm reader with a plastic cup. i checked it out from different angles, held it up to the light & then stuffed into my purse and headed for the office door where we would turn in our offering and then wait a few days, hoping for good news.

the news, in the end, was really bad. they said that with our combined issues, we had about a zero percent chance of conceiving the old fashioned way & would need to go straight to in-vitro and even then the odds weren't in our favor. we didn't have the money for such things. so i started reading about ways to naturally increase your fertility with no drugs or doctors & low & behold, it worked. we've only got the one, but she's a good one and she came about the old fashioned way after all. it took about a year of careful observation of cycles and days where booty duty was a high priority even if we weren't in the mood. but the end result was worth it.

and that is my father's day story.

where oh where has my husband gone

this move has been crazy. in the process of us getting here, it seems pretty clear that God has worked out a bunch of details that we couldn't possibly have arranged or finagled ourselves. we feel confident that this was the right move at the right time.

once we got here last week, it was time for chris to find a new job. the plan was that he would get a job & i would be able to quit working so i can be a better homeschooling mom. with brooke's aspie challenges, she needs more than i've been able to give her while i was working even though i've only been working 2 days a week most weeks. my goal is to change that and be super teacher/mommy starting in august or september when we resume the necessary evil that is schooling.

we arrived on tuesday night. friday i was contacted on by a mutual friend of ours who was the best man in our wedding, but who we haven't seen in several years. he had a job suggestion for chris. chris emailed his resume friday night. he texted a couple times back & forth with the potential employer over the weekend & he was told to be at an address at 9am monday morning. we thought he was going for an interview.

when the guy showed up to meet him monday morning, he said, "you ready to go to (fill in the blank of a city a couple hrs away)?"  chris said he guessed so but he'd need to return the car to the house. he called on his way back here & asked me to pack him a bag. he thought he'd be gone one night. okay, that was monday morning & here it is, the wee hours of friday morning & he hasn't come back yet. i've talked to him on the phone a couple times & we've texted quite a bit, but it's so weird to me that he went for an interview and then was gone for 4 days and counting on a business trip, with no warning. i've joked that he either just got a great job or he got kidnapped. every day when we communicate he tells me that he thinks he's coming home that day or the next day. maybe he'll come home tomorrow.

it's kind of strange living with his parents and him not even being here. i heard on the news though, a couple days ago, that for every job opening available right now in america, there are 4 people trying to push their way into it. so i can't complain that he got a job, he likes it, he's working enough hours that there should be a lovely paycheck in our near future. he didn't even have to hunt for the job, so once again, it feels like a God thing. i believe that, but i hope he won't be gone this much all the time.

he knows me, he really knows me

my husband & i are only about 2 weeks from our 13th anniversary and i was thinking i'd save this post til then, but we're moving next week & my brain is all befuddled, so there's no telling when i'll have time or inspiration again.


last weekend while we were out of town in the mountains for a few days, we had a really great, relaxing time. that first night, arriving in that little town & sitting down on the couch beside my honey after brooke was tucked into bed in our cabin, i felt my soul take a deep, cleansing breath such as it hadn't taken in a very long time. it was just the thing we needed, even in spite of all the things that needed to be done at home.

i took tons of pictures as we wandered through the woods, meandered through the strip of tourist crap and wound our way through a nice zoo.

it was our last night, just a few more hours and we'd be headed back into reality. we had eaten in a nice restaurant & were driving through the back of a parking lot when something caught my eye. i was craning my neck to figure out what it was. "there's a dead duck lying on that curb over there!" i said. he looks at me, looks at the duck & says, "want me to drive closer so you can take a picture of it?"

i blinked a couple times before i burst out laughing, because of COURSE i wanted to take a picture of it! and even though i know that's kind of dark & creepy and not particularly lady-like, i totally wanted to get all up close to that dead thing so i could check it out & take a picture of it. but i wouldn't have asked because i didn't want to gross out my love. there have been so many dead creatures that we've seen & generally i don't have my camera handy when i stumble across their permanently ended paths, but here i was, camera in reach & there was a duck carcass just begging for its photo to be taken.

so chris drove up all close & positioned me just right for a good look at that dead duck. and i got my one shot of it that of course i now need to share with you guys. because who doesn't want to look at a duck dangling over the edge of a curb? who knows, it may be the only picture ever taken of him and now he will be remembered forever as the last picture i took on vacation & a sign of how well my honey knows me.

changes a-comin

we've got a lot of changes going on right now. chris has been sick a lot & extremely stressed out. he's had the gamut of tests run & we're trying to figure out how to deal with all the challenges this has created. at the same time, things in the land of home school have been less than ideal and many, many tears have been shed. there are other things too, but those are the low highlights.

so we've decided to move to another city in another state, about 6 hrs from here. we're moving to where our families live. it seems like it's long overdue because for the past few years, our world has been shrinking around us until we mainly exist in our little house with just us. we have some friends, but we don't get to see them often & with no car every evening, i can't go out to spend time with people. i'm a social person & i miss human interaction terribly. i feel like i've been drowning as i've been swimming spastically in circles for a while now & it needs to change.

hopefully this move is exactly what we need to put us back onto a good path. hopefully chris can find a new job in the field he has chosen, but hasn't yet become employed, once we get to an area of the country that's bigger and has a better job market. there's a ton to be done in the next 4 weeks to get us ready & get us out of here, but i've vowed that this will be our most organized move yet. i've already started cleaning, organizing & purging as much clutter as i can to make it easier on moving day.

as much as i've been feeling overwhelmed and stressed, there are still some very bright spots for me. this morning, chris & brooke were watching a documentary about a sunken ship being recovered from 1000 ft below. i heard brooke ask chris, "why do they always call boats 'she'?" and his reply warmed my heart. he told her that boats and sometimes cars or other similar objects are called females because they're beautiful & valuable to the men who own them and talk about them. he said that women are powerful and bring joy and they are cherished and beloved by their men and so as a way of complimenting their women, they call their machines girls too.

i never would have come up with that explanation if she'd asked me that same question. it made me feel again how happy i am to have a man who loves and values me and who is teaching our daughter that she is a thing of beauty and strength and a treasure to be treated as such through her whole life.

lovely, with a twist

today was a beautiful day in my neck of the woods. and to top it off, both myself & my honey were off work, which is a lovely change of pace, so we decided to take full advantage of the day. after church, we had lunch out & then spent the rest of it outside, wandering around downtown and going through the aquarium.

we've had a membership at the aquarium for years, so i've mostly stopped taking pics of the wildlife there because one tends to look much like the last. instead, i took mostly flower pictures today. it's hardcore spring in the american south right now, so there are tons of flowering trees and bushes wherever you look and today, i used those flowers as my photo inspiration, with a few thrown in of my beloveds as the icing on my cake.

today brooke acted and talked older than her usual self. and having her hair pulled back, which is rare, made me see how much she's growing up. the days of the quirky dog girl appear to be on the way out.

i love all the carnivorous plants around the aquarium.

even the simplest flowers are beautiful.

if you look at this one close up, the jelly that's sideways in the middle toward the left, doesn't it look kinda like a condom? a very mean, pranky condom for someone you hate.

and lest you think my day was all beauty and happiness, let me share one last little tidbit with you all. i went into a public bathroom (one of 9 that i visited today. stupid SBS) and chatted up a lady who came in and was changing 2 babies' diapers behind me while i washed my hands. i frequently make friends in public restrooms. i'm not sure why i feel the need to bond in the bathroom, but whatever, i've got to make friends wherever i find them. then i wandered back outside to rejoin chris & brooke. as i walked out the door, i realized that i was standing right behind some people who were getting their picture taken. i stepped aside a bit so that even though i'd still probably be in the shot, i'd be far enough away that they could crop me out easily. chris was sitting over to one side and he started waving for me to come over to him. i shook my head no, and kept standing where i was so that i could let the folks get their shot. they took their sweet time about it and all the while, chris kept waving more & more adamantly at me and he was starting to look kinda mad. i finally mosied over to him & asked what all the fuss was about and he said, "you've got toilet paper hanging out of your ass!"

frickety frack! i was standing there, for all the world to see, including getting into some stranger's family pictures with my TP tail flapping in the gentle breeze. i asked chris how long it was & he said, "about three sheets." and that leaves me to wonder about my new bathroom friend - what kind of woman lets another woman walk out of a bathroom with three sheets in the wind?

yes, she showed me her scar

i believe i'm going to need to apply the kitty rule again for this post. i'll use one i took yesterday since it's handy.

i try to never make fun of anyone other than myself on my blog and since there are miles and piles of things for me to choose from in my own list of stupid or embarrassing events, i rarely need to look elsewhere for blog fodder. but there's a story from many years ago that just makes me giggle every time i even think about it, so i'm going to tell it tonight, in spite of the fact that it involves my husband and a moment of delightful (for me) confusion.

i was newly pregnant with brooke, so it was about 9 years ago, when a friend came for a visit. she already had a baby, which of course meant that there was lots of talk about pregnancy & baby stuff during the visit. she mentioned, in the company of our husbands, that she'd had a c-section with hers. i asked if i could see her scar, so we went into another room and she showed it to me.

here is a diagram of what a c-sec scar should look like if done in a hospital around this time in history, just in case any of you aren't familiar with such nitty gritty. and yes, i did crop the boobs out of the picture cuz i get enough google hits from people looking for naughty stuff that's really not here. and my dad reads this blog sometimes & i don't want to distress him cuz i'm usually nice like that.

after our friends went home, my husband asked me about the c-section scar viewing.

he said, "did she show it to you?"

me, "yeah."

him, "how big was it?"

me, "like, this long" & held my fingers about 4 inches apart.

him, making a horrible face & cringing.

me, "i think that's pretty standard. though i haven't seen many of them. that's a scar that's rarely seen by others."

him, "no kidding! i'm surprised she showed you."

me, "what's the big deal?"

him, "how did she show it to you?"

me, "she pulled her pants down a little."

him, "... and then what?"

me, "what do you mean, then what? she pulled them down & showed it to me."

him, "but how? did she bend over?"

me, staring blankly, trying to work out just how i'd see a scar on her stomach if she was bending over. "of course she didn't bend over. it's right here!" and i drew a line across the bottom of my stomach.

we stared at each other for a few seconds, both of us totally discombobulated, before i realized what was causing the confusion. being that he was new to this whole pregnancy/baby/delivery business, he'd mixed up the words "c-section" and "episiotomy" (thank you, wikipedia for teaching us everything we need to know and want to share) and he'd thought that she was showing me the OTHER scar. no wonder he was so surprised at how nonchalant we were being about the whole topic. and no wonder he was cringing when i said the scar was 4 inches long!

the fresh man and the young woman - a romance novel

once upon a time, there was a young woman. she thought of herself as cute, perky and funny with a dash of sexy thrown in. she spent much of her time making herself pretty and trying to smell good. she went out on dates with many possible suitors, but knew that each of them wasn't the ONE. she kept her eyes open and her weekends available, but eventually she grew hard hearted. she started to think that most men were only capable of lust rather than love. she was starting to despair that she'd ever find the man of her dreams. her knight in shining armor.

then one day, a fresh man arrived. he was new to the kingdom and was charming and kind. he loved the young woman in spite of the others she'd tried out before him. he only looked toward the future, never the past.

it wasn't long before the young woman and the fresh man fell madly in love. they couldn't stand to be separated and paged each other with silly codes whenever they were apart. the young woman wanted her man to always see her as a dainty flower. one who could do no wrong. she always wanted to be adorable and lovable so that the fresh man would never turn away from her and break her heart.

then one day, the young lady was lying on her stomach on the floor to get her back cracked by her fresh man. he leaned down & pressed on her back, producing many wonderfully stress-relieving cracks. the fresh man then proceeded to sit down on the young woman's backside & tickle her. he thought it would be funny to trap her in this way and make her squeal. little did the fresh man know, this was a very bad idea. the young woman wasn't capable of controlling herself when she was tickled. much to her horror and shame, the young woman let loose a jarring poot, directly onto the fresh man's bottom.

things changed between them after that. the illusions were gone and reality set in. and henceforth, the fresh man's name changed to Mr. Musty and the young woman's name was changed to Thunderpants.

and mr musty and thunderpants lived happily ever after.

what would your honest fairy tale name be?

why am i telling this story?

this is going to be a dark one with maybe a few funnies tucked in around the edges. abandon ship if you're not up for it.

when chris & i were first married, we got a cat. she got kitty aids & died really soon after we got her. it was awful, foaming from all facial orifices. (you were warned!)

shortly after she went to kitty heaven, we got another cat, named onyx & she was my furbaby. she was the one who i snuggled with & adored while i was going through infertility crap for a couple years. she was gentle & friendly and she liked to be nurtured by a needy, wanna-be-mom, or so i told myself.

one night, chris & i were hanging out, taking turns playing on the computer & playing with our little onyx before retiring for the evening. we were in a really good mood, lots of laughing & a general sense of wholeness and contentment. we had just crawled into bed & were still giggling when we heard a noise from the other room. i thought it was probably the kitty knocking something off the dresser. it wasn't a big noise, more of a little thump. but chris, being manly, stood up, thumped himself on the chest & declared, caveman style, "i am MAN! i investigate noises in the night! OOG!" i clapped appreciatively and bounced around a bit because that's what cavewomen are supposed to do when their man saves them from scary noises.

he was only gone for a few seconds before he yelled, "oh no! come here, quick!" all fun and games vanished in those five little words. i dove out of bed & into the guest room where he was crouching down. he was leaning over the cat, who was lying on the floor, motionless. the noise we'd heard was onyx falling off the window sill. she was dead. with no warning, she went from frisking about the house with us one minute to dead on the floor the next.

we were beside ourselves trying to figure out what we should do. we'd never had a pet die in our house before and neither one of us really wanted to touch her. we held a mirror up to her nose to check for breath. we called 911 to see if they'd direct us to a number for an all night animal hospital (they did. don't mock me. it felt like an emergency to me.) because we were too spastic to find it in a phone book. we debated giving her mouth to mouth, but by then, it had been at least 10-15 min & surely it was too late, plus, ew. frenching our dead pet somehow seemed like too much even to us at that point.

we finally decided that our poor kitty baby was really gone and we needed to figure out the next step. um... i couldn't bear the thought of her being in the house all night. i knew i wouldn't be able to sleep knowing there was a dead family member in the laundry room who might possibly have gone grossly stiff & have her legs straight up in the air when i awoke the next morning. she needed to go away. immediately.

but it was 2am. and it was raining. and it was cold outside. but she needed to be out of our house. i knew that sometimes coyotes ran through our neighborhood at night because i could hear them howling on occassion, so we couldn't just put her outside. the thought of waking up to find bits & pieces of her carcass spread around the yard complete with teeth marks and blood spatters was too much for us, so we decided that we'd bury her. but again, it was the middle of a dark, cold, rainy night.

we bundled ourselves up in dark clothes. we put our kitty baby into her favorite bed & then double bagged her into garbage sacks in hopes that the critters wouldn't smell her & dig her back up. we went out to a big empty field that was behind our house & through some brambles and brush. it was one of those fields that was used for growing hay, so we knew she wouldn't get dug up by a farmer plowing his field in the spring.

it was kind of horrible with some hilarity thrown in at the same time. we took turns digging in the hard ground until we felt that we'd made a hole big enough and deep enough to fit the cat & her bedding comfortably. we felt like some kind of treacherous body hiders as if we were committing a crime, because who else would be out at 2am burying a body? a car drove by at one point & slowed down a bit, so we hit the dirt & lay still until they passed because we didn't want someone calling the police to report suspicious individuals digging in a field in the rain. we didn't want to have to dig her back up later to prove that we really were just burying a cat & not a trash bag filled with human remains. or pirate booty.

it took much longer than we would have liked & we were soaked by the time we stumbled back home. we showered til the hot water ran out to wash away the dirt & cold & sadness that we seemed to be covered in. we sobbed in each others arms because we'd just lost our second beloved baby. the whole thing was too overwhelming. i think i wept for the human babies i couldn't conceive as much as the furry babies i couldn't seem to keep alive. it was a night that will forever stand out in my mind as one of my biggest losses emotionally and one of those growing up moments that we never like, but we all go through sooner or later.

goodbye, onyx. we still love you.

good gifts for happy hineys

today chris had his first day off in over a week. after spending way too many hours & days living in retail purgatory, he was sweet enough to go out today & buy our christmas presents. and by "our" i mean mine & his. because he wanted new speakers & i apparently can't be trusted to pick out technology unattended.

what i wanted was a new computer chair. i spend a lot of time sitting in this chair in the kitchen, between doing school with brooke, blogging, facebooking, eating meals. and after a few years, the cheap seat cushion had gone completely flat. it was like a board with a dumpy old granny towel folded up for padding.

a dude named byron was my hubby's new BFF today at office depot & helped him pick out the perfect chair for me & speakers for himself. and boy did he ever do a good job, because this chair is the greatest gift my butt could get. it was awful to assemble, but the final product is glorious.

doesn't the old one look like it's ashamed of itself? puny & sad, while the new one is majestic & throne-like. ready to serve my hiney's lounging needs.

and chris got his speakers hooked up & working nicely. he commented while we were putting them together, "there are air holes in the tweeters." which, of course, made me giggle. really, hon, air holes in the tweeters? what purpose do such things serve?
"makes them perform better so they won't blow."

ah yes, we're having good times with happy butts and ears in this house.

don't name that tune

my husband just called me a tard. this makes me laugh in the present context, because seriously, who can tell the difference between a bass & a guitar when you're looking at some people playing in a band? i mean, if you're not a musician, who the heck knows or cares about the difference?! he'll tell me, "you know the guy who plays the bass in that band?" i think to myself in my head that i know who he's talking about, but apparently my head thinking business is all wrong because i'm picturing the guitar player. as if there's any real difference! come on! don't tell me about numbers of strings or size of body. those things are inconsequential & meaningless in my world. it's a stick with strings & someone holds it & rubs their hands over it. noise comes out. the end.

when it comes to all things musical, i'm a complete failure. i'll comment to chris sometimes that i liked a song that i heard.
he asks, "what's the name of it?"
umm....
"what were some of the words?"
uummm....
"do you at least remember the chorus?"
in my head i rapidly dig through mental files until i remember what the word chorus means. it's something related to songs.
nooo....
"can you hum the tune?"
..... blank stare
"was it fast or slow?"
"kind of fastish in parts, but mostly slowish. but not slow like a dirge."
(are you impressed that i know what a dirge is? cuz i am.)
he stares at me with a look of scorn & says, "so let me get this straight. you like a song, but you don't know what the name is, what the words are, how the tune goes or even if it's fast or slow. am i getting this right?"
me, relieved that he finally understands, nodding happily, "exactly! it's a really great song!"

can you believe he thinks i'm a tard?

mr lubba is my hero

my honey is my hero today. well, he's my hero lots of days, but today he gets bonus points. i had to get up & go to work today while chris has the day off. and in this day off he has.... done laundry, emptied & refilled the dishwasher, loaded brooke's new ipod, dumped & cleaned out the litter pan, fed the cats & girly lunch, made dinner, washed all the dishes from dinner, cleaned up the kitchen, taken a vacuum cleaner back to walmart & then took brooke to the mall for a train ride so i could have a nap on the couch w/ a full belly. shortly he will oversee brooke getting herself bathed & teeth brushed & then read her books before tucking her into bed.

i'm so lucky!

mother nature is a bitch

today was an embarrassing pms kind of day. and to make it all worse, it actually started yesterday. that doesn't exactly make sense, but in my hormonally imbalanced mind it seems like it does, so i'm sticking with it. don't disagree with me!

brooke's birthday is monday. this is our off party year, so she was just allowed to invite one friend for a sleepover & a movie. the friend she chose moved out of town today so we had to do the sleepover on thursday. i worked thursday, so i had to make the cake that brooke requested wednesday night. i don't like cooking or baking. i'm all for short cuts, but this year brooke wanted me to make her cake myself. she wanted to go to the store w/ me & pick out all the ingredients & toppings & have a girly baking day. i couldn't talk her out of it, so that's what we did. wednesday. because she wanted cake w/ her friend on thursday. here's the cake we made together & brooke proudly displaying it for the camera. not so pretty, i know.

chris' parents were coming in for a visit on friday for some family birthday festivities. i planned to plug that candle back in, relight it & sing happy birthday again. yes, i know it was 1/4 gone, but it made sense to me. chris apparently thought that was ghetto. so he came home friday afternoon w/ a fresh hannah montana birthday cake & a new candle.

i was not happy. my feelings were hurt. i just knew that meant he thought my cake looked like shit. he thought that he & his family were too good for my awful cake. i thought he was insulting brooke by disrespecting her wishes for a homemade birthday cake. i cried. too much. and i looked meanly at chris' back. when chris went upstairs i quietly called brooke into the kitchen & told her to say goodbye to her pink cake because i was going to throw it out into the trash can so the grandparents would never know about my ugly, embarrassing cake. she hugged me & cried & told me not to listen to daddy and she loved mine & she didn't even want that pretty hannah montana cake anyway, she would only eat mine. and maybe just a small piece of the new one so she didn't upset daddy either.

that's when i realized how badly i was overreacting. how i was unfairly pulling her into my crazy & putting her in the middle between myself & chris & the slight that i imagined was all up in the middle of the room. i was making her birthday cake into a sore subject & stealing her happy. that wasn't very nice of me. so then i apologized to her & cried some more & told her that the cake daddy bought was way better anyway & we both knew it was definitely prettier. sigh.

today my crazy continued. it was sneakier though at the beginning. it started over the possible purchase of a vacuum cleaner at sams. chris & i disagreed, but we both had valid points. i won, but i felt guilty & nervous. then i wandered off w/ just brooke & left chris w/ his parents. i went to the women's clothing area & i tried on a cute puffy vest. there are no dressing rooms or mirrors, but i could zip it & still bend forward, so i figured it must look good. then i was headed off to find the rest of my group & show them my cute new vest selection when brooke crawled under a huge table thing & got herself stuck. i was in the process of digging her out w/ the assistance of a store employee when the rest of my clan showed up & then that was awkward. cuz i really didn't forbid her to climb under there. actually, she asked if she could as she was headed in & i said "ok, just once though. meetcha on the other side!" (i was feeling generous because of my cute new vest, ya see.)

once the child was adequately rescued & reprimanded, my family members noticed my vest. they asked if it came in a bigger size. i showed them how it didn't need to, see, cuz i could zip it & bend over. and it was so cute! chris thought i maybe should skip it cuz i didn't need it. i assured him that i did need it. he then mentioned gently that it maybe looked a little too small. which i interpreted to mean that i look like a fat ass woman & shouldn't be permitted to show my fat face in public because i'm a blobby blot on humanity. the vest went straight back onto the death trap of a table & i marched off to lick my blubbering wounds w/ brooke tight on my heels. chris followed us from a distance as i pretended to be looking at stuff that i wasn't really seeing. we don't exactly need any onsies these days or boys teenie bopper sized skater t's.

i finally stopped because i couldn't figure out what to do next. chris caught up. i told him i was mad about the vacuum. and how he called me fat. and, and, and... here come the tears. how freakin annoying! his parents approached us about the time my sprinkler system kicked in. they quickly veered away & i noticed the fatty vest in my mother-in-law's cart. because she's so nice & really means well & will take my side if i look upset. i finally mentioned to chris that maybe i might be just a smidge pms'y. i hate admitting that. it feels like it's a weakness. but the only other option is admitting to insanity & i guess in the long run that's worse. once it was out in the open, i really cried. in the middle of sams on a busy saturday afternoon while my family tried not to look on. brooke held my hand & stood behind me (probably glad that i was drawing attention away from her after the table crawling business).

eventually we started moving again & i had to confess to my MIL that we weren't actually fighting & i really wasn't mad & i seriously didn't need the vest. and then i cried some more while leaning my head against a large cardboard carton of socks. i hate it when my crazy shows in public.

and on that note, does anyone want some cake?

happy birthday to me

tomorrow's my 35th birthday, so tonight chris & i went out on a date & brooke spent the night at a friend's house. i don't think we've had a date night where we didn't have to rush back to relieve the babysitter in years, so it was pretty fun & relaxing.

i made an extra effort to get pretty for my honey today. it's not very often that i put on a bunch of makeup & i might have overdone it a bit since a had a face full of enough cosmetics to coat several prom goers. i had a little photo shoot w/ myself before we left the house because i knew otherwise there'd be no pics to remember the night. plus, i love makeup & even an old barn looks better with a fresh coat of paint. sometimes i have a little too much fun when i get in front of a camera, even if i'm the only one in the room. the following photos can attest to that in a rather embarrassing way... (i recently read that when you look at a picture of yourself, you should judge it primarily based on if you look happy or like you're having fun rather than if you look pretty. so i'm now using that as a standard because i like it better than my old one)

we went to a nice restaurant for dinner, then out to see a stupid comedy & then headed home for a change of footwear so that we could go walking downtown. i wish i was one of those women who can strut her stuff all over town in funky heels, but alas, i need to strap on some birkenstocks if i'm going for a walk these days. and even then i'm kinda wishing for a gel insert.

i seem to have shrinking bladder syndrome (hence forth to be referred to as SBS) so i have to use pretty much every bathroom in any building we enter or even walk past. i'm worse than a toddler who's potty training & intrigued by bathrooms; even brooke gripes at me for having to go so often. tonight was no exception. i think i used 6 different public bathrooms & sometimes that's an adventure. i really don't like when i go into a stall & get myself situated & then the woman on the other side of the partition makes a phone call. i mean, it's bad enough that i'm in there & she's hearing my tinkling, but now her lover across the store is hearing it too. in one particular place, i walked into the ladies room for the inevitable rendezvous w/ the crapper & i was feeling a little gassy. i was thinking that i'd go in there & come out a few minutes later feeling lighter, less bloated & less likely to embarrass myself in front of my beloved. but as soon as i got my pants down, a woman walked in & dialed her phone. i think she must have been an employee because she didn't even use the facilities, just dialed & started chatting loudly. i was trying to wait politely for her leave before i released the gassy beast, but she wouldn't leave. and i can only hold it for so long when i'm in that position. i attempted the discreet cough & toot, but my timing was a little bit off. after that she switched to spanish & there was some laughing. eventually, when i determined that she was planning to spend her whole break in there talking about me, i figured i'd better just finish my business & go on, regardless of my pride. you can only hold back so much if you don't want that lingering pain. once i had thoroughly relieved myself, i decided that i couldn't bear to open the stall door & face her, so i waited a little bit longer. thankfully she left, but not before i'm sure chris was wondering if i'd been the victim of a bathroom mugging.

in yet another place where we stopped for drinks & dessert (just a lil fyi, blackberry mojitos don't compliment caramel fudgey brownies) my SBS got the best of me again & in this bathroom, there are 2 stalls together in such a way that the 2 toilets face directly toward each other with just a little partition between them. it's rather disconcerting when there's a woman on the other side of that partition & you're so close that your knees are almost touching. you could play footsies with each other if you were drunk enough or just feeling frisky. very strange. and for the record, i was neither drunk, nor frisky enough to go the footsie route w/ the woman on the other side.

on the way home, i was feeling all loose & foolish & chris turned up some old party tunes, so i was busting my best car dancing moves. i assure you, they were horrible, but i was enjoying myself immensely. so much so that i felt the need to break out the camera to document the ocassion. sigh... i'm so glad my husband loves me, in spite of my utter & complete lack of coolness.

12 years down, 60 to go!

today is our 12th wedding anniversary. i think it's pretty cool that chris is the only long term relationship i ever had; before him, my record romance lasted 11 months, so this whole business of being committed to someone for 13 years now still seems pretty amazing at times.

yesterday we dropped brooke off at a friend's house & headed to red lobster. for the first 10 years we were married i didn't eat meat of any kind (for health reasons, not for tree-hugger reasons) so that wasn't an option, but in the past 2 years i've added a little bit of fish into my diet (although not quite as much as her), so it's nice for us to be able to expand our restaurant repertoire & go to a seafood place occasionally. on the way there chris mentioned that he would love to go sailing down the east coast for a dream vacation some day, so in case we're ever on a game show & i get asked about his dream vaca, i should file that factoid away.

i started thinking about how kids always ask & get asked about their favorite things. what's your favorite color? food? school subject? friend? toy? sport? and i realized that grown-ups don't generally do that. i decided that it was time for a refresher course for chris & i, so through our dinner, we asked each other about all our favorite things. dream job. recreational activity. pastime. movie. color. dream.

it was kind of like being on an early stage date in a new relationship, but without any of the awkwardness or nerves. sometimes i'm so comfortable with chris that i don't hold anything back & just let it all hang out, good, bad or otherwise. there's not a lot of mystery between us at this point, and i'm ok with that, but sometimes i wonder if that makes me more sisterly than loverly. maybe i shouldn't ask him to puncture & squeeze that spider bite on my butt or if i have food in my teeth. is it possible to have both?

we had a wonderful night of eating, shopping & seeing a stupid movie. we have a hard time agreeing upon movies because our tastes are so different. he wanted to see "iron man" & i wanted to see "sex in the city" but we came together on "get him to the greek" which was funny but so stupid.

i'm so thankful for my awesome husband. he makes me feel happy and safe & comfortable. i would pick him all over again if i had it to go back & do again. so chris, i love you. happy anniversary! may we celebrate 60 more happy years together.

mommy mushiness

chris has been on vacation from work this week & he has been positively delightful to have around. we didn't have any big plans for the week, just regular life, but him not going to work, meant him being rested & less stressed for 7 days.

today i had to work & it was my biggest job, so i came home tired & with my back hurting, but chris made a nice, healthy, early dinner for us. he also cleaned up the kitchen & then took brooke out to the mall so that i could rest peacefully and they could get some exercise, walking off dinner as well as visiting some pitiful puppies at the pet store. he bought her stickers she fell in love with & they came home smiling & relaxed. every single night this week, chris has read books to our girl and a couple nights i sat in on the reading session and was surprised & delighted to discover that the reason they're taking so long getting through this chapter book is because every time he reads a word or concept to her that he's not sure she understands, he stops & explains it to her. he makes sure she's absorbing all of it rather than just getting through the pages.

every night this week chris has tucked brooke into her bed, sang her some old hymns & kissed her goodnight. last night it took them nearly 2 hrs from start to finish for her to get to bed because she decided to "surprise mommy & make her happy" by drawing a bath for herself without being told & then chris went in to hang out with her & he took his guitar in with him. i muted the tv from downstairs so that i could hear him twanging out the blues while she, at first timidly & then gradually more boldly, belted out her own impromptu lyrics while he strummed and encouraged. i think they may have watched an episode of sponge bob before the final prayers and songs and even though, as a rule, i'm opposed to cartoons when it's already past bedtime, i didn't even bat a disapproving eyelash when brooke quietly mentioned that this morning.

it makes this mom's heart tremendously happy, not just to have my beloved family around me, but to feel them adoring each other. to see them enjoying each other's company as if nothing else in the world matters except the moment they're in, right then. my night was topped off when brooke requested that i please kiss her 30 times before she could go to bed and after that yumminess was complete, then she planted kisses on my nose, forehead, both cheeks & then one right on the mouth.

my world is beautiful.

unconditional love

when chris & i were engaged, we were living in charlotte. we had decided that as soon as we got married, we'd move to a city in south carolina where there's a christian school that he was hoping to attend. we packed our stuff for the weekend & away we went, feeling all happy & excited to be going on a trip to find our first place together. i'd never lived with anyone & had only briefly had an apt of my own, so this was a pretty big deal!

we got to said city in sc & after driving around the dinky, unattractive campus for a few minutes, he turned to me and said, "um... i don't think i want to go to school here. i think i should go back & finish up in tennessee."

as i've mentioned before, i'm a yankee snob & somehow, the idea of living in tennessee was absolutely horrible to me. like living in north or south carolina was ok, but somehow, when you crossed the line into tennessee, you became an instant hillbilly. i wanted to say. "NO! i'm not moving to that stupid, redneck, hillbilly place!" but i didn't. i loved my man enough to be willing to go with him to tennessee & look for a home. the thought of my first married home being in that god-forsaken state was really hard for me to swallow - it totally didn't meet any of my expectations for my future life. but i went. i can't say i was happy about it or even pretended to be, but i was willing & hopefully i didn't whine too much. i was trusting that God would see my attempted submission & steer my almost-hubby to a more desirable location. like after i said, "yes, i'll go", i'd hear a voice from the sky saying "this is a test, this is only a test." i'd swipe my hand across my brow & say, "phew! that was a close one!" God would snicker quietly at me & then we'd be off to some other more "acceptable" state to start our future together.

that's not how it went. we drove all around the rinky dink lil town that chris knew all too well from years spent delivering pizzas & we called every number we could find for the rentals with signs out front. we were able to get into a few & eventually, we found this one little duplex, the landlord showed it to us & the next thing i knew, we were signing papers. we gave him a check & he gave us the keys & it was then that i said, "oh crap!!" in my head. cuz how was God going to undo this? money had changed hands, the deal was done.

we went to a little barbecue joint that chris really liked, to celebrate his imminent return to clevegas. i ordered the beef (clearly this was pre-vegetarianism) and he had the pork. i'd never eaten a barbecue sandwich before & i didn't especially like it, but still trying to be the nice almost-wifey, i tried not to complain too much.

we drove across the county line to find a motel for the night because chris was going to take me out for a night on the town. show me a yeehaw good time in the big city about half an hour away. we had taken our stuff into the stinky hotel room when i started to feel sick. the rumbles came a-burbling up my guts & i was in PAIN! i spent large portions of the next 12 hours hugging that disgusting motel toilet or sitting on it, holding the trash can.

i felt guilty for ruining the nice night that chris had tried to plan for us. i told him to go alone. he might have, i wouldn't know because i was either puking or comatose for the most part the whole time we were there. he brought me some pepto from the gas station next door & i remember him telling me my tongue was black. i felt embarrassed for being in a motel room w/ the man i loved & i couldn't stop crapping my guts out & no doubt making some seriously disgusting noises.

finally the next morning it seemed like the food poisoning had subsided & even though i was feeling drained (for very good reason) i didn't want to stay at the motel 6 and the scene of my shame anymore, so i insisted that i was fine & we could go on back home to charlotte. we had to pass close by our new little house on our way back home, so we decided to stop & look around again, this time without the landlord looking over our shoulders. we wouldn't be moving in for another month still, but wanted to be able to make mental plans.

we were turning onto our new little street when my stomach grumbled & then i farted. or rather, i thought i farted. as it turned out, it was more of a shart, but i didn't realize it right away. it wasn't until i stood up from chris' nice little car that i realized what had happened. i was wearing cute, short little white shorts & was mortified to find that i had crapped myself right on his car seat! there was no disguising it, no hiding it. if death had been an option at that point, i'm pretty sure i would have chosen it. chris was quick to realize my distress & he whipped my suitcase out of the trunk & carried it straight into the bathroom for me. i was able to change, but alas, the water was turned off in the house, so there wasn't much clean-up to be done. i found a plastic bag into which i stuffed all the dirty items & i shamefully walked back out to face chris. i hung my head in my most mortifying moment to date. he just hugged me & told me it was ok & he loved me & then he took me to a gas station for as much of bath as i could manage in the cigarette burned sink. i threw the bag of nastiness away. i never wanted to see or remember that incident again for the rest of my life and i could buy new shorts.

the car was cleaned & the return trip was made. i was probably a lot quieter than usual on the 6 hr drive because i was afraid that he would be so grossed out by me that he'd dump me. or mock me. he'd move back to tennessee without my nasty self. and it was then that i realized that i didn't want him to go without me. while i didn't relish the thought of living in tn, i would much rather live in tn with chris than live without him in charlotte. that was a defining moment for me. it was a good & positive moment of humility & thankfulness. humbled because of my sickness & thankful that the man i loved would overlook my ickiness. he was the one i'd been looking for all my life & i was lucky enough to find him when i was only 21.

bible study gas

several years ago we moved to chattanooga because we felt like God was leading us to come here & start a post modern church. it seemed a bit odd since there are already so many churches in this town, but we clearly believe that we were following God's leading by coming here. very shortly after we arrived we found a few other people who shared our vision & they were already meeting at some one's house on a regular basis for a bible study & some worship time.

we were finally able to work out the details for us to be able to attend one of the meetings (we needed child care because brooke was only 1 at the time & it wasn't convenient for her to be there) where we met the group, mostly for the first time. it was pretty exciting for us to be meeting these people since we really felt like this was the beginning of a big new life change for us & these people were likely to be a part of it. we wanted to make a good impression so that they'd want us to be a part of their group.

we arrived at this big, fancy house & found about 10 or so people there already hanging out & eating. there was a big spread of food & they were kind enough to have some veggie dishes since they knew i'm a vegetarian. i was touched that they'd do that since most of the time when i go to a dinner like that i end up eating chips & dip as my meal because it's the only thing without meat. i happily piled 2 spicy black bean burgers onto my plate & proceeded to chow down.

after the meal, the lights were turned down & we all sat in chairs in a circle in their fancy living room & we had some nice music & a short bible study about foot washing. then someone busted out a big bowl & some soap & water & we were instructed that we'd each be washing the feet of the person to the right of us. chris & i were not sitting next to each other. i was between 2 other men, both close to my dad's age & virtual strangers to me. i started to feel really nervous. this was WAY outside my comfort zone! the only feet i'd ever washed besides my own were my sweet little baby's feet & i imagined they were a far cry from the feet of the man beside me!

now, to increase my discomfort, my stomach started churning, a little at first & then more & more until i could audibly hear it rumbling. i swear, i felt like it was echoing off the dimly lit walls & surely everyone could tell it was coming from me. the washing started a couple people away from me & went in the opposite direction, so i had a little bit of free time while everyone sat quietly & respectfully & waited their turn to have clean feet. i whispered to someone next to me for directions to the bathroom & was pointed to a door directly behind us. i went in there & realized that there was no way in the world i could release the massive build up of gas that was smashing around in my guts without everyone in the next room hearing me. i nearly cried! i couldn't figure out how to fart silently (as i'd learned once before when i tried to plug it with my finger & only managed to fart a very loud, high pitched whistle. but that's another story) and i dared not to even drop my pants out of fear of the coming explosion. so i waited a moment, did the obligatory hand washing & walked back to my chair, doing my own personal rendition of "dead woman walking."

slowly, timed dragged past. i think these people must have been enjoying the process because they certainly took their time about it! inside my head i was screaming, "come on folks, this isn't the time for a full on pedicure & massage, let's move it along!" but outwardly i sat silently w/ everyone else & prayed that they couldn't hear my painfully gut wrenching gurgles.

finally, the man next to me kneeled down & started washing my feet. in the best of circumstances i wouldn't have liked this. the symbolism of it went completely over my head and all i could think about was how desperately i didn't want to blow a blast of gas at this strange man as he rubbed between my toes. don't think about the tickle! don't think about the awkwardness! focus solely on butt control!

ok, i got through my washing, but i still had to manage to wash the dude on the other side of me! so in a rush, i got down on the floor & plunked his feet into the bowl. i wanted to go at turbo speed, but i quickly realized that being in a squatting position, putting pressure onto my stomach & leaning forward required a whole new level of sphincter control. oh my gosh! i felt sure that a noxious cloud of black smoke & foul stench was going to torpedo out of my backside any second if i didn't hurry up & get this job done! it had to have been the least thorough washing to have ever occurred. i didn't care. let them think i wasn't a thorough bather or had a phobia of feet. whatever they wanted to think, so long as they didn't know that more than anything in the world i wanted to fart out the 96 million pounds of pressure that had built up in my guts.

when the washing was finished, i attempted to say my goodbyes as quickly as i possibly could without being totally rude. i still wanted these people to like me. i used the "baby at home w/ a sitter" excuse & ran for the door w/ chris right behind me. i did the clench & waddle out the door at the fastest speed i could manage till i got the car. chris pulled away from the curb & we both started rolling down our windows simultaneously. we looked at each other & started laughing hysterically as we farted ourselves silly in the car, because all the while i was suffering in there, i didn't realize that he was suffering from the same affliction! he'd had the bean burgers too!

ever since then, we've dubbed that feeling "bible study gas" & we both know it's time to clear the room or roll down the windows when one of us catches a case of it.