Category Archives: Marriage

Who needs rock hard abs when you can rock hard to ABBA?

Posted in Marriage by

itunes morning

Wednesday mornings are great. My husband doesn’t have to go into work and so we sit around the house in our pajamas til at least noon, playing with the toddler, browsing the Internet and doing all manner of lazy, slothful family things.

This morning, basically incapacitated by a bout of the worst heartburn ever experienced by anyone who has ONLY JUST HAD WATER TO DRINK, I laid in bed upstairs while my husband and son hung out in the living room.

Hubs was messing around on iTunes, organizing his record-setting library of music. Really, we have external hard drives full of this stuff. If we had to put it on CDs, we’d need another house.

Soon, I began to hear the strains of late 90s and early 00s pop music wafting up the stairs.

Really bad pop music.

“I’m so calling you out on Twitter for jamming out to Sugar Ray,” I threaten.

“I am not the kind of guy who gets embarrassed about listening to music that’s suddenly no longer fashionable!” he yells.

“Suddenly? It’s been like 15 years,” I mutter.

“Next on the list is LFO and I’ve got some Smash Mouth with your name on it!” he volleys back.

This is why I married the guy, y’all. Not for his awful taste in music, but because he doesn’t give a rat’s ass what anyone thinks about it. Not even me. He’ll cruise down the street blasting the Don Giovanni Overture followed by some Sinatra and somehow, it just works.

Yeah, all you girls who let this one slip through your fingers? You missed out on waltzing in the kitchen to Kelly Clarkson. Be jealous.

State of the uterus address: Week 5

Posted in #BloomWhereYourePlanted, Marriage, Parenting, Really long posts by

*Look, there might be some TMI in here. You were warned. Also, this is long as hell. I tried to condense it but I’m telling a story here, people. And I don’t want anything left out.

It seems strange to be five weeks already, but if you understand how pregnancies are dated you know that we start counting on the first day of the last period, and for the last six months or so I’ve had 23-day cycles so wow, here we are.

It seemed wrong to me too when I looked it up this morning, but here’s the calculator I used. It shows everything, like when we could tell the sex, when the fetus would be viable (that’s traditionally the day we buy the crib!) and when I’d be full term. Going into labor on my anniversary? Entirely possible.

Some people questioned why we announced that we were pregnant so soon. While many people choose to wait until much later in their pregnancies, I like to be up front about it as soon as I pee on the stick and see the lines.

Maybe that’s because I’ve had two miscarriages? I don’t know. Observed statistics says that 33.3% of the time I’ll end up with a healthy baby, but my doctors always said the miscarriages were a fluke.

The first, at 4.5 weeks, was a very early miscarriage. I hadn’t planned that one at all. We had just returned from our honeymoon, and I played an April Fools’ joke on everyone that I was pregnant. The joke was on me when I found out three days later, after getting extremely dizzy in a car, that I was in fact a little knocked up.

It was over as soon as it began though, and shook me to my core. I remember sitting on the floor in the bedroom crying so hard I thought I might break a bone. It was the first time I understood what keening sounded like.

I hadn’t really wanted a baby at all until I realized that I wasn’t going to have one. It was the worst feeling I’ve ever felt.

Five months later, our homes were destroyed by Hurricane Ike. The next month, my husband transferred to Kansas City. I joined him at Christmas, and was pregnant by New Year’s.

Again, whoops. We weren’t trying, we had actually used protection. Do you hear me, teenagers? CONDOMS DON’T WORK ALL THE TIME.

I was excited for this pregnancy. I felt that even though I hadn’t planned it, I could handle it. Finances would work themselves out.

My husband was feeling pretty virile. He started referring to himself as “The Sniper.” His family made all kinds of statements about the fertility of the Mash Men.

At eight weeks, we found out during an ultrasound that I was carrying a blighted ovum. Just a big empty sac with a few random tissues in it. An embryo that never formed.

Boy, that sucked.

I chose to naturally miscarry, and refused all medications and interventions until two weeks later when I actually began to pass the tissue and then I was all GIVE ME DRUUUUUGS.

I was actually on my first day at a new job when I passed the blighted tissue. Words cannot express how gross and horrifying that was. Alone. In a bathroom in a place I’d never been working with people I didn’t know.

We sought out reproductive counseling, which is maddening. Here you are, unable to do the one thing you’ve pretty much been made to do, and you need counseling for it.

Our counselor was sweet, took our histories and brightly informed us that there was nothing wrong with either one of us, really, and that we just needed to try again. That it was bad luck.

So we tried. We tried all summer long.

Nothing.

Finally, frustrated, 30 years old, I gave up. I had ordered this atrocious book, “Taking Care of Your Fertility” along with a pack of cheap internet ovulation tests a few weeks before and was thinking about sending them back, if they ever arrived.

I told my husband, “I’m done! No more trying! This isn’t working! I’m defective!”

The next day, the book and the tests arrived. The book read like stereo instructions. I placed it on the bedside table. The tests were weird. Little sticks, blue on one end and white on the other. It came with five pregnancy tests too.

So of course, I peed on one. It immediately popped up two lines.

I peed on another one. Two more lines. Faint, but there.

I went to the store, plopped down big bucks for a First Response, and got two more lines.

I was pregnant. I told everybody. Fear of miscarriage be damned, this was going to be MY BABY.

And it was! I had a gorgeous little red head nine months later. He’s two and playing at my feet while I type this. He’s perfect, and worth all the trouble. But although I had valiantly declared that I would not fear miscarriage, I worried about nothing but that for the entire nine months.

Anxiety ate me alive during that pregnancy. Even so far as into the last weeks, when I worried over scans of his hands, freaking out because I couldn’t see finger bones. Even when I had to fight the guilt trips my husband’s family kept laying on us because we didn’t want anyone at the hospital for the birth.

To everyone else, my son’s birthday was going to be this carefree, happy day. To me, it was a goal that I wasn’t sure I was going to meet. A project I worried I hadn’t completed correctly. I wanted no one but my husband and myself there when my son arrived. Until I could inspect him thoroughly. Until I knew he was perfect.

I struggled with post-partum anxiety as well. I worked through it on my own, until it faded from a scream of what-ifs playing in 24-hour surround sound in my brain to a dull whisper that pops up now and then when I’m unsure of something.

That brings us to present day. We’d been talking for months about possibly adding to the family. The only question was whether or not I should go back to work.

I struggled with this. If I went back to work, sure, I’d have great medical coverage and extra money. But what about when the baby came? Would I go back to work the next school year too? Would I miss out on this baby’s firsts, give them to a babysitter instead?

I didn’t like that idea. But I also knew that if I took a teaching job and left it after a year, suddenly there’s be this weird pattern on my resume that would not look good.

I fretted about it all during May and June while I applied for jobs and interviewed.

When I returned from Texas in mid-June, I was frustrated with the job search. We decided to go ahead and try for a baby instead.

Well, I didn’t end up with a job, and for good reason I hope. I hope it’s because we’re going to end up with a baby. I’m hoping God spared me from having to make the decision to leave my infant at home. I know so many women who do go back to work, and I don’t know how they manage it all.

So here we are. Just a little bit pregnant.

Do I know that there’s a significant chance this pregnancy won’t work out? Sure. Will I be hurt if it doesn’t? Well yeah.

But I’m not going to let the anxiety suck me in. I’m not running to the doctor for betas and early ultrasounds. In fact, I haven’t even made an appointment yet.

I’m just hanging out, gestating. Letting myself dreamily peruse websites full of baby stuff for the first time. Researching names without trepidation. Praying away the anxiety when it gets loud, occupying myself with projects that don’t allow me the time to worry.

I am, for possibly the first time in my life, allowing myself to not consider the worst and only hoping for the best.

Maybe I’m setting myself up for heartbreak, sure. But maybe I’m also allowing myself to fully experience joy.

Time will tell.

Traveling everywhere, and never leaving home

Posted in #BloomWhereYourePlanted, Marriage, Seasons by

Usually when I make my trek to and from Texas, I renew my low-altitude pilot’s license and take a straight shot south through Missouri, Arkansas and Texas. I can push through the 730 miles in less than 13 hours. I’ve done it so many times over the last three and a half years that the curves in the road are as familiar as the lines in my palms.

This time, for my return trip to Kansas City I had different plans. Three days. Three cities. An aquarium, a slumber party with a great friends and a steak sandwich or two. Houston. Dallas. Oklahoma City.

My own little tour.

I began on a Thursday, packing my son and nephews along with our luggage into my little car and hauling ass through a summer storm to downtown Houston. We left the vehicle and its collection of laundry and toys to spend a few hours visiting the underwater worlds of the Downtown Aquarium.

That night we stayed with our Aunt Jan, who got in one last good night of spoiling before we headed north. She fed us, entertained us and even helped my oldest nephew make a Father’s Day card for my husband. (One day I’ll talk her into selling her cards – they’re amazing. Until then, I just patiently wait for special occasions to see her handiwork.)

Friday morning we set out for Dallas to meet my friends Rach and Brian and their little Donut. Rach writes Life Ever Since, and has been my friend ever since I began blogging last year.

Even though they were in the middle of this huge move to the most magical house full of endless surprises, Rach and her husband warmly welcomed us into their mostly-packed away condo. I meant to get all sorts of pictures of us together, but I don’t think we stopped talking long enough to really do that. Also, I had three boys with me.

Thank goodness for mom juice.

Also, thank goodness for Brian. He took the big boys to the pool while my kid suffered a meltdown of epic proportions at bedtime. For that, I am eternally grateful. I teetered on the edge of sanity for a moment, but thanks to his quick thinking (and Rach’s excellent bedtime treats later) I managed to not lose my shit in the middle of everything.

And Donut. Oh my gosh. I’ve never met a more friendly little girl in my life. She was all smiles and coy glances, flirting madly with my nephews and just charming me into a pile of gooey squish. If I hadn’t packed every square centimeter of my car with stuff already, I’d have figured a way to smuggle her back home with me, where we would share a bag of Spinach and Kale Pirate’s Booty and watch Sex & The City.

Oh, stop gasping. The TBS version, of course.

We bid this fun, generous family a bittersweet farewell the next morning, sad to be leaving such great company but excited to be on the final leg of our trip. We inched our way north again, stopping just outside of Oklahoma City to take care of a few things for my husband.

After finding the nearest Wal-mart, something I’m really good at even without the help of GPS (Where do I put that on my resume?) we flew down several country roads to visit my husband’s grandparents’ graves, leave flowers on those that were without, and point out sites of interest like the church where my husband and I were married and Toby Keith’s house. (My nephew wanted to know if he had horses there, and if they were indeed given beer.)

After our back road adventures, we stopped at a tiny, somewhat-suspicious smelling restaurant for the best steak sandwiches on the planet. Not even exaggerating.

If you find yourself ‘round the OKC area in place called Moore, do yourself a lard-fried favor and check out Del Rancho. Order the steak supreme and a coke and enjoy every last artery-clogging bite.

Finally it was time for the hardest part of the journey for me: Five and a half hours of highway, most of it turnpike, with nothing but fields as far as the eye could see. It’s hypnotic, the constant green sea, and makes every minute seem like a decade. Cruise control, Christian music and an audio copy of Catching Fire were my saviors.

Several years ago, when my life with my husband was just beginning, we had taken this road to Kansas City to visit for the first time together. My now-husband-then-boyfriend’s car broke down several times during that August drive, but even with the heat and frustration we never got pissy with each other. It was on that trip, standing in the Starbuck’s parking lot in Emporia, Kansas next to a dying car tucked into a corner parking spot, that I realized I loved this guy and was probably going to marry him.

When I stopped at the Emporia McDonald’s with the kids on Saturday for dinner, I stole a fond glance at that Starbucks. We were still a couple of hours from home just then, but I realized right there that this was where I had been standing when I realized where home would be four years ago.

It’s not north, and it’s not south. And even if I do have to choose between those two physical places, it doesn’t matter. Home will always be within my husband’s heart. Enveloped in his arms. Caught in his glance. I can drive all over this country, trek every highway, and still be home.

Visiting Yeah Write…the Challenge board. Because I finally did something other than vomit words upon a page.

To honor and be honored

Posted in #BloomWhereYourePlanted, Marriage, Monkey by

I’d like to start off by saying that yesterday was a hard day for many people I know. People I love who have buried their mothers. People I love who have buried their children. And people I love who have yet to meet their children, and are struggling with that.

So it was kind of hard for me to read posts about how all some women wanted for Mothers Day was to “not” be moms. I know we joke about needing a break, and that break is well deserved. I myself shirked a few responsibilities yesterday, so I understand that need. But I wanted to take a second and remember those for whom Mothers Day is a day of longing for closeness instead of freedom.

Around here, things started off early. Even though my kid miraculously slept until eight, my mom woke me up with a sweet text message. I guess turnabout’s fair play, eh mom?

But it was ok, because I wanted to make something new for my boys’ breakfast.

Check it  - cinnamon rolls cooked in the waffle iron.

Yeah. So easy. Six minutes. Boom. I even used the cheap brand. Shhhhh.

Then I sat around and watched about six hours of Bones. Don’t ask me why, I’ve never even heard of that show before. What is it about the Deschanel family and their dorky daughters? I just love them.

During that time, hubs changed ALL the diapers. Hubs filled ALL the sippy cups. Hubs handed out ALL the cookies. It was kinda niiiice.

While I was vegging and hubs was hopping, I spent some time on the phone sharing well wishes with my “mommy mafia.” It felt kind of luxurious to have all that phone time without interruption. (Although when it came time to talk to MawMaw, Monkey was on my lap babbling away. We know who she really wanted to talk to anyway, right?)

Later that evening I cooked fajitas for us all, and then hubs sent me on my way to pick out my traditional Mothers Day gift: new bedding.

Ok, so it wasn’t a tradition. But it is now!

See how sad our room was? So blah.

And now? Now we are those people who have too many damn pillows.

Life is good.

How was your Mothers Day? Are you at the “handmade” gift stage? Those are the best. I can’t wait.

I’d marry you again on the Ides of March

Posted in Marriage by

Four years ago today, I stood in a small room in an old church. It smelled of musty hymnals and well-trodden carpet. My fingers trembled as I hooked a strand of pearls around my neck.

Minutes later, holding up the hem of my satin gown, I tiptoed around the side of the church in heels that had just a touch of sparkle. I posed for a picture standing in a tiny field of emerald green grass and vibrant purple heather as strains of Bach drifted through an open window.

I walked up a few wooden stairs, and as someone held open the glass door to the sanctuary, I took a deep breath, willed my clumsy self not to fall over and on the arm of my father walked down the aisle to join lives with the man I was created for.

I didn’t make it half a sentence into my vows before I started crying. Tears of joy, sure, but also of relief that I was getting a second chance at happiness. Tears that were physical evidence that someone had crushed the emotional walls I’d spent many years building.

The rest of the day was a blur of photos and hand shaking, hugs and cake. The last four years have been a blur as well, and it seems all at once that we’ve been together forever and not any time at all.

Marriage is hard, and there are days where we are not at our best. But somehow as we’re plodding through life we trip and fall in love over and over again. Those moments are rarely over wine and candles but more often during a glance caught across the mess of a blond-haired busy boy or a final sigh and foot cuddle at the end of a very long day.

It’s with the purest sincerity that I take this moment to say that I am honored to be his wife, and I’m thankful for another day where we can look back and remember the commitment we made – that crazy decision to forsake all others and bind each to the other in sickness, poverty, health and wealth.

“Two such as you with such a master speed
Cannot be parted nor be swept away
From one another once you are agreed
That life is only life forevermore
Together wing to wing and oar to oar.”  -  ROBERT FROST, The Master Speed

And I would do anything for love…

Posted in I'm Still Learning, Marriage by

*Warning: This post might offend vegetarians. And anyone with common sense, which I am obviously lacking today. 

The hubs and I, we don’t really do Valentine’s Day. It’s not that we hate candy and flowers, it just one of those take-it-or-leave-it holidays.

So this morning was just like any other morning – we got up with the kiddo when he started squawking from his crib. Hubs let the dogs outside to potty, I plopped the munchkin in his high chair with some Cheerios and yogurt and then we sat down to read the morning news. (Ok fine, we were on Twitter. Shut it.)

After breakfast, Monkey and I read some books and hubs headed to work. A few minutes later the phone rang.

“Some fat guy in a diaper was on our porch,” my husband said.

There’s still a few inches of snow on the ground and the cat refuses to stay out at night, so I was thinking about how uncomfortable that nappied nincompoop must be out there when my husband added, “He was wearing wings.”

Most women would have caught on at this point, but I actually had a neighbor once who checked his mail while wearing pink underwear, a tutu and alien antennae, so instead of thinking “Cupid,” I was thinking “I hope that door is locked. Where’s my gun?”

Then, over the phone, I heard this weird mouth-fart noise that could only be my husband suppressing a giggle.

“You got me a card, didn’t you?” I asked, feeling like crap because I hadn’t done any Valentine’s planning at all.

And indeed, he had. It was punny and silly and perfect, and inside he’d penned a beautiful letter. I thanked him and we hung up.

As the morning progressed, I thought hard about how to reciprocate his spontaneous declaration of love.

Well you know, of course I decided on food.

We were going to have tacos for dinner tonight – not the fanciest fare even if the tortillas were going to be freshly made.

Suddenly, this post I’d seen the day before popped into my head. Restaurant- style steak! Men love red meat that’s dead, having been drowned in butter, but barely qualifying as cooked. (Or at least, mine does.)

Except that he has the car seat in the truck with him at work and it’s not like I can just zip over to the store with a toddler in the trunk of the car, and we don’t have any steak here…exactly.

Oh! But what we did have was a huge beef tenderloin my mother had bought for Christmas dinner. We’d never actually gotten around to cooking it, so it was taking up an entire shelf in my deep freeze.

Now, that’s way too much meat for our little family to consume in one meal and since we’re heading out for a little vacation later this week I didn’t want to waste it by defrosting the whole thing.

“I know,” I thought. “I’ll just cut off a little piece of the end, slice it into steaks and serve them with roasted rosemary potatoes. What man doesn’t like steak and potatoes?”

Armed with my sharpest knife, I headed into the garage to the deep freeze.

I’d seriously underestimated a couple of things.

One, the size of the tenderloin. This was a $70 hunk of beef, y’all.

Two, frozen meat is freaking hard. The knife wouldn’t even scratch the surface.

So there I am downstairs with a hunk of frozen beef that resembles a cadaver leg – trying to come up with a way to lop off the end of it – when I caught sight of hubs’ tool chest.

“I’ll chisel this mother off, “ I said to myself, returning to my beefy challenge with a hammer and a (very clean) wood chisel.

You know, I discovered that would be a great way to cut beef medallions, but it wasn’t going to get me a clean slice through the middle.

Luckily, a more thorough search of the tool cabinet revealed a fresh, unopened package of new hacksaw blades.

Now I’m standing on a pile of dirty towels, this large, plastic-wrapped tenderloin pinned to the top of the washing machine which was the only clean flat surface available, vigorously sawing back and forth while meat confetti flew everywhere.

But I got a chunk cut off that sucker for dinner. Oh yes I did.

It was about 15 minutes later, after I’d cleaned up the murder scene in the garage that I realized he’d taken the car to work and left the truck – complete with toddler car seat – in the driveway for me to use.

Linking up with Yeah Write #44! You should really come check out the posts there. No two are alike. 

Neti Potter and the Deathly Nose Blows

Posted in Embarrassing photos, Marriage by

When we went to Texas last month, my husband whined mentioned to my grandmother that he’d been fighting the same sinus irritation and post-nasal drip for several weeks.

My grandparents were thrilled.

What’s so exciting about snot, you ask?

Well, my grandparents are evangelical neti pot converts, eager to convince owners of virgin nostrils that shoving the tip of a plastic watering can up said nostrils then irrigating the innocent sinuses within is the only way to nose nirvana.

You’ll meet a lot of people like this nowadays. They’ll extol the virtues of saline, swear by their own battery-powered (!!!) nasal cavity pressure washer and make fun of you for being a sissy for not trying it.

Well ‘scuse me, but Mama taught me at a young age not to stick things in my nose and she was right about most stuff, so I’m gonna pass.

My husband, however, was so desperate to be able to breathe normally that he willingly subjected himself to a nasal douching aided by my sweet granny.

And he did in fact enjoy the experience so much that he had me purchase for him his own little pot and packets of cleansing powder to take back to Kansas City with us.

It’s not a grievous hyperbolization to say that there have been several times over the last few weeks where I’ve wanted to drown my husband in the toilet after listening to him gurgle and hack after flooding his sinuses.

As much as I hate listening to the noises he makes while observing his new ritual, it’s nothing compared to how grossed out one of his employees was the other day, although she handled it much better than I would have.

Something had gone wrong with that morning’s nose watering. Saline went in, but saline did not come out. No amount of glugging or snarfing would get his head to drain.

I might have giggled a bit as he left for work.

While performing his duties later that morning, some of which require bending over, he was overcome with the urge to sneeze.

With his head lowered, he took a deep breath in preparation for that sneeze and was shocked when his nose unleashed a massive, salty splat of saline and snot upon the floor.

His employee, while surely disgusted, remained professional and merely said, “Neti pot, huh?”

I stringently object to the normalization of this practice, so I turned to the internet for support.

Only, it seems as if the rest of you people have been drinking the kool aid as well.

Observe:

Dana K over at Really, What Were We Thinking   (Makes it look cute with her adorable accent. )

And

Poppy at Funny or Snot   (The first I’d ever heard of a battery-powered nasal assault weapon. Also gets credit for coining the phrase “nasal douche.”

What about you? Are you a believer?

But what about the consonants?

Posted in Marriage by

*This was originally posted on my anniversary earlier this year. I edited it a bit to share again with Lovelinks. Click here for a chance to win a slot in The Bloggess sidebar for a month sponsored by freefringes.com. I’m also linking it with Theresa’s Wednesday Words of Wisdom at A Mountain Momma. 

I knew someone once who used to talk about how seriously she took her “marriage vowels.”

Now, I was pretty serious about my vows, but I never really contemplated my vowels.

After much thought, I figured it was important to take the AEIOU-and-sometimes-Ys pretty seriously.

Acceptance: What starts out as flutters in your chest at the mere sight of your loved one in the beginning will eventually turn into eye-rolls of annoyance later on. You don’t share a bed, a bathroom, or children with someone and not want to smack them occasionally. But if you accept one another for the beautifully flawed creatures you are, and understand that you’re no prize catch either, it’s easier to forgive when your spouse forgets to pay a bill on time, take the trash out, or farts on your leg in bed.

Empathy: Recognizing and sharing your spouse’s feelings leads to compassion. Much of the time, we get caught up in what we want, what we need, and forget to put ourselves in the other person’s shoes. Sometimes I actually have to sit down and concentrate very hard to see things from my husband’s perspective. I tell him it’s difficult because I have a hard time shoving my head that far up my ass, but he knows I’m kidding and that I’m really making an effort to understand what’s he’s dealing with.

Intimacy: Yeah, I’m talking about sex in this case. I’m gonna go ahead and say that it’s important to make the beast with two backs as much as humanly possible. I don’t think that people were meant to get freaky only for the sake of bearing children. If you’re not burning a hole through the bed on a regular basis, you’re missing out. Any time my husband and I are not getting along, I can always correlate our spats with a dry spell. And although many would say correlation does not imply causation, I’d say in this case, the more often you’re sharing your body with your spouse, be it in tip-top physical condition or flabby, fuzzy and dimpled, the happier you guys are going to be. (It’s really hard to stay mad at someone if you’ve recently seen their “O” face.)

Originality: You and your spouse are an original creation. There is no one else like the two of you. So don’t get caught up in the trap of “keeping up with the Joneses.” It’s easy to go from being a free-thinking person to being a lemming. You don’t need a Lexus, a McMansion and a yearly trip to Necker Island to be happy. Having the latest and greatest when it comes to stuff is definitely fun for awhile, but it’s not going to make you happy, especially when you realize you only bought it because you saw someone else had it. You’ll eventually see yourselves working so hard to fit into the mold of what an American couple should be that you could miss out on what the two of you really want out of life.

Union: You’ve been (hopefully) voluntarily joined. No one frog-marched you down that aisle into the arms of your spouse. You held some sort of ceremony to mark your intentions of becoming a single unit. Remember that when you’re upset with your partner and you want to vent to others. You wouldn’t betray yourself, so be careful not to betray your other half. Nothing is more pathetic than a grown up who still runs to their parents every time their spouse pisses them off. People are going to talk, so even though you think you’re speaking in confidence, you’re not, and what you thought was a private look into the innermost workings of your union is going to be public. I personally know way too much about others’ marriages, and you can’t “unknow” something. It’s really difficult to sit across the table from someone and not think, “That dude needs Viagra,” or “He’s a big fat liar.” Guard your marriage. Be careful what you share with others.

And sometimes, Yield: Even if you don’t want to. Even if you think you’re completely, totally justified and holding all the cards – give in. Because as a wise man once said: “Do you want to be right? Or do you want to be married?”

If you’re so inclined, you can vote for this post here until Friday. Thanks! (Update: We made it into the top 10% again. Thanks!)

Wednesday

Take me down to the little white church

Posted in Marriage by

He waited at the altar in a suit and tie. I walked down to meet him in an ivory gown. We said our vows in the same country church where his parents were married many years before.

This photo brings me joy every time I see it because I can clearly remember that gorgeous day in March. The fields of grass and heather echoed our wedding colors of purple and green. The air was still crisp and cool.

We were married on the Ides of March, superstitions be damned. Our first year of marriage included a death in the family, two miscarriages and a hurricane that destroyed everything we owned.

But we made our way through it all together, and I’m more in love with him now than I was on that day, tears streaming down my face as I choked through the words the preacher told me to say.

Share your favorite wedding photo, and tell us why you love it over at Mommy of a Monster & Twins.

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The Pythagorean Theorem in real life

Posted in Marriage by

I wrote this post a couple of days ago dedicated to my husband and all the things I love about him for What I Love About Him over at Multitasking Mumma’s.

In that post, I included this picture.

It seems as though you aren’t going to let me get away with just showing you the aftermath, and have also demanded asked that I explain myself.

So I will, but no judgment, ok?

Last March, when I was pregnant and admittedly hormonal, I stood at the back door and watched my husband tending to our dogs.

Two of the dogs were playing with a toy, and decided they no longer wanted to share, so they snarked at each other.

My husband got in the middle of them, but they were being total assholes that day and didn’t want to let it go, so they continued to bicker around him.

Now, a few months earlier, we had gotten burglarized and I had insisted on the purchase of two kick bars that we could use to block the doors from being opened. Eventually, my fear of getting robbed again was overtaken by my laziness in setting the bars in place, so they’d taken up residence on the floor next to the kitchen wall.

Worried that my husband was going to get bitten by these rotten dogs growling “Come at me, bro,” while they darted in and around his legs, locked in a bitchy slap fight over a freaking $2 piece of rubber, I picked up a metal bar and headed outside.

I fully intended to poke at the moronic mongrels until they came to their senses, but I didn’t need to, as my husband had collared them both and was griping at them as they sat shamefacedly before him.

As he lectured them about how they’d embarrassed and disappointed him, I began to get bored. (In my defense, he’s rather long winded when he’s delivering an ass chewing, and it tends to become tedious.)

So, I began to swing the pole around like a ninja with a…oh hell, what are those things called?

Yeah, so anyway, I’m a ninja with a pole, and I’m swinging it around super skillfully. I turn around in an awesome move, surprisingly agile what with my big belly, and I feel the pole connect with something.

Something taller than me.

“Oh shit,” I remember thinking. “I’ve knocked out his teeth. He’s going to kill me.”

Terrified, I whirl around to see what I hit.

My husband is standing there and his face is missing, completely obscured by a fast-flowing red waterfall.

I began to freak out while he’s just standing there quietly wondering why his hands are all bloody, and drag him inside to put a wet towel on his face so we can investigate the source of the, um, leak.

I was picturing hours of painful dental work, thinking that I may have earned myself a place out back in the doghouse next to our pissy pups, so I was kind of relieved to see that I’d only cut his eyebrow.

Only, as in it was hanging over his eye.

The circular edge of the metal pole had left a crescent moon cut that created a fallen flap of skin, revealing some pretty gross stuff up in there. (On the plus side, at least I know my husband is not an android. So there’s that.)

I tried to push the skin back up, but it was obvious he was going to need stitches. Which is awesome, since he hates needles.

Anyway, I put him in the car and we head over to the ER, which is five minutes down the road, and embarrassingly enough, a place we tend to frequent.

We walk in, tell them about his injury, and they call him back. But they won’t let me go with him.

I’m confused at this point. I always go back with him. That time with the chest pains? I went back. That time he slipped and fell and hit his head on the concrete beside the house? I went back.

Why wouldn’t they let me go back?

My question was answered about five minutes later when my husband stepped back out into the lobby to get me.

He confessed that as the nurses were taking his vitals, they had questioned him about the injury.

“Did she hit you?” they asked.

“Yes,” he said. “But it was an accident.”

“Do you have these ‘accidents’ often?” they inquired.

You can imagine how mortified I was at this point. Ok, yes, I’d broken a few plates during this pregnancy, and ok, so the crack in the bathroom door was from where I kicked it, but c’mon, people! I’ve never hit my husband on purpose!

In a thankfully anticlimactic finish, we go on back and eventually they get him all stitched up (notice how I’m skipping the part about how he acted like a toddler getting immunizations here, that’s cause I’m a good wife) and send us home.

The funniest part of all of this, at least for me, was after I told my students what had happened, two of them got together and drew this for me as part of an assignment.

There were no funny parts for him. For the next few weeks, he got to sport a stylish black eye with his stitches.

Best Easter picture EVER.

See? You can’t even see the scar unless you’re really close.

Not that close. Back up off my husband. I have a pole…