Category Archives: Blogging

The Best Husband I’ve Got

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You know why my husband is better than yours?
Because the other night when he tried to smother me with a pillow and didn’t succeed he said “Murder attempt number 1 failed…”
Which is I think is a total positive, because we’ve been married for 645 days, and there could have been way more failed murder attempts I didn’t know about.

He’s the best husband I’ve got.

I Have Left My Heart In So Many Places

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I’ve realized since starting to write this that I feel tied to places, more so than other things.
Am I the only person like this?
The Black Hills, for example, I hold so many memories there. But I don’t categorize them in my mind as “family” or “vacations”. They’re just The Black Hills. That place where yes, I went on a vacation, and yes, I went with family, but it was so much more than that. It’s my Peter Pan Happy Thought. The close my eyes and escape place.
But it’s also how I knew San Diego wasn’t my place. It was just a nice touristy place I went once and saw the beach. But the beach doesn’t do anything for me. I don’t feel soothed by the waves like I do rolling hills.
There are other places I know aren’t meant for me, but a few I think might rank up close to the hills. Kentucky for one, is beautiful. If I had to pick a second favorite, between that and the farmlands in Nebraska would be close. Both feel like home, and both are stunning to me. Right after mountains, I love farmland.
I can’t wait to discover more. To find out which places speak to me and which ones I’m ready to move on from. J says he wants to buy an RV and tour the US, I say yes if the kitties can go. Although they’re going to need some practice driving time after the disaster of driving them home for Christmas. Maybe by the time we retire they’ll be ready for the challenge.

San Diego

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I felt so busy yesterday I didn’t really give a recap of San Diego-
The trip started with both J and I getting sick after the awards banquet we held on Saturday night. And although we were supposed to leave our house at 3 am to get to the airport, both of us were so sick we wouldn’t have made it out of bed. So we didn’t leave until Monday, drugged up on dramamine.
This started out our trip a little stressful, and when we arrived the guy in charge of the range was stressed too…and stayed stressed the entire event. Running matches is obviously not his full time job as there were a lot of key things he forgot about. For example a rule book. There were no rules for this match. We just flew by the seat of our pants for 2 weeks figuring out exactly what he wanted. The only highlight of work might be that the Marines thought J was Special Forces since he had a beard, and were shocked when he wasn’t.
Aside from all the work drama we did get to see some cool stuff and eat a lot of great seafood (after only eating soup for the first week)
We went to the Southwest most point of the continental US, where both of our phones received a text message saying “Welcome to Mexico! Txt messages will not be $0.50”.
We saw baby seals laying on the beach, the USS Midway carrier, Rosecrans National Cemetary, surfers, the sunset over the ocean, Hollywood blvd and Rodeo Drive, the Hollywood sign in the mountains and a few studios in Burbank. Overall it was a good trip, although we were both very ready to come home at the end.
I can’t really say that I’d want to go back to San Diego again, now that I’ve been there, there wasn’t anything I’d need to see again. After putting my hands in Marylin Monroes prints I’m feeling pretty set on Southern California… now maybe we’ll have to see the Northern part.

Busy!

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Well it’s been awhile… I’ve been away from my desk, and home, for about 2 week now. If not longer because of the long hours I worked before I went out to California. Plus the stomach flu/food poisoning I got.
But now we’re back home; so me, and the kitties are all happy. Back to our small home.
And now the house shopping continues, and it’s pretty discouraging. We found a house before Christmas that we really liked, but someone else bought it before we even got to make an offer. It’s hard to find a house between the Army Depot, National Forest, and Ghetto taking up so much space. Plus we don’t want to drive more than 45 minutes to work, and more preferably less than 30 min.
It seems like we came home and hardly got a break; back to work, back to fixing our broken water heater, back to non-stop going.

To the Man I have Never Met

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We have never met, but I sat in the back row at your funeral and watched the folded flag get passed to your crying family. I heard people eulogize you, and tell your life as if you were a dead man dying. In a funeral where I should have felt sad for the people you left behind, with their aching hearts for your presence, I felt sad for you. That your life had been summed up in a matter of minutes, and all I could feel was contempt for the speakers who would do this to a human life.
Because there must have been a life there. Because of you my husband always pumps my gas and never gives me a card on my birthday. If you touched no one else’s life, you touched his. This is what should have been said at your funeral:
“Sir, I have never met you but I am reminded of you every year on my birthday. I am reminded of what a great man you were; a loving husband and admired coach. I know you, even though you do not know me, through the people you have touched. Your life will live on through the descendants of your heart, because even though we are not related by blood, I carry you with me.”
I did not get to say those things to the people that came to tell you goodbye, and I do not know what they took away from that day. But I did get to sit at a bar, on thin wobbly stools, beside your ashes, and it was an honor to share that drink with you.

Tattoo

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When I was younger I remember my mother wanting a tattoo, and my dad telling her that if she put a picture of it on the wall and she liked it after 3 months, or 6 months, or some amount of time, that she could get it. I never saw the picture- and she never got that tattoo.

Aug 27th, 2012, 169 days ago, I put my picture up. And for the last 169 days I’ve still wanted this tattoo.

I’ve wanted a tattoo for a long time, but I never had that “picture” to hang on the wall. I could never make up my mind about something I’d really like enough to have with me forever. After I got married and moved so far from home I decided I wanted to get something with my brother. Because I’ve only got 1, so he’s the absolute best (I almost said he’s the bomb and then thought he might not appreciate the 1990’s compliment). I wanted something more than our DNA, which we had no choice in, to link us together. I want people to ask me why I have this tattoo, and say I got it with my brother, and it binds us together.

We looked at some stuff for awhile, but none of it really spoke to me.

Until recently when I found my forever ink, my constant reminder. Something that’s not about my past, or just the present or what I want in the future, but all of it combined.


N 43 51’ 58.0367”

W 103 31’ 56.1533”


This is the place where I feel whole. Where I simultaneously feel so small in the world and yet so meaningful. Where my family spent almost every vacation. The memories and love I have from here are overwhelming. It was somewhere I even took my husband when we were still dating and wanted him to love as much as me.

It’s Native American history, it’s nature, it’s Harley-Davidson, it’s tears outside a frozen lake, it’s family, it’s friends, it’s meditation, it’s a party, it’s a cold ride, it’s my dad overcoming disease and it will be our ashes.

The only problem is… getting J on board. He hates tattoos, apparently. Although I’ve heard him say how hot those rocker/50’s girls are with all their tattoos. And, he even said he’d get one, one time, in a Waffle House, with witnesses, and it wasn’t even 2 am.
I’ve been leaving hints and sending him messages at work… http://imgfave.com/view/2565757. But he’s not budging. In fact recently he’s just been ignoring the idea. Whatev’s… I’ll keep trying

News Update

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So when I sit in my office I read a lot of “news”. I put news in quotes here because I think I should use the term loosely. It’s not really like politics, war, business news, which I sometimes glance at, but more like entertainment, Yahoo! news. I thought I’d share, because today was a pretty good news day.

They’re going to stop running the mail on Saturday. This seems both relevant and important. Although, I don’t really get much mail, I do like the excuse to walk outside to our box each day. Without mail on Saturday, I might not have a reason to go outside.

Monopoly got a new playing piece “sassy cat”. Which apparently beat out a dog, guitar, diamond ring and robot. I’d have voted for the cat too, obviously.

I’d like to share a health related article with you, but I have to skip that section as it makes me paranoid about dying before I’m 30. And I’m pretty sure Joey is tired of getting texts about things that are going to kill us, and then him explaining to me how GoogleHealth isn’t an accurate representation of research.

And in S&J personal news updates… there’s really nothing much.
Dang, makes it hard to write a news update when all we’ve done recently is work. We’re booked for about the next 8 weekends with matches, and that 9th free one I’m sure will fill up before we get there.
I think we are however in the market for a new toothbrush holder. Since we’ve been doing a little bit more house updating it’s about time we got some house “stuff” to look like people not only hoard belongings here, but actually live here. We had to get rid of the last one because someone a little tipsy knocked it over into the sink and broke it. But more importantly GaterBait liked to sit in the sink and chew on the bristles. But she only ever chewed on J’s brush… strange. Now that we’re short one toothbrush eating cat we might be adult enough to manage a new toothbrush holder, however there is still the tipsy culprit who knocked it over in the first place.

Confession

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Confession: I am addicted to crappy teenage television shows.
Most recently its been Vampire Diaries, and before that Gossip Girl.
In fact its a good thing we don’t actually have a TV or I’d be stuck in front of it all the time. Now I have to watch whatever is recently added on Netflix. Which I of course do by watching the entire season in a weekend and then feeling depressed when it’s over.
All this TV watching has reminded me of the most fantastic TV week of my life (aside from when the original Power Rangers was on, and it was followed by Wish Bone, nothing will be better than that). But the most fantastic adult TV week of my life, happened in college, when I did have cable. There was some promotion where we were granted the greatest channel to grace television. The Game Show Network. Ah, the name of it makes me smile. It had everything from “Family Feud”, “The Newlywed Show” and “Baggage”. I’m sure I discovered it because Jeopardy started about the time that I came home from class. But after Jeopardy, there was a whole world of game shows that I didn’t know existed! If there’s something I like more than teenage vampire love drama, it’s game shows. I would race home after class to catch those shows. I would even call J after watching them at night and give him a play by play of what happened. “Can you believe she guessed that?!?” “Oh you won’t believe what was in their baggage!” (Obviously he loves me a lot because he let me relive game shows to him.)
After about a week I knew I had to share this great find with my roommates. How had they, the girls who did homework, ate supper and slept in front of the TV not know about this channel?!? But alas, as soon as I decided to enlighten their lives and give them a reason to race home too, our promotion was over. The worst part was the cost was too high for us poor college students to upgrade.
I still like to reminisce about that fantastic period of time. I was recently reminded of it while in a BBQ restaurant in downtown Birmingham… with bars on the windows… and bullet holes in the walls… I mean the food was delicious… Anyway, I miss TGSN. But I also miss Moo Mesa, and no one seems to remember them at all. So I’ll just settle for some vampires.

The Greatest Show On Earth

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Friday night was circus night and I can’t even express how magical it was. I haven’t been somewhere so beautiful in a long time. Elephants, Tigers, Clowns, Excitement, Suspense; “The Greatest Show On Earth”.It reminded me of the summers I worked at 4H camp. Where everyday felt like it was the greatest day of your life. Essentially your job, everyday, was to be as excited as you could possibly make yourself, for every waking minute. Camp was a place where if it was raining, you were excited about it. It was saying yes to everything, and when something failed, knowing that Plan B was going to be as awesome as Plan A. It was summers of sleep deprivation that felt good, fascination in everything, and unexpected newness everyday.I can’t remember ever feeling anger, hurt, or disappointment while in that place. People just… got along. There was no reason to be petty. But mainly there was no reason for me to be controlling. Things just happened there, and you knew there wasn’t much you could do about it but keep going, and make it so that the group of ten or so thirteen year olds following you around didn’t know the difference. Because if you were having a good time, they were having a good time, and it was contagious both ways.

I miss that. You were just constantly being lifted up. Because although the first week drained you, and you knew you couldn’t possibly ever smile again because you’d done it for 6 days straight and your jaw hurt and you’re sunburned, and bug bitten and sleeping in a cot… The next day was easier. It was contagious within you too. You push your personality so hard that after awhile, that’s just how you are. You’re happy. You’re optimistic.

And that was the circus was for me. That new thing I’d forgotten to look for everyday, reminding me if I don’t push everyday to find that happiness in rain, I’ll get stuck.

Blue Monday

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This week started with Blue Monday, which I didn’t know until Monday was the most depressing day of the year. I had to come into work, even though it was MLK Jr Day, so I was pretty pessimistic about how the week would be.
But Blue Monday was pretty great for me, and it’s been a pretty great Blue Week!
I finally got my butt in gear and started working out again. Which always makes me feel so much better. I can tell in my body and back that it’s good for me almost instantly.
J tiled a backsplash in the kitchen, which I thought would be a minor project, but actually makes the kitchen look great. The tile I happened to like the most was on clearance, which normally never happens (somehow I find expensive stuff!), and it looks great, did I say that yet?
And this Blue Friday I have a date (with my husband and two weekend roommates we’ve adopted) to the circus! I’m pretty sure I’ve never been to a circus before, so I’m pysched.
That reminds me, I should see where Chipotle is in relation to the show.