We're Going!!

Have I told you lately how wonderful my Hubs is? In case you haven't been reading previous posts, let me tell you that I am married to my best friend... which means that he regularly makes me crazy, frustrates the hell out of me and I often scratch my head in confusion over some of his "Big Ideas." But that's all part of loving this man of mine, because he also is incredibly tender with my girls and even though he might not show it outwardly every day, I know he loves me.

He recently stepped up to the plate to show me, once again, how much he cares for me and I am overwhelmed with gratitude for what he is about to do..  Remember this post? Hubby could see how devastated I was over not being able to save the cash to go to Boston to see my dear aunt Dottie. He knows how much this special lady means to me and he wanted to make sure I didn't have to give up the precious opportunity to go visit her... so he generously offered to pay for the trip!

Believe me, if I wasn't old and busted, I'd be doing cartwheels right now!  Boston! Dottie! A dream come true!

I can't wait to see this beautiful lady again!

We only have a few days that we can take off of work and school, but I will take what I can get.  We're coming, Dottie!  I'm so excited, I can hardly stand it!!

(I love you, baby. Thank you so much for making my dream a reality.)

Keeping Busy

Hubby is still out of town.  My work-horse guy is stuck in a hotel room every evening and he is going stir-crazy! And last night I slept with the lights on because the bed seemed even more empty to me in the dark. But here's the crazy part... we have talked more in the last few days than we have in a long, long time! He's a captive audience on the other end of that cell phone and he is actually listening to the things I say. Maybe his boredom isn't a completely bad thing after all!  It's still hard to be without him though. I miss his warmth at night, the feel of his foot searching for mine as we both drift off to sleep, and the comfort he brings by taking such good care of our home and our family.  He will be home for one day (hopefully) this weekend and then back to Atlanta to finish his air-bus training.  I am looking forward to some great snuggles over the weekend!

(I seriously need to try to remember all of these sweet, gooey-sentimental things once he is back home every day and wearing on my nerves!)

In spite of me pining for my sweetheart, the girls and I have managed to keep busy every day. I am grateful for busy schedules that have kept me occupied and having fun while Hubby is away.  Baby showers, photo shoots, even a visit to the Federal Building to finally change my last name on my social security card... busy days meant the sting of missing Hubby was a little less.

The other day, the girls and I headed out to take some portraits. We have been taking their pictures seasonally, and we had hoped for some great spring pictures to add to the collection for Carley's and Madi's senior pictures. I had scouted out a great location the day prior so all we had to do was show up and hope the rain clouds kept their distance! Okay... that AND hope that we didn't get arrested for ignoring the "No Trespassing" signs on the historic train bridge! We had a blast!  The pictures look great, we had an incredibly fun time, and the only people who stopped near the bridge were factory workers that stopped to shout out their truck windows how cute they thought the pictures were going to turn out.  Fun Fun!

As it turns out, taking the pictures is only half of the fun. We then came home to look through the 690 pictures on my camera alone and then the editing process began. We each have different ideas about how we want the pictures to look, so one pose can end up looking completely different depending on who does the editing. Here are a few of my favorites so far:

Linzie Savanna

Carley M'Lyssa

Emily Nicole

Linzie Savanna

Abby Julia

Abby Julia

Carley M'Lyssa

Linzie Savanna

Emily Nicole

Carley M'Lyssa

Carley M'Lyssa

Linzie Savanna

I'm just getting started on editing Madi's pictures. I told her I want her to wear her hair down so I can get pictures of her hair also..  She has a super busy schedule but hopefully I can get her to cooperate this weekend!

Catherine Madison

Catherine Madison

We had so much fun and we have so many great pictures! These are just a sampling of the wonderful images we captured that night. I adore my girlies and I am so grateful to them for helping me keep my mind off of missing Hubby this week.  Now if I could just get brave enough to sleep without the lights on then I'd really be making progress!

My best friend, Hubby himself, is coming home tomorrow! I am so excited to see him and love him to pieces.. even if it is only for 36 hours or so... and then he goes back to Atlanta for one more week. We can do this!

1,862.12 Miles Between Us

My heart hurts. I know people do this every day. I know so many couples have it so much worse than I do. But the thing is... I don't do well without him. I bawled all the way home from the airport after dropping him off. Ouch! I miss his snuggles, his kisses and hugs. I miss his laugh and the way he teases the girlies. I'm terrified something will break while he's gone and then what will I do?? I need my best friend here with me.  I hate the thought of crawling into our bed alone... Hurry home baby. I love you!

I'm counting down the time until I see him again. 

11 Days

281 Hours

16864 Minutes

More than 1,000,000 seconds

Not fair, Delta.... Not fair.

Life Is What Happens When You're Busy Making Other Plans

Waking up to snow this morning puts me in a wintery sort of mood. I'm thinking it is going to be a great day to make some clam chowder and homemade bread while dreaming of wonderful New England visits. It's hard to believe that we had glorious spring weather last week with temperatures so warm that our windows were open wide all day and night.  Not so much this morning.. Brrrr!

Speaking of last week, remember the Jeep I bought at auction for the girls? I am laughing at what it has turned into. Apparently Hubby had a hidden genetic need for Jeeps and now that his switch has been triggered, he's a full-on Jeep man! It is really cute to see how attached he is to the vehicle I purchased for the girls... but truthfully I am beginning to wonder how he will ever be able to let go of it long enough for them to claim it. I think we just may have a turf war in the making, but at least the girls won't have to worry about the Jeep being properly maintained. Cute Hubby completely cleaned the nasty interior, washed all of the windows and then hand washed the exterior and changed the oil. Could it be true love? I don't know how deeply his Jeep love affair runs, but I definitely love the way we can entice a sly grin from him just by saying the word "Jeep" in his presence.

Have I mentioned lately just how much I love this cute guy of mine?

Our week was also filled with Valentine gifts, scholarship highs and lows, one mortgage refinance loan and a Sweetheart's dance for Emily and Madi. It was a super busy week, but let me tell you a little secret.... Hubby has been in some sort of class for his work all week which means he was working during the day and HOME in the evenings! *happy dance*  I'm certain there would have been drama up to my eyeballs if Hubby hadn't been right by my side each night.  He's a super hero! Maybe we should call him Anti-Drama Man!  Hubby has two more weeks of school in the day and you better believe I will be enjoying every minute of having him home with the family in the evening!

**Update-  I started writing this post on Sunday morning. I finished it on Monday morning in a much different mood than I was feeling the previous day. 

Last night Hubby sprang it on me that he was bidding for his yearly shift at work. He explained to me that he wanted to go back to working on the planes, rather than working the tower which he has done for the past two years... working on airplanes means he would be gone in the evening and he would not get weekends with us... his family.  He then told me that there WAS one tower opening that would give him the same shift and days off that he has had for the last year. I desperately hoped he would choose that option. I tried to point out all of the reasons why that would be the best choice.. one full weekend day with the family, more opportunities for at least one day of getting out of the house together, weekend visits with Ashley.. it seemed like the best choice to me. I was sick over it but hoped that he would choose family.  He did not.  :(

Suffice it to say that I went to bed with a broken heart last night. Hubby and I exchanged some heated words and I cried. A lot. But there's nothing I can do about it now. Can someone please explain to me why men are so dumb when it comes to the obvious?  Oh well. I will have to learn to live with the new schedule.. and concentrate on my girlies who are my true constants anyway.

Not the way I hoped to wrap up this blog post but sometimes life delivers a kick in the pants that derails the happy train.

Hubby's Selfish Monster:1  Me: 0

Men Are From Mars?

Can someone please explain men to me? Not like that, I have a working understanding of that.  What I really would like clarified is why it feels like us women have to constantly babysit our men because of something they might do/break/donate to the thrift shop when we aren't looking.

Now if my Hub-eyond reads this, he is going to be upset because, in his defense, he is an amazing guy! He cooks, cleans (if he feels like it) and he keeps our cars close to tip top shape! Like I said, amazing. However, there was that episode last week where we actually argued before he went to work because he wants to install an exposed beam ceiling in our (most-definitely-not-rustic) contemporary house. I tried to explain to him why this wouldn't work but he did not get it and then he quickly moved on to how he wants to install a fireplace in our family room which would mean the chimney would have to come up through our bedroom/bathroom. Why am I the only one who sees this as a problem??

My guy is a fabulous cook! This is his homemade deep dish pizza from last week. YUM!

Carley and I tried to explain PMS to him the other night. No joke! The way I figure it, my guy lives with 6 women at any given time and he deserves to have a little insight to help him navigate, right?  Hubby couldn't comprehend the fact that it could happen at any time.. he was stuck on the "Pre" part and said that it HAS to come and go according to the "Pre"fix. Oh my goodness how we laughed! Right about the time he threw his hands in the air and said, "You know what? NO! I don't want to know anything about this. MEN don't need to talk about this!" I laughed and told him that our conversation was going to end up on the blog.

(He also happened to be wearing my fuzzy slippers at the time, which somehow made everything even more hilarious!)

As great as he is though, he (and seemingly every man I know) has really left me scratching my head in the past. Like when he weed whacked my flowerbed because "it would be easier to plant new than to weed between the plants" or when he donated my nearly-new ultra high speed VCR to the thrift shop without telling me and yet he collects random scrap junk in his shop in a way that would make Templeton proud!  My sweetie gives away televisions, couches and washing machines too! (All working condition) But he has not one but TWO garbage disposals sitting on a shelf in his shop. It's enough to drive a person crazy!

Thankfully I have figured out that he gets bored in the winter and I no longer let him talk me into random demolition projects around the house. Seriously! One year he relocated the tiny deck landing off of our kitchen doors because he thought the stairs would look better going the other way. If he tried to relocate our $10,000 deck now, he'd lose limbs for sure! There's also the as-yet-unfinished family room included in his winter blah projects. Mismatched paint on the walls and ceiling and the unfinished wooden trim around the ceiling have now been there so long that I'm sick of it and it needs to be redone. And now there's paint sitting in my living room for the window project he wants to start. I'll let you know how long the paint sits there before anything happens. ;)

I was talking to my mom yesterday and asked her what it is about our men that has us keeping a constant eye on them to keep them out of trouble and to keep the household mishaps to a minimum. She had no explanation but offered up a few doozy experiences of her own with my dad. Husbands, fathers, brothers... it doesn't seem to matter what their age, they all have this mystifying ability to make us wonder what the heck they were thinking!

As I sat there in my mom's kitchen on Superbowl Sunday talking about our men and the silly things they do, I could only ask her one thing...

"Do you think they feel the same way about us??"

"Newlyweds become oldyweds, and oldyweds are the reasons that families work."

I held Hubby's hand as we walked across the movie theater parking lot... echoes of distant memories were all around me. He recounted how he first saw me walking through that parking lot, and even described what I was wearing that day. I was going to a movie by myself all those years ago because my little girls were spending the weekend with their dad and I had no other friends that lived nearby. It was a heartbreaking and confusing time for me; the end of a marriage is never easy. I didn't know then that the smiling stranger waving to me in the parking lot would be the best thing that ever happened to me (other than my sweet girls) and that my future with him would be so full of love and laughter. Ten years ago I met my best friend in a parking lot and Friday night we  had a fun date to celebrate our 8th wedding anniversary by going back to where it all began.  Oh how I love this man!

Eight years ago I married my best friend.  In my twenties, I would have thought that eight years was a lifetime! Not so! My sweet hubby and I are just now getting past all of those relationship blips that so many people (including us) stumble on and then wind up with a spectacular face plant!It's all about learning to navigate the little things so we can enjoy the big picture.  His little quirks, my weepy moments, handing out the compliments and dishing out the love for reassurance.  Huge nuclear fights and quiet stewing for days...it's all part of the learning process. (Although I'd much rather skip the fighting and stewing altogether!) I try to explain to my girls that it's not about the fight, it's about the process of negotiating each others' feelings and learning to do it better next time. 

I've been thinking about marriage quite a bit this week. There have been behind the scenes conversations about what a marriage is and why it's ok for Hubby and I to yell at each other for two solid hours and then simply be done with it so we can cuddle on the couch. I've heard it said that in a marriage there are a million reasons to fall out of love, but the marriage itself will hold you together long enough to fall in love again with the same person.  I couldn't have said it better myself!

Marriage is so much more than filing joint taxes and having someone to kiss on New Year's Eve. My Hubby is my best friend, my snuggle bug, my confidante, and my partner in crime. When I'm having a particularly tough night refereeing the girls, I know I can email or text Hubby at work to get some sympathy and promises of extra hugs when he gets home.  Don't tell the kids, but we tag team this parenting gig. If I'm having a bad day, Hubby takes over and vice-versa.  Girls beware if both parents are having an off day at the same time! 

I've said it a million times before, but it has to be said again- I am so grateful for this wonderful man in my life who willingly took on a single mom and her five little girlies. I don't think there are many men on the planet who would volunteer for this life, let alone rock it the way my Hubby does!  Our marriage has not been perfect,  but we learn from our mistakes and we are proud of the family we have nurtured and the bonds we strengthen together.

Baby, thank you for being my best friend and greatest ally. I love our travel adventures, camping trips with the girlies, family movie nights, finding great war stories to share (BOB), and playing footsie with you on the couch or when you're sleeping. I admire your fearlessness, your enthusiasm for life and your awe-mazing work ethic!  Thank you for helping me be a better person, for being the Dad the girls need in their lives, and for your never-ending goofiness that keeps us all in fits of giggles!  You are my favorite, you are my everything. I love you to the end of time and back again!

Muah!

Happy eighth anniversary, Sweetheart!  

How about another 50 at least?