A Happy Time in Life

1.  Joey is only waking up once during the night.  What the?  When the?  How the?  Beats me and I don't even friggin care at all.  It happened and I am beyond relieved.  I wake up feeling like I can't move I've been sleeping so long.  (<---- 4 hours)

2.  While cutting through what appears to be Devil's Snare trying to get rid of all the dead over growth in my new (really old really overgrown ) backyard I continue to find gems.  And score a little late fall sun.  Aside from the usual gemmies of snakes and empty Gatorade bottles and Walmart bags... I've unearthed a climbing rose bush, purple cone flowers, lilac starts, and a stable!  Okay... the stable wasn't exactly hidden.  But it was back in The Forbidden Pasture.  Which isn't at all verboten.  It's just scary going back there by myself.  You know.  There's.  Like.  Animals back there.  But that little stable is darling enough for me to clean out and make it a club house.


3.  My sister, Teener Weiner, came and spent the night last week and left 4 miniature pints of ice cream.  She was here Thursday.  Just found them today.  Gotta open my freezer more.

4.  I taught Kole how to give Nuggy Noses.  (Learning the alphabet and how to count to 10 can wait.) All on his own he decided that during the giving of a Nuggy Nose it is best to say, "Chuggy, Chuggy, Chuggy." *shakes head, shrugs, smiles*

5.  I carved a jack-o-lantern this year for the first time in many many moons.  The downside is that crap on the inside of pumpkins still makes me itchy.

6.  We bought ourselves flannel sheets for our anniversary.  Oh.  Em.  Gee.  It's like a new bed.  With a radiator built in.  Love it.

7.  I just finished reading The Joy Luck Club.  It was an excellent read.  There was a lot of those Chinese zingers.  You know those one liners where every word has a double meaning and it is deep stuff.  Loved that.  Loving the Chinese culture a little more.  I'm not about to hang swords on the wall or get a tattoo or anything.  But I will recommend The Joy Luck Club.  It says in there that Magpies are considered good luck.  Well guess who has a yard full of Magpies?  Little ol' me.

8.  I signed up for the paper.  I get The Trib.  Man, it makes me feel like an adult.  Reading the paper in the morning while I eat my Cinnamon Toast Crunch. 

Kole checkin out the Toys R Us ads.  Sitting in a chair he invented himself.

9.  If you put enchilada sauce on top of your homemade nachos (you know chips with grated cheese on top- pop in the microwave for 23 seconds)... you'll never go back.  It's like scraping your dish at the end of a good Mexican meal.  A little secret I learned from Table Magazine.

 10.  My mug collection is really taking off.



    

My Heart Melts.

There is something about meeting up with old friends.  What is it?  It's almost like magic.  Somehow, you feel more yourself even though you haven't seen the people for over 10 years.
Today, I had lunch with the Gomes'.  They lived in my neighborhood in Pittsburgh and went to church with us.  Me and Julie used to go to their house in the summer and play Risk.  For hours.  For daaaaays!  She'd bring us bundt cakes on our birthdays and sometimes bring one just for Family Home Evening.  We'd make fun of her because she said "dollars" funny.  She'd walk her Great Dane, Chester by our hosue and let us pet him.  Her boys would swim in our pool and jump on the trampoline.  We had cookouts together.  She knew me during that awkward (and horrendously ugly) teenage stage everyone (but Andi) goes through.  She was at Girls Camp with me.  She sent me money when I graduated.  She used to wear a pretty navy blue dress to church with a big sunflower barrette. I left home, grew up, and Facebook was invented.  We've been playing Words with Friends for a few months now.  Not the same game obviously.  She's really hard to beat, by the way.  She mentioned she was close to my town today and I casually mentioned we should meet up.  And you know?  She made it happen.  That meant so much to me.  We all met for lunch at Caputo's.  Me, Koley, Joey, Sister Gomes, and Brother Gomes.  All there. It felt so good to see them I cried.  I tried internally blaming it on the post-pardum hormones... but in all seriousness I was just overjoyed.  She and her husband bought me lunch (and bought Koley a HUGE chocolate chip cookie), they hugged me, they loved on my kids, they helped me pack up the car.  I felt like I was living on Caryl Drive again. 
And, today, when I was driving home I thought, She helped shape my life.  She helped me become me.  That's powerful.  And a little heavy for this here blog. 

They are good good people.
And it was good good good to be with them today.
 

Seven

It's been 7 years today since me and the Kenmo tied the knot.  I'm really proud of that.
There have been sunny times and rainy seasons.  And a couple friggin' tornadoes.
There have been peaks and there have been valleys.  And a chasm here and there.
It's been a marriage.
A good one.  Where we have to work things out.  And talk through things we'd rather push under the rug.  And sometimes I did slash do push them under the rug... until Ken hangs up a bathroom towel wrong and I explode all over him.
Hmph.  It's a marriage.

I'm not going to go into the rough times make the good times better.  Because our rough times never made our good times better.  They just made the good times further apart!  Wert!  The rough times have made me a more compassionate partner though.  Those are the times when I grit my teeth (or bite my tongue or turn the other cheek) and decide whether or not I'm going to stick it out.  I decided seven years ago I would.  Ken tries his damn-dest to make it easy for me.
I'll admit some of the newlywed-iness has worn off and when I see Vicky and Jenn I miss that period (or maybe I just miss life before kids.)
But there is such a confident comfort in our marriage than I depend on and love.
The white hot passion has turned down to a burning red... sometimes I mild orange... occasionally a pale yellow.  But it's still there.
We have each other for better and for worse.
Which I think is pretty good.
He makes me better.  

Post Script:  I asked Ken if he thought he'd get the 7 Year Itch.  He didn't know what that was.  After I explained it to him I asked again.  His response, "Yeah.  I'm feeling pretty itchy."