Oh My God a Post!

This woman is smiling because her house is clean and she had nothing to do with it.

Becoming a grad student after working for 16 years in a completely different field as well as having two babies and raising them up was, in two words, an adjustment.  For the first time in a long long time, I began to focus on myself.  That sounds like a good thing—a relief—to someone who isn’t a mom and, in a lot of ways, it was.  But the guilt is never far behind when a mom gives a few brain cells over to things other than house and home. 

But, after wrestling with all the child-related what if’s and getting over the fear that I would be the oldest person in the room—including the professor—I began to have an amazing time as a student again.   And the guilt began to fade away as I saw my husband (always a great father but a man with a full time job) take the reins with all the little tasks that make up a day in a family with children.  The kids began to look to him for help with things when in the past, no matter what I was doing (making dinner, taking a shower!), they would ask me even if he was sitting there, doing nothing.   He began to know their schedule probably better than I ever did, helping them with homework, signing permission forms, etc., while I could devote myself to reading for class and working on papers.   

He even CLEANED THE HOUSE.

So, nearing the end of a three-year grad program, I’m now not only more educated and (hopefully!) a better candidate for a better job, I’m also a woman in a better marriage.  I never imagined that would be one of the perks of going back to school.  And while I still have some guilt that I don’t remember when my son’s history paper is due (or, honestly, what his History teacher’s name is), my kids have  learned two things from their mom putting them second for the first time ever: education, at any age, is important (and do-able!) and a good marriage truly is a partnership.   

Sometimes it’s 50/50.  Most of the time it’s not.

Something New

Today was a really good day. And it felt like what the next chapter will be like and I think I like it. 

Today I spent the day with my husband.

This may not sound earth-shattering but when you've been pretty much consumed with the daily life of having children for 14 years, a simple day out doing things that have nothing to do with them is pretty amazing.  

HH and I went to a {really cool used furniture store in K-town} to look for some paintables cheap.  Score!  We agreed on a gnarly orangey desk with awesome hardware and a cool/weird drawer that has these wooden slats in them for files (I think) and a long credenza to help reconfigure our family room to create two areas--one for tv-watching and one for a home office.  The price for two solid wood pieces of furniture that need at most a paint job and at least a cleaning up?  $53.  Take that, IKEA.  AND the place had the entertainment factor of employing the most {burnt} guy on the planet.  The dude is WEIRDLY fascinating.  

After that, a trip to the farmer's market for lunch, some candy, and 20 pumpkins (work event!).  THEN (this keeps getting more awesome) a trip to my favorite {Mennonite store} which HH was impressed by simply because of the juxtaposition of them selling wasabi powder AND all the accoutrement for making homemade sausage.  Finally, a slow ride home through the country, a nap, and a {popcorn dinner}.

Heavenly.


I get sad thinking that someday the kids will be gone.  I worry that they won't want to visit or that *shudder* they will feel the way we do about some of our respective kin, but today was a spark of the great part of this upcoming change.  

I think it's going to be fun.

Seventeen Years and Counting

Happy Anniversary, HB.

For Better or For Worse

Here's hoping this is the worse part. Because it's really not that bad.

Happy Anniversary, HH.

The Day After

This is not the post I thought I'd be writing after S's bar mitzvah. It's amazing how something can turn so quickly--from exhilaration to anxiety, from relief to worry. Life is funny like that although it's hard to think of it as "funny" right now. After celebrating The Boy who is now A Man (not) with family, friends, delicious food, and happy drippy children, I thought I'd have a once-familiar feeling of the day after Christmas. A let-down after all that planning. A kind of sadness that such a big day was over. Now I wish I had that kind of feeling.

Instead, HH's bosses dropped The Bomb. In spite of The Economy (the longest four-letter word there is right now for me), I'd tucked away any worries I had a few months ago thinking that the worst was over and we'd dodged a bullet. HH wasn't surprised. When you're in sales, you know exactly where you're at, business-wise. In fact, it's one of the great things (usually) about the job; if you work hard, you see the benefits in an almost immediate way.

And HH always works hard. It's one of his personality traits I wish I could mention on his resume myself, as in "No matter how insignificant or 'important' the job, my husband will work like his life depends on it because it's the right thing to do." He has an amazing amount of integrity. If you hire him to do a job, you can be absolutely sure that HH will get to work early and stay until past the time everyone else leaves. It's who he is.

Which makes this so hard. Someone who identifies so much with his work will inevitably think "what could I have done differently?" no matter how much he intellectually knows the economy's in the shitter. I worry as much about how he feels about himself as much as I worry about what we're going to do. He reads my blog (even when it's a Free Pass Five post) so I hope he really reads this post.

I am proud of my husband. I know we'll be alright because he's such a great asset to every workplace he's ever been. I only hope he can believe it as much as I know it.

Cue the John Hughes Soundtrack

The night I met the man who is now my husband he was someone else's boyfriend. No, I was not that kind of girl; in fact, according to my mom, I was exactly the opposite. In her words I was, when I was 16 years old, "Everyone's friend, nobody's lover." Yep, that was me and yes, that's the way my mom saw it. I had a ton of guy friends but had only really admired boys that way from afar.

The second time I saw him (true story), I was at his college's football game (in my hometown) with a friend. I was sitting in the stands trying to watch the game (sort of) and some guy was running up and down the stands like a lunatic, his face covered in a Kiss-like design in the college's colors.

"Who's that asshole?" I asked someone who obviously attended the college. "That's Steve ****," they said.

And, as my husband likes to remind me, I'm the one who married "that asshole."

After that we saw each other quite a lot because he was the music director at his college's radio station and I was a sort of intern there through a program my high school had. Then, when the summer came, I got my very own radio show and he was staying at school to take some classes. By then I thought of him differently. He was cute people, even with his assholey ways. Dumb, dumb, gelled sticky-uppy hair and a real attitude, but super cute and despite the (NY) attitude, really really nice.

And he had absolutely no idea how to take care of himself as far as eating well went. His idea of a "light bite" was a pack of Tasty Cakes. A "real meal" was a deep-fried eggplant parm sandwich. His "fruit" was a large lemonade. True to character, I told him I would cook a real dinner for him sometime.

That was me flirting.

SO the summer was waning and he had his sister's wedding to go to and a trip to England planned. I kind of thought that would be it, but when he got back to school, our friendship picked up where it left off. Except he called me all the time.

"He likes you," my mom told me. "I know. I like him too," said I, the non-lover. "No, he like-likes you," said my adolescent mother.

Even though I was thinking of him all the time, I think I assumed I wouldn't find a real boyfriend until I went to college and could assume a new persona: Flirty Slut Girl Who is NOBODY'S Friend. I was scared to think otherwise and risk getting hurt. I wasn't all nervous innocence, though. At one point during the Fall, Steve called me to tell me he and a friend were going to visit another friend at Union College for the weekend. This "friend" they were visiting was a girl and someone Steve thought maybe he'd like to try being "more than friends with."

"Bad idea," said I. "You certainly wouldn't want to ruin your friendship."

My mom was so proud.

So that friend remained only a friend and we picked up where we left off. We spent a LOT of time together and talked on the phone when we weren't. My mom could NOT take it.

"If you don't tell him how you feel, I will." But but BUT.... was my only answer. How did I go about doing that? Would I ruin OUR friendship? My mom's advice: just plant one on him.

So, the night before he went home for winter break, I went over to his dorm. We hung out and had fun but I felt like I was going to barf from the tension inside me. The night was coming to an end and I had to go pick my mom up at work. Steve walked me to the door, we said goodnight and see ya when you get back and I turned to walk away. Something made me turn back around and I said,"I just have to say--"

And he grabbed me and kissed me.

We've been together ever since, for almost 21 years, 15 of them (as of today), married. We've been through family BULLSHIT, births, deaths, and a lot of the other stuff that makes a life together.

He makes me INSANE sometimes (oh, don't let me count the ways), but no one loves me as much as he does, even with my foibles, one of which is not always being a "sure thing."

Sorry, honey.

He even allows me little crushes on men who I will never meet and doesn't get jealous or douchy about my girlfriends and I drooling over them or the fact that my son, if asked, will say that a certain Scotsman is his real father.

He is a serious mush. The incessant snuggling puts me OVER THE EDGE sometimes, but I would miss it if it stopped.

He lets me be me. No matter what shape I am or how greezy my hair might be.

He's the best.

So, I just want to say two things: Happy Anniversary and I love you, Ewan.

STEVE. I love you, STEVE.