Marriage

Winter fitness forecast

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Last year my husband and I bought cross country skis. We thought that it would be an excellent way to enjoy exercising outside in the cold snowy winter months. Running on icy snowy roads really isn’t all that it is cracked up to be. I did end up dusting off my treadmill last week. Not because of the snow, we haven’t had enough of that for my grandma to even write flurries on her calendar if she was still living. Last week brought about cool and very windy days. Even I am not crazy enough to run outside in the cold against 40 mph winds.

Last year we bought skis and didn’t get any snow. Really? Well, it figures. In the winter months, I cut back my running down to about 18 miles per week and let Jillian Michaels kick my butt an hour a week. I don’t have any races coming up until next May. I am planning on doing another marathon. Call me vain, but I love how I look all muscular, tone, and lean when I am training for a marathon. This time of year, who cares? I mean half of the month I don’t even bother to shave. I guess there are a few benefits to living in a cold climate.

I am really counting on snow to supplement my exercise routine. We really want to go cross country skiing this year. On average where I live we get a little over 50 inches (130 cm) of snow per season. Statistically speaking, we should be able to ski unless my buying skis last year gives me another year of bad luck regarding snowfall. Imagine if I bought a snowmobile?!? Geez.

My husband and I also depend on snowfall for our other form of exercise, snow shoveling. We have a moderately long driveway. All our neighbors hire someone with a snowplow or have a snow blower. We argue over who gets to shovel. Seriously, this doesn’t give us many sanity points with our neighbors. Yes, we are those fitness freaks. I am so happy that my husband and I are at similar fitness levels. We have so much of the world left to actively explore.

Old school stalking, part 1

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When my friend, Kristi, set me up on a blind date with Mac she told me that he was going to school to be a lawyer. That really wasn’t accurate. What she should have said was that Mac was a high school dropout that had issues with the law. But what did Kristi know? She was a horrible judge of men. She was asking me to stand up in her wedding while her fiance was asking me to sleep with him. He was a big time cheater, marriage did not fix that.

I decided to go out on the blind date anyway. I had just gotten out of a long term relationship with a great guy who was in the military. He was going to be overseas for a year. It never would have worked out anyway because we were too much alike. We had the same personality, both were firstborns, and we both were left handed.

Kristi did set me up with someone previous to my relationship with the military guy. She set me up with her fiance Ted’s brother. He was a pretty nice guy. On our first double date with Ted and Kristi, they were in the backseat making out the whole time. That, I might mention, makes for a very awkward first date. It didn’t work out.

Mac and I decided that our first date should be a double date with another couple that I didn’t know, not Ted and Kristi. We were going to go bowling. About halfway to the bowling alley, the driver and his girlfriend pulled out some drinks. Apparently, they had been drinking on the ride to my house and needed to stop at a gas station to drop off their empties after almost getting pulled over. Okay, that was not cool at all, but it was not as if I had a cell phone and could call for a ride home. When we got to the bowling alley, it was closed for tournaments.

We stopped at another gas station, this time for gas. The driver went in to pay for gas while his girlfriend started rummaging through his things. She found another girl’s phone number in his checkbook. This is when she got into the driver’s seat and took off with tires squealing in a rubber burning jealous rage. She pulled into traffic without looking and cut off a guy in a Corvette. Cars in both lanes slammed on their brakes and honked at us. She pulled onto a side road, got out of the car, and while screaming tried to break the car windows with her purse. Mac sheltered me with his coat in case she succeeded and got glass shards on us. After what seemed like an hour of screaming and car battery, she took off into the early evening dusk on foot.

Mac drove the car back to the gas station to pick up her boyfriend. We literally spent the rest of the evening looking for her. We stopped at random phone booths to call her family. We drove up and down the side roads. Nothing. Finally after several hours of looking without finding, the driver took me home. Best first date NEVER! If I had known the future, I should have had the first date be the last date.

 

 

Get a clue

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As a runner, I cringe every time I see this picture. In my former life, I was an actress. Ok, I had several lead parts in community theater to be more accurate. I wore these shoes when I played the part of Ms. Scarlett in Clue. It was my favorite part. I loved the character, I loved the music. It was one of the best times in my life. I walked in those shoes for 8 shows. I even dyed my hair dark brown. I got to make out on stage with Mr. Green, played by my husband. People asked us after the show if we were married to each other because if we weren’t we wouldn’t be married much longer. We had the chemistry. It was wonderful. 

But things weren’t always wonderful. Sometimes there was more drama back stage than on. Like that time that my husband was cast as “the husband” and I was the maid. I hated the part of having to be a servant of my husband and his new “wife”. The new wife was my age, beautiful, and outgoing. She demanded attention when I did not. The first time she met my husband she said to me, “your husband is so hot that I could do a little lap dance for him.” Needless to say an instant friendship wasn’t struck. That was the first time that my husband and I stepped down from a role. About a year later, his “wife” left her husband for another guy that she had a part with. 

I had a few other great roles; Cinderella, Glinda the Good, and the Sour Kangeroo (Seussical). We also had our whole family involved, it was great. My husband played the part of Scrooge and my son was Tiny Tim. Those were the days. 

Last night I watched my daughter perform as Alice in Alice in Wonderland. She is now filling out college applications for musical theater. She started at age 8 as a dwarf in the performance Snow White. Since then she has been in 30+ shows. There is nothing in the world like watching your daughter perform. It makes me miss the stage. I will be back. But I will not be wearing 3 inch heels. I wonder if I can perform in running shoes? 

“Run” way model feet

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This week my husband and I went to a concert for a date night. I decided to dress up for the occasion. Being a hard core runner, this tends to be more of a problem than you might think. You see, I can’t really get away with wearing my running shoes with a dress. Maybe I could get away with it if I was running late for the show. Haha.

When I became a serious runner, I decided to give up the stiletto heels. I no longer wanted to wear shoes that could in any way harm my precious running feet. Without healthy feet, I have nothing to run on. Yes, high heels are extremely sexy. No, I haven’t given them away yet. I can’t stand to be barefoot. So, that pretty much leaves athletic shoes or slippers. Slippers can be dangerous too. This week I tripped over a rug while wearing them and fell into my sliding glass door. I also stubbed my toe. Good thing I am not a dancer.

So, when we went to the concert I was forced to wear dress shoes that pinch my feet, my left more so than my right foot. The seats were staggered back at the concert and I sat at an end seat with no one directly in front of me. During the concert, I thought I was being discrete when I took off my left shoe. The guy in front of us kept looking over at my feet. Then he started taking pictures. 

At intermission, the guy turned around and started talking to me. He said that he didn’t mean to stare at my feet the whole show, but did I ever think about being a foot model. He talked about how he noticed I took off my left shoe and not the right. He liked the shape of my feet. Nothing like sitting near a drunk guy with a foot fetish!

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Here is a picture of my feet. Now imagine them in a darkly lit room with strobe lights. Not bad, definately model material. Well except that my summer nail polish is half worn off. Oh, and I might lose a couple of nails next time I run a marathon. Will that be a problem? I guess I won’t quit my day job anytime soon. Oh well.

After talking more about my perfect feet and tripping over his beer cans, he seemed to notice that I was not alone. Now my husband is this big, burly, muscular man. The guy looked over at Paul and got a little nervous. “Oh man, is that your wife?” “Sorry man, I didn’t mean anything by it.” “Are we good, man?” This is always followed by high fives. I think that it would be funny, just once, for Paul to act really jealous and pissed off when guys hit on me or compliment me. He sure can put the fear of God into people.

When my son and his friend got into trouble a couple of months back, his friend’s mom threatened him with my husband. “No please, don’t make me talk to Paul,” he cried. Then he confessed to every bad thing he ever did with my son since 2008. It works great. 

Nothing like modeling feats and run way model feet. 

Life, goals, and dead plants

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I woke up this morning in a strange place, a different bed. I killed another house plant this week, my last living one. I justify that by saying that I spent one third of the month in hotel rooms like the one I am in now. Five different hotels, two states. Some for business, some for pleasure. My mind searches for the perfect excuse. I couldn’t provide proper care for the plant. Hey, at least I managed to feed my kids and pets. 

When my daughter gave me the plant for Mother’s Day, I inwardly cringed. I have to manage to keep this alive!  Once I got a chia pet for Christmas, I felt it was way too much pressure. So I took the plant to my office. I developed a watering routine. I watered it every Monday morning and every Friday afternoon. I put it in the sun like it said on the little tag it came with. It did thrive until the sunny days were gone. I didn’t achieve my seemingly easy goal. 

It made me think of other goals I have had. It seems like finishing a marathon is an easier goal than keeping plants alive for me. Crazy!?!  A few days ago, my husband asked me what my goal is for writing. That had me stumped. A goal? Was I supposed to have one? I started this blog right after I got my house plant. I am still going. It is still active and alive. But where is it going? 

I like to write for fun, to share unexpressed emotions, to help others. I want others to know what it was like growing up with an autistic brother back when no one had autism. I want to share my own struggles and joys of parenting teens. I want to share goals and experiences as a runner. I want to make people laugh. I want to share life and all of its woven intricacies. But where am I going?? As a goal oriented person, do I need goals to write?

My husband said that I am a gifted writer, but he is very biased. He said that maybe I should consider chasing my own dreams. He started his own successful business. We work together. He said that I was riding his dream. He said he would support me if I decided to start a career in writing. He suggested that since I have a love for photography and writing that I should think about writing marina reviews or write a book. His words overwhelmed me. What are my goals? I have no structure, I just write about what I want to write about. Where do I go from here? Is this just another time consuming hobby? All I can tell you for sure right now is that my future does not involve gardening or house plants. 

Confirmed, part 3

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Even though my son’s confirmation went great, there was still something missing. To start out at the very beginning of my time, I was raised as a Lutheran. After many years of seeking and trying many different denominations, I came back full circle to being a Lutheran. Will I always be a Lutheran? Who knows. I am very open to other possibilities. Let’s put it this way, I agree and disagree with just about every denomination out there.

Our previous church to the Lutheran one was rather far away. As the kids were getting older, it became more difficult to be there multiple times a week. Our oldest was getting to the age where she wanted to join youth group on Sunday night which meant almost 2 hours of driving on Sunday. After a series of snowstorms every Sunday for a month and a half, we ended up going to the Lutheran church down the road. We liked it so much that we decided to stay. This involved getting our non infants baptized. At the time we chose family to be the sponsors of our daughters and a friend to be the sponsor of our son. That friend is no longer involved in our life.

My husband has always been a Fred Flintstone kind of guy. He is outgoing and makes friends with quieter types of guys. He typically finds Barney’s that are single and lonely or guys that have gone through hard breakups. He befriends them and gets them obsessed with fishing or as of recently sailing. My son’s godfather Gary was one of those guys. Then Gary found a woman. He brought her over one night for supper and conversation. I feel really bad about the next part, while they were over I fell asleep. Honestly, she was that boring. No sense of humor, nothing. I tolerate stupidity better than boring, or lazy, for that matter. If your life lacks luster, make it shine! I do feel bad though. This woman was perfect for Gary though. They decided to marry and my husband was the best man.

After the wedding, we got together a few times. Gary and Paul still went fishing together. Then Gary’s wife had a miscarriage one day while they were out fishing. I really think that she was upset that her husband wasn’t home. A few months later, she got pregnant again. She did not invite me to her baby shower although she invited other mutual friends. It was all over facebook. Okay, whatever. That December, Gary called us to tell us that he was a father. We wanted to see the baby, but were too busy at the time. My mom was recovering from surgery due to cancer. It was a very scary time. I took off of work to help her out. To make matters harder, our family was involved in a community theater production the first two weekends in December. Then came Christmas, so we never made it out to see the baby. It wasn’t long after that that Gary’s wife unfriended me on facebook. Gary dropped out of our life too. But about once a year, Gary stops by our house out of the blue by himself to visit.

Friends come and go, I don’t harbor any resentment. Although, it is time for Gary’s yearly visit.

Sheerly not cut out for it

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I really suck at cutting hair. I could use the left handed excuse of having to learn how to cut with my right hand, but I don’t even think that would cut it. I didn’t always think that I sucked at it. As a teen, I got sick of my autistic brother constantly pulling my hair. It hurt. I noticed that my younger brothers didn’t get their hair pulled, probably because it was too short to pull. Just my mom and I got our long hair pulled. I got really sick of it so one day I took a scissors in my right hand and hacked off around 6 inches of long tresses and lot of stress. People commented. They liked my new hair cut. I thought that I wasn’t terribly bad at it.

Then I got married and had kids. My oldest daughter needed her bangs trimmed as a toddler and I was on it. I cut her bangs, but they were crooked. So I kept cutting until they were straight and about a quarter of an inch long. I didn’t really suck. She wasn’t sitting still. People commented. Ah, your daughter decided to cut her own hair. Poor thing. She wasn’t talking too much yet, so I didn’t argue that I was the one who hacked her hair. It wasn’t too long after that when she started to cut her own hair. She was better at it then I was.

Then my husband got the idea of buying a hair cutting kit to shave some money. He liked to cut his hair short so it really wasn’t that complicated. I could almost handle that. I decided to take on bigger things, my dad’s hair. First, let me tell you that he looks exactly like Santa Claus. He has a humongous stomach, everything else is flat. He has long gray hair with an equally long beard that children could try to yank off and find it to be real. He has the glasses that he looks over, worn on the lower part of his nose. He would be a perfect Santa Claus in appearance. He would just have to work on being jolly. He would have to smile and tolerate little children. He would have to give them candy instead of hiding it to eat himself. Darn, it would have been so perfect otherwise.

I made the mistake of offering to cut my dad’s hair. This is a job that my mom always did, but for some reason didn’t have time for. At one point in her life, my mom wanted to be a hairdresser. During her senior year, the high school had a career day. They brought in someone that worked with the disabled doing what she does now. That person probably never knew that by telling high school kids about his career changed my mother’s whole career and life path. I don’t see her being happy as a beautician. She loves her career and finds it very fulfilling.

The day came for my dad’s hair cut. He came over to my house. I realized quickly that I was in a little too deep. My dad’s hair was long. My husband’s hair was short. I decided to buzz my dad’s hair using the longest setting. It really wasn’t going very well. As I was buzzing the back of my dad’s head, the guard came off. I gave him a very noticeable bald spot down the back of his head. Thankfully, he just laughed the whole thing off. After that incident, things such as scissors and hair cutting kits mysteriously vanished from my house. My mom made time to cut my dad’s hair. My husband stopped complaining about $20 hair cuts.

I realized that cutting hair was sheerly not my thing.

The 1st (planned) overnight sail

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Last year for my husband’s birthday, we planned our first overnight sail on our sailboat. Technically, it wasn’t our first overnight sail. But we won’t talk about that. If you want to read about everything that could go wrong without sinking the boat, feel free to read the accidental overnight sail post. It was pretty funny, but not at the time. 

As I mentioned briefly previously, I got my first ear cartilage piercing for my 40th birthday. I am a very ritualistic and rule oriented person, at times borderline OCD. My world consists of order, rules, rules, rituals, and more rules. My rules. My structure. I am an extreme person. That is just the way I am. So, I got my ear pierced for my birthday. It required cleaning 3 times a day for 12 weeks. Ok, I got that, no problem. My husband’s birthday was exactly 12 weeks to the day after I got the cartilage piercing. It would be perfect to change the earring right before we left for the overnight sail, or so I thought. I had a hoop earring that I wanted to try. 

Removing the back of the earring stud required a lot of yanking. My ear was “ear itated” before I got the earring out. Then it started to swell and bleed. I tried to get the hoop in which was impossible. I could barely get it into my regular ear piercings. Hmmmm, now this is where I really went wrong. I put a nickel earring stud into the ear cartilage piercing and left for the overnight sail. 

It was a perfect early fall day for a sail. It was warm and windy, but not too windy. We sailed several hours to get to the resort. Once we got there, it was during the week and the pool was closed for the season. There was not much to do. By the time we got there, my ear doubled in size. I thought that maybe my piercing was infected. I was so stressed that I couldn’t eat. Worried. This is the point when my acid reflux acted up again as an adult but I didn’t know at the time what it was. 

The next day we headed back home. I called the ear piercing place and they said I was probably allergic to the nickel earring. I found that strange because I didn’t have problems with nickel in my regular ear piercings. They suggested putting the piercing stud back in. This was problematic because I was on open water and didn’t have any other earrings with me. The minute I got home, hours later, I put my piercing stud back in and haven’t taken it out since. I am almost afraid to. I felt bad that my seemingly great idea turned my husband’s birthday into a big mess of anxiety. I have only stayed overnight on the sailboat once since then. It was for our anniversary when the big unexpected storm hit. 

Why does everything have to be so eventful in my life?? Well, it sure gives me things to write about and at times things to laugh about. 

20 years and a couple of days

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It has been 20 years since I met my husband on his birthday. All I have to say is that it was meant to be or else it probably won’t have happened. You see, I never wanted to rent the apartment above his. I wanted to rent an apartment closer to my college. For some unknown reason, my roommate did not like that place and pushed for us to move to the other place instead. It really didn’t matter to me as much as it seemed to matter to her. So we moved into the apartment above my husband and his roommate. Incidentally, my bedroom was above his. 

At that time, I went out with a couple of friends and played darts. The owner of the bar talked me into joining a dart league. The only problem was that I didn’t have any players. My friends were from out of town and my roommate was underage. So I asked a few neighbors, one of them being my future husband who said yes to the dart league. The day I met him was on his birthday. He answered the door in his short sexy little blue robe. 

A few days later, I was upset that my cat had a hair ball on my blanket. I ended up having to run down to the laundry room to wash my blanket and guess who was there?? In the laundry room, Paul asked me to go out with him and a few friends that night if I wasn’t busy. That night it seemed like his friends liked me, all except for one girl who kept touching his leg when she spoke. That night he kissed me in the parking lot. 

After that night I relentlessly chased him. He liked being chased, but didn’t like being caught. At one point, I decided to walk away. It is not fun chasing someone who appears not to be interested. The moment I walked away, he wanted me back. We have been together ever since. 

My brother’s wedding

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I feel like I travelled around the whole world in one week. Technically, I could say that I went from the southern end of our country to the far northern end this week. I am exhausted and feel a cold coming on. 

When I said that I live in rural WI, my brother Mark lives in extreme remote rural WI. An area so remote that sometimes no service appeared on our cell phones, gas stations were at times hard to come by, and the largest of towns consisted of a bar, a church, and 2 houses. A majority of people at the wedding never thought that Mark would marry. He lived as a hermit in this remote area for a long time. But just like the seasons change, sometimes our lives takes us on unexpected paths. 

Yesterday was a perfect day for a wedding. It went without a hitch, figuratively anyway. It was an unseasonably warm day. The leaves were starting to change color. My daughter sang a solo for the wedding. My son was an usher. Mark and Carla did not have any attendants. They just got engaged 4 months ago. Mark took Carla out on the lake, pulled out a ring, and dropped it in the water seemingly accidental. He made it seem like the plan was foiled, then pulled out the real ring. They had a small wedding. Carla bought her wedding dress from Goodwill for $25. It was beautiful. I am glad she is tight with money because Mark sure is. 

The reception was at a saloon. They had a bonfire and their DJ also served as their photographer. I have never seen my brother so happy, or dressed up for that matter. We had a great time and are very happy for them. This morning they drove off in their Jaguar for their honeymoon. I am excited to see what the future holds for them.