Unlikely Soulmates

Is anybody out there?

2011-11-20T18:47:00.000-06:00

Just testing my blog. I haven't been able to send my posts out and hope I have fixed the problem.

Family Secrets

2011-11-14T09:05:00.000-06:00

This will be the shortest blog I have ever posted on this site. Why? Because Dave and I don't have any family secrets. We wear our lives right out there on our sleeves where the whole world can see the good, the bad and the ugly. Frankly, secrets are too much work to keep. And speaking of work, I'm about ready to yank this thousand dollar antique door off it's hinges because I've lost the skeleton key and can't get the blasted thing open. It's a beautiful cabinet with three wonderful shelves inside. I have things on those shelves. I don't remember what, but I'm sure it is some valuable stuff I've been needing. I have tried 21 different keys in the 3 years that my key has been lost. Here is a picture of the latest key ring I ordered with 17 replacement skeleton keys on it:

I just finished trying them all...twice. Of course, none of them worked. I really don't understand why these 19th century people insisted on putting locks on kitchen cupboards, roll top desks, small cabinets and even lockets. I'm pretty sure they weren't concerned with theft back then because these are the same people who never locked their front doors. Okay, so if they weren't afraid of the boogeyman, they must have had a lot of family secrets they were hiding. My grandmother hid her family secrets in a trunk in the form of newsclippings, birth announcements, messages written in shorthand and photos with scribbled names on back. My mother, the detective, pieced together all her left behind clues over the years and uncovered generations of secrets. Racey little secrets. She's got it all documneted on the internet. You don't need a key to find them but you do need a password. I know I will never find it. I also know I will never find a skeleton key to open my antique cupboard. Maybe I'll tell my kids that I hid $10,000 dollars in that cupboard before I die. I'll tell them I just can't remember where the key is but I'm sure it's in the house somewhere. The truth will be my little secret. I'm starting to understand these 19th century people a bit better I think.

The Family Reunion

2011-06-06T19:10:00.000-05:00

Mother just sent out a “hold the date” sort of email. It was telling all of her children and grandchildren that the 300 year Brubaker family reunion is coming up. It's in a location 950 miles from my home. In the year 2017. Now, I don’t who exactly these relatives are that are so on top of things to plan an event six years ahead, but that gene definitely didn’t make it into our immediate family. My husband and I were tossing around 4th of July ideas last night, but decided that it only being June 5th, it was entirely too early to make any decisions. We tabled discussions and went to bed. A few days ago, my son and his girlfriend just finished planning their summer vacation. They are leaving Alabama and going out to Colorado to visit family, see a concert and hike in the mountains. They leave in 3 weeks. Advance planning is so under utilized in our family.
So if I was to even find a day planner that would take me into the year 2017, I have another problem. Who would go with me? My husband is out of the question. He hasn’t recovered from my smaller family reunion last August. What a wimp. I suffered through so many years of his crazy family reunions to his measley one family reunion that he attended on my side. (not that I’m keeping score). For some reason he finds sitting around hearing stories of his Uncle Eddie falling drunk in the swimming pool in 1964 endearing. At my family reunion, my relatives told stories, too. Some really old short people I’ve never met recounted World War 2 stories and tales of their high school football days. Back in 1935. At his family reunions someone always acts as bartender and takes requests for mixed drinks. At my family reunion they took requests for favorite old hymns. Then we sang them whether we knew them or not. His family sang Italian drinking songs. I don’t know if they knew them since it was all in Italian and they were a wee bit tipsy. His reunion is held at Metro Beach. My family reunion is always held in the Prairie City Church basement. No booze. No cigarettes. No drunken stories. No fun.
So, forget asking any of my children or nephews or niece if they would like to attend the big event with me in the year 2017. The oldest ones will be married and in the throws of childrearing by then and the youngest will be busy with college exams. Otherwise, I’m sure they would all be excited to go, right?
Forget my brothers. Randy will be working. I'm sure Randy will be working. Chances are I will not know where Doug is living. Otherwise, I’m sure they would both be excited to go, right?
My parents will be 79 and 83. It’s not their age that will keep them home. They are both active and relatively healthy. But their dog, Daisy will be 14 and she will be too old to travel. She is not as healthy as my parents. Otherwise, I’m sure they would both be excited to go, right?
That leaves my baby sis, Barb. Now she is my last and best hope. Her kids will be grown and gone and she is single. There may be a lot of good looking single men there at the reunion! Oh, never mind. It might not be wise for a Brubaker to marry a Brubaker. (I’m from Alabama. Cut me some slack.)
I’m actually hoping she is remarried by then. It will be a great way for her new husband to prove his love to her. I can hear my husband chuckling under his breath now. I need to tell her this soon so she saves the “if-you-loved-me-you-would-go-to-my-boring-family-reunion” trump card for this sure to be exciting family reunion. Not that she’s even dating anyone right now, but I’m trying to practice using that plan-in-advance Brubaker gene that must be lurking in me somewhere.
And if she says she would love to go, but has something planned for that year , I guess I’ll go alone. Family reunions are such solitary events, aren't they?

All I need to know about aging, I learned from my college son.

2011-03-09T16:02:00.047-06:00

Talk about perfect timing. Just when I wondered what the heck was happening to the dynamics of our marriage since the children left home, along came Belsky, 3rd edition, Worth Publishing House. For a mere $132.75 (and the $25,000 we've paid in tuition, plus the $20,000 in room and board over the last three years), we have answers! And those answers are brought to us courtesy of our real live psychology minor son who was not sleeping in class the day that aging and the marriage relationship were discussed. (It's so nice to experience one's higher education dollars at work.)
It all began one evening while enjoying the company of our son and his girlfriend. At some point, we decided to watch old home videos of the kids. Someone mentioned that maybe we would feel sad watching the children when they were little now that the nest is empty.
"It's all a myth. You won't feel sad. Start the movie."
Huh?
"The empty nest thing. It's a myth.", stated my son.
"Furthermore, he continued,"studies show that marriages are at an all time high when the children leave the home and parents are alone again. This is the happiest time of your life."
How scary to think I could have missed it. But thanks to our "free" seminar on the dynamics of marriage and aging, our very own Freud was going to shed some light on exactly what was going on here. By the way, I knew my son was taking this Psychology of Aging class, but I thought he was studying old people. Are people my age really old enough to be examples in a psychology text book on aging? Ouch.
"So we are happier because we're not running around the house picking up after slobby teenagers and running here and there to watch ball games and band concerts and stuff like that?", I asked.
"No, we are happier because we are supposed to be running around the house dancing naked now that they're gone," my husband chimed in.
"No, neither of you are right", my son quickly cut his dad off in hopes his girlfriend wouldn't run out of the house horrified.
"The truth is, when men age they become more feminine. When women age they become more masculine. This enables them to become more in synch with each other and relate to each other on a more even basis."
I swear I heard every molecule of testosterone in my husband gasp in horror. I, on the other hand, immediately began to rejoice at the thought of my husband asking to go to the mall with me and then get pedicures together.
While everyone else was watching the home movies, my mind was busy planning a fun weekend with my new BFF. First, we could burn some calories at my Zoomba Dance class,then grab a salad to go at Zaxby's and cuddle in bed while watching "Eat, Pray, Love" together. My son was so right. This was the happiest time in my life!
After we had bored our son's poor girlfriend to tears with at least an hour of old videos, the kids went home and we got ready for bed. It was then that I excitedly shared my weekend plans with my husband.
He looked at me as if I had lost my mind.
"You don't really believe that junk, do you?"
He could tell by my deflated expression that I did.
"Look, if that theory is true then you should be getting an itch to golf nine holes, have a beer and go see "True Grit". You are supposed to be getting more masculine, remember? Those Hello Kitty pajamas and pink socks aren't convincing me."
He had a point. I may be running out of estrogen but what little was left wasn't experiencing transgender problems.
"Okay, so if you're right, then what?
He thought about it for a moment.
"Then I guess we run around the house naked."
That stupid comment convinced me. He was right. Only a dumb manly man says things like that. I pulled up my pink socks, rubbed on my Oil of Olay and shut off the light. Happiness is all a state of mind anyway.

My most depressing Christmas present ever.

2011-01-01T23:16:00.010-06:00

340 million people in the world suffer from depression. My husband is one of those people. Personally, I don't think he is really suffering but since it is the politically correct way of describing a person with his diagnosis, I'll give him that. His brain doesn't make enough serotonin, the happiness hormone, and so without his happy pill he gets very irritable. He's not the weepy, sad, version of depressed. He's the jerk who would cut you off in traffic and then argue with the police officer who gave him a ticket. I've seen him in action. He can't help it. He's really a nice guy. On Prozac. On the other hand, I've had maybe three whole days in my life where I remember feeling depressed. It felt icky. I'm that person who can be annoyingly chipper and cheery. (Or so I was told that by Mr. Not-So-Cheery-and Chipper one morning as I was chattering on about a household renovation before he had even brushed his teeth and had his coffee)
With that knowledge, you may understand why I was a wee bit surprised when I opened my second Christmas present this year and found that Dave had bought me a "Happy Light". I swear that's it's real name. Brookstone's website says the light is made for people who suffer from seasonal affective disorder (S.A.D) and is supposed to help make them be happy by having the light on for a certain amount of time each day. I couldn't help but wonder if this was a classic case of Freud's theory of transference. Since Dave really needs the happy light, he bought it for me subconsciously hoping he would soak up some of the effects by proxy. .
Looking at the gift, I wanted to ask him what the heck he was thinking, but Mr. Not-So-Cheery needed coffee and breakfast so I feigned pleasure and let it go. Later that morning, he made his rounds inspecting every one's gifts and got to the Happy Light. "Do you know why I bought this for you?", he asked. Freud? "Huh?" Never mind. " I bought it because you have been saying that the house is too dark and you wanted a sky light put in over the table so I thought that this would have the same effect." (Did I mention he was cheap, too?) The Happy Light was going to be my new skylight? I could picture that goofy light duck taped to my ceiling hanging over my pretty french country table and trailing a long ugly orange extension cord down the wall. Now I was getting depressed. Dave assured me he didn't buy it to hang. I was supposed to use it as directed, which he couldn't wait for me to do. (At this point, his over zealousness with this weird thing still had me thinking about my friend Sigmund) Directions: Remove from box and outer wrapper. Plug into standard 110 outlet. Sit 18-22 inches from the light with eyes open for approximately 6 hours a day. Results may vary. Now, is it just me or don't you think that someone who has 6 hours a day to sit in front of a damn light may be depressed because they have no life to begin with? I really wanted nothing to do with this thing. But to appease my husband, I told him I would try it for as long as I could stand it. Positioning the light on the coffee table, I sat on the floor on a comfy pillow. I thought I could at least finish a couple chapters in my current novel. Wrong. The light was so bright all I wanted to do was shut my eyes. "It won't work if your eyes are shut", Dave the Light Guru reminded me. Yeah? It won't work if someone "accidentally" throws it out our second story window, either. After sitting in front of that light for another 15 minutes, I had the strangest feeling like I had just been shopping at Kmart for about 2 hours. I hate Kmart. And all this time I thought it was the people. Now I know it is their glaring overhead fluorescent lights. "Are you feeling happy, yet?", my son smirked as he walked through the room. I threw the pillow at him. "I hear there's a blue light special going on in the kitchen", he added before dodging the novel I aimed at his head. I was not feeling happy. Trying one last time to think positively, I asked my husband if this happy light could possibly tan my face. He said it couldn't. That was it for me. Only it wasn't. After turning off the lamp (I lasted a whole twenty-two miserable minutes...just five hours and 38 minutes shy of the recommended time) I noticed that I had developed an eye twitch that was both irritating and apparently amusing to the rest of the family. They called it my "Happy Wink". I fear that Mr. Happy Light may have given me a brain tumor or something equally as terminal. I don't fear death but it's that going towards the light part that's got me worried.

An Unconventional Christmas Letter

2010-12-21T09:26:00.010-06:00

The holidays remind me that it has been around a year since I started this blog. In my very first post, I was stressing about celebrating Christmas as an empty nester and fearing that the holidays would be too quiet and the house too empty. Since that time last year, I have written 25 posts. Twenty-five? That's it? I have a whopping 7 followers. I'd like to say I've just been too busy to write but that's not true. I love to write and wanted to make it a priority during the last year. The truth is that it's been a very transitional year for us and I haven't learned how to translate learning experiences into "humorous" until after the fact. It takes me time to put some things into perspective. Sometimes 20 years. Example: When my husband and I decided to quit smoking 23 years ago, he had a much harder time than I kicking the habit for good. Knowing that it ~~upset~~, ~~bothered~~, infuriated me that he was still smoking, he constantly hid his cigarettes in very creative and (what he thought) hard to find spots. Smokers never understand that non smokers can smell the tobacco on them no matter how many breath mints and bottles of Febreeze they spray on. So one day, after swearing for the hundredth time that he really had quit and was not sneaking around with his Marlboro Mistress, I decided to go on a junking trip under our rental house. There was a tiny dirt floor crawl space under the house that was full of cobwebs, mice and probably snakes. A self-professed junker, I had been fantasizing about some antique chairs stuck in the back that Dave had told me he had seen. As I made my way through the tunnel of nasty toward the chairs, I bumped a rafter and a brand new package of Marlboro's fell on my head. My first reaction was "My, how well these cigarettes have preserved over the years!" Then, (yes, I know I'm a little slow), the light bulb went off. He lied. Again. I think that was the last time my husband ever smoked. He had ever-so-carefully planned and plotted that secret place knowing that no one would ever possibly venture in that hell hole and find those cigarettes. That was 20 years ago. He has loved telling people that story over the years, but I'll admit I didn't laugh the first 15 years he told it. The hurt I experienced over his dishonesty, left a scar that temporarily covered up my funny bone. Thank goodness, I've cut out that business of taking issues so seriously. Issues don't define my life anymore. I believe that if you truly take life seriously, not just give lip service to the phrase; you realize how stupid and petty most of our complaints are compared to the real pain and suffering that exists on this earth outside of our little world . Most of our issues are in fact, laughable. Don't misunderstand me. I feel very deeply and take human tragedy very seriously. It's just that I no longer consider hidden cigarettes, petty family arguments, or disappointing college grades "human tragedy". (I'm testing my son's sense of humor by using that last example) And some changes and losses in my life in the last year, have tested my own sense of humor. The lack of posts may be an indication I wasn't laughing as much as I should have been. Or an indication that I process transitions slowly. But I'm much happier having gone through it and come out on the other side with a rediscovered joy. Dave and I are laughing again. With each other...not at each other. Oh dear, that could make for writer's block. I'm confident he'll pull through and do something dumb just because he loves me and knows that I need material. Not that he would otherwise do anything dumb. But sometimes, I swear I smell cigarette smoke coming from the garage. Merry Christmas!

My first day as a country club socialite

2010-11-16T10:33:00.004-06:00

We've been working very hard to find fun activities since becoming childless. Dave seems to be having an easier time than me. He likes to play cards, snow ski, dreams of owning a Harley (over my dead body) and golf. He's been golfing a lot lately, since it's November in Alabama and you can finally step outside without developing heat stroke. He would correct me at this point and say he has been golfing a lot more...not a lot. Even our definition of exactly what constitutes "golfing" has caused a few high volume discussions between us lately. Example: my man takes his clubs, goes to the golf course on Friday afternoon, ignores my phone calls for the two and a half hours while he's there, and then comes home. I count that as golfing, don't you? Not Dave. He was on the practice range... "practicing" Doesn't count. His 18 hole golf game was still on for the next day. What the...? Hmm... maybe I should spend two and half hours shopping at Target on Friday to practice up for a five hour real shopping trip to Macy's on Saturday? Sorry, I digress.
It's probably becoming apparent to you that I need to develop some hobbies of my own in order to avoid becoming a sniveling, whiny, pathetic bore of a wife. So, today I joined the Everybody who's Anybody Country Club around the corner from my house. Single membership. Didn't consult Dave. (Let him have his dumb old golf at the public course.) I'm not bitter. This hoity toity place is a real ritzy club that costs $15,000 plus $300 a month dues. Only I didn't fill out the paperwork. Or pay the dues. I just went. Today. I took my dog to their private beach - the one that has the NO Dogs Allowed sign posted.We had the whole beach to ourselves. It may have been due to the fact that it was raining off and on (mostly on), the temperatures were in the 50's and very windy. Maybe. But we were at the country club - woohoo! Me, dressed in my finest country club attire: some hideous flannel sweats that Dave says looks like pajamas whenever I wear them, rubber boots, and an ugly but warm sweater I found at the Goodwill. Not exactly Junior League material but did I mention it was very cold? My high flatulent golden retriever was decked out in her fur coat, orange ball in her mouth, ready for some serious swimming. I sat miserably cold and wet in one of the guest chairs, shivering, while throwing the ball into the lake and waiting for her to retrieve it. She'd paddle her way out in the cold water, grab her ball and be back at my side for another throw before I could get a whole paragraph read in my book. Until page 68 when she didn't come back. I read four whole paragraphs before I realized the Queen of Interruptions had disappeared. I looked up from my book to see that my dog was desperately paddling just to keep her head above water. She was drowning right in front of me with a look of pleading in her eyes. Then I saw the problem. Her orange ball had gone beyond the rope and she couldn't reach over the rope and she wasn't coming back to shore without it. Her body was wearing out from frantic paddling and she was willing to die for that dumb Auburn colored ball that permanently resides in her mouth. I pleaded with her to come ashore. Nothing doing. Now she was crying that pathetic whimpering sound a hurt dog makes. I had to do it. I ventured into the water to retrieve the retriever and her ball. I got less than halfway when the coldness of the water was up to my butt. Something seized up inside of me. I thought I would surely have heart failure and ran back to the shore as fast as I could. My dog didn't. She was wearing out fast. Back I went into the icy - well okay - not icy, but very cold waters determined I would make it to the ball or die trying. Luckily, when I reached the ball just over the ropes the water was just below my chest. I picked it up and threw it back to shore and my dogs adrenaline must have kicked in when she saw the ball because she swam like a bat out of hell to the shore after that dumb thing. I ran as clumsily as one does in water now realizing just how cold I really was. Is this story exciting enough for you? No? Well, it gets better. Just at shore, I'm shivering and gathering up my things to leave when I realize my car keys aren't in my pocket anymore. I knew where they were. And they don't float like the dumb orange ball. One must dunk, dip or dive to the bottom of the lake to get car keys.
Unless of course they have a well trained, loyal dog who would do that for them. One look at Isabelle with that ball in her mouth laying on the shore told me that wasn't happening. Back in I went, retracing my path and when I got to the waist high water I actually stepped on them at the bottom of the lake bed. I discovered a new God given gift today - I have great toe dexterity. There was no wet head involved, thank God. Back to shore once again, I grabbed our stuff and darted for the car, the dog close in tow. I was shivering, soaked and hyperventilating. I decided that there was no choice but to take my sopping wet clothes off before getting in and driving home. Fortunately, I had left my sweater on shore during all of my swimming fun so I stripped down to my underwear and put the sweater on and off we sped. I joined the country club in my underwear today. What did you do?

Excuse me..I'll have the Divorce Vaccine, please.

2010-07-23T09:00:00.002-05:00

It is contagious, you know. Divorce. According to the latest scientific study, if you have a friend that is divorcing then you and your spouse are 75% more likely to divorce also. Brown University’s Dr. Rose McDermott, who led the research, says that each marital split has a ripple effect on friends and family and even colleagues at work."These results go beyond previous work intimating a person-to-person effect to suggest a person-to-person-to-person effect," she said, according to the Daily Mail. "Individuals who get divorced may influence not only their friends, but their friends’ friends as the propensity to divorce spreads."
Finally, we have a real pandemic. I have been prepared for every national scare we faced in the last 15 years.The bird flu never materialized like they warned it would but I was hunkered down with four boxes of Tamiflu just in case. Because they were in short supply at the time, I was forced to lie to my family doctor and tell him that we were going on a mission trip to a third world country to get them. In the middle of the anthrax scare, I ordered four very expensive Israeli gas masks off of Ebay. I made the family do nightly drills to practice getting their masks off and on before we were all obliterated by the little white powder of death. Just last week I finally donated them to the Salvation Army. I'm hoping they can't trace them back to me. The FBI would probably come investigating to see if we were more of those Russian spies or something.
And now I am stumped at what to buy to protect us from this latest divorce epidemic. It seems the trick is to have no contact with a divorced person, or a married person who is friends with a divorced person, or a friend of a friend of a friend who is divorced or a divorced relative once removed. That about wipes out my whole Facebook friend list and every friend in town. I wonder if there is a moratorium on "time passed since divorce". (TPSD) I've been divorced for 30 years and married to Dave for 23 years. Could I still be contagious? Maybe everyone who is or has been divorced should wear a scarlett letter "D" on their forehead as a warning to all happily married couples to stay away. I really don't think I will prepare too much for this pandemic though. I have a very close family member who went through a divorce a few years ago and it had just the opposite effect on me. Watching the arguing, negotiating, re-negotiating, and financial repercussions of her divorce convinced me that she wasn't having any fun. It made staying in even a mediocre marriage more appealing. I'm not saying my marriage is mediocre, but really, aren't they all at times? I understand that there are really couples out there who shouldn't be married to each other. They suck the life out of their spouse and they are toxic. They should be divorced. Everyone deserves the chance to have a happy life. I'm glad I got a "do-over". But there are those days when even the sound of him crunching his food grates on my nerves. Still, it doesn't create a desire to be like my divorced friends. It may, however, create a desire to jerk the cashew can away from him and dump it over his head. Before we desire to follow in our divorced friend's footsteps, we should remember that if the grass looks greener on the other side, you can bet the water bill is higher. Ask any of your divorced friends. They are paying a HIGH price - both literally and figuratively for a chance at a new life. So I'll write this divorce study off as flawed research. Just to be safe though, I think I'll buy a few cans of "Off" to carry in my purse and spray on me when I run into a wild divorcee at Target.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ingredients...

2010-05-01T19:27:00.007-05:00

When you fall in love with somebody, you look for signs that they love you back. Early in the relationship, it doesn't take much to give you hope. A smile across the room, a private joke shared together or a little a caress on the hand. As the relationship matures and develops into a something that either is or looks like a marriage, our expectations also grow and we look for deeper signs of a lasting and sincere love. The problem with this, as Dave and I experienced it, is that what looks like love and feels like love to one partner; may not feel anything like love to the other. We all grew up in families that showed love in their own unique ways. When we come together as a couple, we're still subconsciously expecting the type of love our mother and father showed us. There is a great book on this subject by Dr. Gary Chapman called "The 5 Love Languages." Too bad we didn't read it. Oh, we've read it now for one of the classes we took to counsel young couples. But we didn't read it when we needed it... when pots and pans were flying across the room, and doors were slamming, and suitcases were getting packed. (If I had a nickle for every time I threw my clothes in a suitcase to leave and then another nickle for later that night when I had to unpack my whole wardrobe, we'd have Dave's retirement set!) My family showed their love in what Chapman calls "quality time" he describes it like this: Quality Time
In the vernacular of Quality Time, nothing says, “I love you,” like full, undivided attention. Being there for this type of person is critical, but really being there—with the TV off, fork and knife down, and all chores and tasks on standby—makes your significant other feel truly special and loved. Distractions, postponed dates, or the failure to listen can be especially hurtful. Somehow my parents knew what was going on in all of their four children's life. They knew what we loved, what our strengths and weaknesses were, and all of our friends. Every night we sat together at dinner and each of us (including my parents) shared their day with each other. So this in turn was how I felt love was expressed. Dave, on the other hand, says he practically raised himself. His father died when he was 7 and his mother had to go back to work leaving four children to fend for themselves. His sisters were over 18 and old enough to be responsible for taking care of him had they the time or inclination. They had neither at that age. So how did he get his quota of love? By his mother cooking her wonderful homemade Italian meals on the weekends and when she was home. She pulled fresh tomato's from the garden and made dough from flour and yeast and spent hours cooking meals in the kitchen. Chapman calls this love language "acts of service". He describes it like this: Acts of Service
Can vacuuming the floors really be an expression of love? Absolutely! Anything you do to ease the burden of responsibilities weighing on an “Acts of Service” person will speak volumes. The words he or she most want to hear: “Let me do that for you.” Laziness, broken commitments, and making more work for them tell speakers of this language their feelings don’t matter.
So herein lay our problem. I hated to cook. He wasn't too experienced or thrilled about interpersonal communication. Because I never felt his attention lavished on me like that kind my parents gave, I never felt that he loved me quite enough. And one day out of sheer frustration at eating yet another frozen dinner, he confronted me with the words, "You don't cook with love". Hindsight is 20/20 and I understand all the psychology behind that now. But at the time I thought he was the biggest baby I had ever met. I also didn't fold his underwear the right way. Is there a right way to fold underwear? Yep, his mother's way. Today we can joke about all of these things because we understand them. He still would rather veg out in front of the television than have a meaningful conversation. He doesn't much care what I do as long as it doesn't involve too much effort on his part. I've learned to appreciate the freedom in unconditional love and have learned to value this new way of feeling loved. I still don't cook. I try. For him. Sometimes. I've got this genetic thing from my father. Toast and cereal for supper suit me just fine. I prefer to eat to live rather than live to eat. Dave even has to drag me to restaurants. I just don't get that excited about food. He likewise, has changed after living with me for 23 years. He's really okay with food that comes out of the freezer. He doesn't build his life around what we are going to eat. Every now and then his genetic background gets the best of him, too. Last night he had a craving for carrot cake. (He saw a commercial) After trying to talk me into baking one for an hour, he finally succumbed to his craving and went to the store with his recipe in search of ingredients. Now, I'm not really sure that his mother would have approved of his methodology. Whereas, she would have gone and picked the carrots from their garden and shredded them by hand; Dave came home with a few jars of pureed Gerber baby carrots. His shortcut. I approved. I saw no lack of love in his baking by that brilliant move. He said it was the ugliest cake that was ever made as he was putting the "dressing" on it. (He meant icing, but that's okay) Earlier that day, I had made Reese's Peanut Butter Bars. I took a picture of the ugliest cake in the world and the peanut butter bars. I think the pictures are worth a thousand words.

Peanut Butter Bars:Just add water. Bake in the cardboard box it came in. World's ugliest cake: Baked with Love and 27 other ingredients.

15 things I'm not going to do now that I'm 50.

2010-04-22T08:30:00.003-05:00

Sorry for the absence. I've been busy...getting older. Today I am 50 years old. I remember when I read obituaries in the paper and if the deceased were at least 50, I felt them old enough to die without regrets. I don't feel old enough to die today. Until I get to that point, here is a list of annoying things I refuse to do just because I now have my AARP card.
I'm not going to:
1. freeze casseroles
2. wear polyester
3. get a permanent
4. ignore the dentist
5. have only one set of keys and one set of glasses
6. apologize for my memory lapses
7. try to cash unexpected checks for millions of dollars
8. put "career objective" on a resume
9. wear a plastic rainhat
10.eat cheap ice cream
11.suffer gadgetry intimidation
12.pass along stupid email fwd's that say I'll die if I don't send it to 10 friends.
13. introduce body parts as topics of conversation
14. repeat myself
15. enagage in public displays of affection with my dog (I do that at home)
oh, and one more....
16. Call my children and tell them it's my birthday.

Key to a Happy Marriage requires knowing algebra?

2010-03-13T17:51:00.006-06:00

Swiss scientists just released studies showing that one of the most important factors to a happy marriage is that the woman be at least 27% smarter than her husband. I've been pondering those statistics all week and wondering just what kind of smart they mean. According to one of those "scientific" Facebook I.Q tests we both took, I'm the smarter one. In an attempt to redeem himself, Dave came home from work last week with a test he couldn't wait to give me. It was one of those sneaky quizzes that asks you dumb questions to purposely trip you up. Here's an example: You're in a race. You overtake second place. What place are you in? It didn't work. I didn't trip up. Chalk one up to my side. He seemed surprised. (He and his office staff apparently didn't do as well.) But I don't think you can measure how smart a person is strictly through the use of I.Q tests. I think other factors play a role somehow. If we are measuring intelligence though educational accomplishment, Dave probably needs to consider me his starter wife. He has eight years of college under his belt. It took me eight years to complete slightly more than 1 year of college. I had to drop algebra 4 times because I didn't want to ruin my perfect 4.00 grade point average. Chalk one up to his side. Then there's also street smarts, which, quite frankly is hard to measure on the "Streets of Tuscaloosa". In our little bedroom college town, you might be considered to have street smarts if you know where three public parking spots are on campus that don't require a permit, can speak Saban street slang ("aighht?") and know the back roads to wherever you're driving to on a Friday afternoon in order to avoid the McFarland Boulevard traffic clog. We're about even on this one. I'm better around campus (remember, I was there eight years), but somehow he's figured out a short cut on every unpaved, dirt road in town. And last but not least, I suppose there is practical smarts. This differs from street smarts in that it relys more on common sense, memory and practical living skills. Let me give you a purely hypothetical example. A man, we'll call him Dave, stands at the food pantry asking where the peanut butter is and his wife says "Right in front of you" and he says "No, it's not" and she says "Yes, it is...keep looking" and finally she has to get up and point at the peanut butter (that was right in front of him.). If you recognize yourself in this example, you might be weak in the practical living skills. Especially if this little scenario is played out on a regular basis with other items such as dog leashes, garbage bags, potato chips or most all your ordinary everyday items that become invisible only to you. You might also question your practical smarts I.Q if you have eight years of post secondary education but can't remember what time zone you live in. I'm not talking about one of those temporary brain farts we all have. Dave cannot ever remember his time zones. When we go east to Atlanta, he sets our dashboard clock back an hour when we cross the Georgia border. Now we're two hours behind the correct time.That used to launch the "time zone argument", but after 23 years of this, I have long since given up and refer to my cell phone for the correct time. Now you know why we aren't planning a trip to Hawaii anytime soon. So just as I'm about ready to chalk this one up to my side, I remember an incident of my own that might be considered lacking in practical smarts. After getting gas one day, I tootled down the road noticing everyone was honking and pointing at my gas tank. I figured I must have left the gas cap hanging out again (you know they starting attaching them after I lost every one I ever owned) People really didn't need to be making this big a deal out of it! It's not like it's going to catch on fire or something. When I pulled in the driveway and got out to fix it, I was horrified! Not only was my gas cap hanging out but I had drove off without putting the gas nozzle back. The entire nozzle and a portion of the hose had been pulled out of the pump and was still positioned in my gas tank. How could I do something so dumb? I'm sure I must have been in deep thought trying to figure out an algebra problem. I'm not sure which side wins the practical smarts but I think we're about even overall. Even if I'm ahead, I don't know if it's by 27% or not (I didn't do well in percentages either) I'm still going to declare myself the winner and the smarter one. After all, I married him...didn't I? I think they call that smart like a fox.

Guest Post by "Mr. Anonymous"

2010-03-11T08:15:00.001-06:00

I thought about the 30 year business
I ran with 1800 employees, all without a Blackberry
that played music,
took videos,picturesand communicated
with Facebook and Twitter.

I signed up under duress for Twitter and Facebook,
so my seven kids,their spouses, 13 grandkids
and 2 great grand kids could communicate with me
in the modern way.
I figured I could handle something as simple as
Twitter with only 140 characters of space.

That was before one of my grandkids hooked me up
for
Tweetree,
Twhirl,
Twitterfon,
Tweetie,
Twittererific
Tweetdeck,
Twitpix
and something that sends every message to my cell phone
and every other program within the texting world.

My phone was beeping every three minutes with the details of
everything except the bowel movements of the entire next generation.
I am not ready to live like this.
I keep my cell phone in the garage in my golf bag.

The kids bought me a GPS for my last birthday
because they say I get lost every now and then
going over to the grocery store or library.

I keep that in a box under my tool bench with the Blue tooth
[it's red] phone I am supposed to use when I drive.

I wore it once and was standing in line at Barnes and Noble
talking to my wife as everyone within 50 yards was glaring at me.
Seems I have to take my hearing aid out to use it
and I got a little loud.

I mean the GPS looked pretty smart on my dash board, but the lady
inside was the most annoying, rudest person I had run into
in a long time.
Every 10 minutes, she would sarcastically say, "Re-calc-ul-ating"
You would think that she could be nicer.
It was like she could barely tolerate me.
She would let go with a deep sigh and then tell me to make a U-turn
at the next light.
Then when I would make a right turn instead, it was not good.

When I get really lost now, I call my wife and tell her the name of the
cross streets and while she is starting to develop the same tone as
Gypsy,
the GPS lady, at least she loves me.

To be perfectly frank, I am still trying to learn how to use the
cordless phones in our house.
We have had them for 4 years, but I still haven't figured out how I can
lose
three phones all at once and have run around digging under chair
cushions
and checking bathrooms and the dirty laundry baskets when the phone
rings.

The world is just getting too complex for me.
They even mess me up every time I go to the grocery store.
You would think they could settle on something themselves but this
sudden
"Paper or Plastic?" every time I check out just knocks me for a loop.

I bought some of those cloth reusable bags to avoid looking confused
but I never remember to take them in with me.
Now I toss it back to them. When they ask me, "Paper or Plastic?"
I just say, "Doesn't matter to me. I am bi-sacksual.."
Then it's their turn to stare at me with a blank look.

When dreams collide.

2010-03-09T23:21:00.005-06:00

Dave wants a Harley. I tell him it's a midlife crises thing. I want to travel in an RV when we retire. Here's our compromise:

Polygamy in my future?

2010-02-25T10:42:00.010-06:00

It's been a girly girl kind of day. Hair, nails and then a mammogram. While being filed, foiled and flattened, I got to catch up on all of the random buzz on the most important things in life. Beginning at the radiology center, there was only one thing all the girls were talking about and it wasn't boobs. On second thought, they were talking about one boob in particular named Rozlyn. You probably know by hearing her name all that all this buzz was about The Bachelor. I didn't know. I quit watching the show after the third season. I got tired of hearing Dave lecture me on the stupidity and sensationalism of it. He wouldn't even sit in the same room when the show was on. We've since moved on to deeper and more meaningful shows like Millionaire Matchmaker. He'll watch this one with me, though I fear I'm losing him quickly after listening to his comments during the show last night. "Why don't they just fix those millionaire's up with the best looking, dumbest girls they can find and just be done with it? That's all those rich guys are really looking for" I tell him that's all every man is really looking for. Lay off my show. "That's not true. There's lots of other qualities regular men want in women". Hmm... the man doth protest too much. I decide to call him on it. "So what qualities would your ideal women possess?" He eyes me suspiciously. "If I were dead, of course." (He's learned it isn't safe to answer these types of questions unless I add disclaimers first) He puts forth his most convincing contemplative look and then he begins to describe his ideal woman. "She would be smart, helpful without being bossy, always a sweet, yet sexy sounding voice when she talked to me, always ready to go on an adventure and easily turned on." Oh my God. He's just described the lady he's been driving around to work with for two years. My husband's ideal woman is the Garmin lady who lives in that little GPS box in his car! This is feeling a little weird. Even more weird is the fact that I'm feeling a little threatened by this! He's say's that I'm being silly. Of course he's not infatuated with Deidra. Deidra? "You've named her?" I point out all of the similarities in his ideal womans qualities and the Garmin lady. (I refuse to call her by her "name") 1. She's very smart. I don't know how she knows the way to everywhere we go, but she definitely paid attention during geography class. 2. She's helpful but not bossy. When Dave ignores her directions or makes a wrong turn thinking he can outsmart two miles of stalled traffic, unlike another woman in his life, she doesn't call him an idiot driver or threaten to never ride with him again. In that sweet voice of hers, she says, "At your earliest convience, please make a u-turn and return to your previous route. Darling." Okay, she doesn't say "darling", but she does seem to say everything to him in that sexy voice like he said he wanted on his list. 3. She's very easily turned on. One little twist of the knob and she's...well, ready... to go on all those "adventures" I guess he's been dreaming of. I decide I will never be able to compete with the lady in the box. I think this is a prime example of living out the old adage "If you can't beat them, join them." I've sent a letter to the Garmin Company asking if we could pay to have them upgrade Ms. Garmin, oh alright, Deidra; to contain a map of the interior of our home. My mind is swarming with anticipation at what she could get him to do that I can't. Imagine that sexy voice saying "Please head north to the kitchen area, make a right at the garbage can, remove overflowing bag and continue heading north to the garage where you'll find the garbage can. Open lid and throw in trash. Darling."

Can I change my mind?

2010-02-25T08:00:00.002-06:00

Don't look now...well, do look now! This is the REAL "Deidra". The voice of the Garmin lady. Her real name is Karen Jacobsen. She is the ideal woman! On second thought, I don't want her in my house. I'll just live with stacked up garbage, thank you.

Our solution for the shrinking Family

2010-02-17T14:23:00.018-06:00

I thought families were supposed to grow as you got older. Your children get married and have babies, nieces and nephews multiply and the clan just enlarges. Isn't that why all these builder's are building 5,000 square feet homes with 5 bathrooms and an extra large dining room? We all need room to expand for these huge family get togethers we're supposed to be having. My Grandma's 900 square foot house would never accommodate everyone in this era of bigger is better. How would we all fit? When Dave and I were growing up, both of our respective extended families did all gather at our Grandma's little homes. Neither of us remember it feeling cramped. If we were lucky, my Grandpa would set up a little table in their unfinished basement and all of us kids would think we were in heaven getting to eat in the cellar. After dinner, we'd play grocery store with my Grandma's shelves of canned goods from their garden. If we got bored with that, we moved to the top of the stairs. The door that led to the basement was a pocket door that served as our elevator door in our game of "Floor, please?" (which was abruptly put to an end when my cousin John got his finger smashed trying to get out on the "toy floor" before the "elevator" had stopped.) Dave has equally fond memories of his eccentric aunt's (he had eight), boisterous cousins and tipsy uncles. Today, we're looking around at our family and wondering why it didn't turn out that way for us. Where's all the noise and food and laughter at holidays dinners? Unfortunately, those that are still with us are spread out all over the country. Our own children haven't had children yet. It's too quiet. One day, as we were watching Cesar Milan (the Dog Whisperer), I made the seemingly innocent comment that wouldn't Cesar be great to have as a brother-in-law? At family dinners he could do that little bite thing with his hands to keep the dogs from begging at the table and the "tshhht" noise he makes to keep the younger children from being brats. That comment started us on a roll. We decided that if imaginary friends help a child get through certain stages in their life, then why couldn't adults have imaginary families? Today, when we watch television, we can't help ourselves. If we like someone or think they would add something to the mix, they go on the list. Of course being Dave and Sue, you surely know we don't always agree on who should get in the family. Therefore, our rule is to let each others picks in and let Judge Judy (our aunt)break up the fights. I'm pretty sure this game of ours would fall under some sort of psychiatric disorder. I don't want to know about it. We're having too much fun. It's a bit of a disappointment when no one shows up for special occasions. But my 50Th birthday is only eight weeks away and I'm certain my Aunt Paula Deen is busy making my cake. I told my brother-in-law Nick (Saban), he needn't go buy a present. He could just sign one of his old footballs lying around his garage. My cousin Dr. Oz, thinks I should see him for a good physical check up since I'll be turning 50. Dr. Phil (my uncle) read this blog and sent me a tweet. He thinks I should see him for a good mental check-up. There's always one spoil sport in the family.

We've Applied for the Show!

2010-02-12T22:22:00.001-06:00

"THE MARRIAGE REF" IS NOW CASTING

Jerry Seinfeld, NBC, Ellen Rakieten and the producers of "Super Nanny" now bring you...

"The Marriage Ref":

A comic, reality series where celebrities and a relationship referee help squabbling couples make peace. Created by Seinfeld himself, this is relationship advice... with a comic twist.

"The Marriage Ref" casting team is searching the country for outgoing and opinionated couples in long-term relationships, willing to appear on national television, who have a long standing argument or issue that must be resolved. No problem is too small!

* Is there an object, a person, or a habit (e.g. computer, pet, a friend, the remote control) that is a third wheel in your relationship and causes a problem?

* Does your partner have an annoying obnoxious habit or item that causes fights?

* Does your partner do things like withhold sex after a fight?

Whether you argue about parenting, pets, fashion, money, in-laws, weight, housework, chores, communication, neatness, jealousy, past history, friends, sex... Whatever you argue about, we want to hear from you. Tell us why you absolutely NEED a MARRIAGE REF to weigh in and decide who is RIGHT and who is WRONG.

Couples across America ... we want to hear what absolutely makes you nuts when it comes to your partner! Tell us your beef and you might just get the chance to state your case on TV. Wouldn't it be great to settle the issue once and for all?!

If this sounds like you or someone you know, please contact the Casting Team IMMEDIATELY (BEFORE we arrive in town) at the hotline number: 877.304.4040 and email: marriagerefcasting@shedmediaus.com

Please include your contact info, city you live in, photos, and a paragraph about why you are the perfect couple for this show. Be sure to include a brief explanation about your arguments and tell us why you are RIGHT and your partner is WRONG!

Think you and your spouse would be great on the show? Here's a video that explains more about the show and who we're looking for to be part of it:

Re-Planning Plan B

2010-02-10T23:11:00.013-06:00

I watched Oprah's show on nuns yesterday. I had what she refers to as a 'light bulb moment'. I'll backtrack. When the kids were growing up, I used to obsess over what would happen to them if I suddenly died and they were left to be raised alone by my husband. Dave is a loving dad. He is also a bit absent minded. On one too many occasions, he's forgotten to pick up a teary-eyed kid at choir practice or youth group. He never could keep track of ball games or school functions. If I died, I was sure my children would be left wandering the streets of Tuscaloosa for days on end, in dirty underwear, waiting for their dad to pick them up. At the very least, they would never reach their full potential. Being the minor control freak that I am, I had already determined that these two boys were going to be successful, high achieving, model citizens if it killed me. That goal could never come to fruition if, God forbid, they were left with their father to raise them. That's when I came up Plan B. Should tragedy befall me, Dave would definitely need a new wife. That should have probably been the end of my involvement in the matter, but frankly I didn't trust his 'wife-picking' abilities. Yes, I realize what I just said. Let's be honest. He really shouldn't have taken a chance on marrying me. I came with enough baggage to fill a United Airlines 747. I was determined to preselect, preapprove, and present him with a list of suitable second wives. He found all of this remotely morbid, yet mildly amusing as I came home over the years describing a new potential wife to add to the list. I thought I'd found the ideal woman for him when we joined the gym a few years ago. This woman owned the fitness center, and at 40, had never been married (no baggage). She was the sweetest thing I'd ever met (step mother material); and she was very good looking. (not that he would care about that) He listened as I described her. And then I got to the pot belly pig part. I casually mentioned that she had a pot belly pig who resided in the house with her. That was a deal breaker. He said he wasn't living with a pig. (actually, he would be living with two pigs anyway... his son's...but I'd let that be his little surprise.) So over the years, I added and subtracted to the list and updated him periodically on the preapproved wives. He's never felt the need nor desire to make the same list for me. Maybe because I repeatedly told him that I had no desire to marry again. His life insurance check would keep me warm at night. And then I saw the nuns on Oprah. They explained that they wear those long "habits" to represent their wedding dress. They are "married" to Jesus and that is the reason they don't feel the need to marry in the human flesh. The majority of them said that before they entered the convent, that they dated frequently and found no human man was enough for them. This caught my attention. The more they talked about being married to Christ, the more I thought about the possibilities of Jesus as a second husband. We have so much in common that Dave and I never did. I love to move every couple of years. I love travel. I love a man who likes to tell stories and talk. Jesus did all of these things. This was looking promising. The biggest obstacle would be knowing that when anything went a wry in the relationship, I'd be the one at fault. I definitely needed practice in saying "I was wrong". So now that the kids are grown, I've scraped the list. I still don't feel confident in his ability to choose his next wife, but my two sons and my daughter-in-law can be the second wife police. I trust they'll look out for their dad. I still have a Plan B, only this time it's just for me if Dave is the first to go. You'll be able to read all about it at thebloggingnun.com.

Politics and Stange Bedfellows

2010-02-08T21:36:00.025-06:00

I'm in the car headed toward Bliss. Literally. My blogging convention is called "Blissdom 2010". Driving up I-65 north , I'm dreaming of my peaceful weekend doing what I love more than anything - writing. My dreamy thoughts were abruptly interrupted by an hourly news update on APR which caught my attention. They mentioned that the National Tea Party would be having their convention this weekend at Opryland in Nashville. That's where I was headed! I thought it really too bad that Dave didn't come. He loves tea. Most people these days are coffee drinkers, but he's a three cup a day tea guy. Then I hear something even more shocking. Sarah Palin is going to be at the party. She likes tea, too? I'm really feeling bad now because Dave likes tea and Sarah Palin. Then I hear the rest of the story. This isn't an Earl Gray or Lipton tea party. This is a right-winged, conservative, Republican "ish" Tea Party. I must have been living in a closet. I have never heard of the Party. As I listened to the public radio host interview one of the leaders of the party, the dreams of my blissful blogger conference were quickly turning to visions of annoying little Fox News blondies running around behind Bill O'Reilly. Dave and I have this deal at our house that has probably saved our marriage. I won't subject him to watching "The View" if he doesn't turn on any of his Fox News shows when I'm around. We TIVO them and watch them when we're alone. It about kills him to wait. If I get up and go to the bathroom, he sneaks a peek. He could sit and watch Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck and have his own little "bliss convention". And now it appears that I was going to be running around all weekend with my husband's hero's and their 600 groupies. I couldn't think of a better way to spoil a perfectly good trip. It turned out to be a crazy chaotic weekend filled with a star studded cast of characters running around the hotel. I admit that I was drawn in to the excitement that swirls around seemingly important people. The Tea Party press room was right down the hall from one of the seminar rooms my session was in. Not particularly hopeful that my blog with its 10 followers would be attractive to advertisers, I opted to skip the monetization class and wander down to the press room. I was a writer after all, wasn't I? I'm sure bloggers could count as press people. No one questioned me when I entered the press room since my conference badge looked almost identical to the real press people. One would think that holding up my IPhone camera to take Katie Couric's picture might have been a dead give away that I didn't belong in there, but no one seemed to care or notice. I attended interview after interview pretending to be a press person. I would have asked a question, but I had no idea who anyone was. (Except for a crazy man dressed up like Button Gwinnett, one of the signer's of the Declaration of Independence.) That night we had the pleasure of being entertained in a small hotel club by Harry Connick Jr - up close and personal. Harry took a few song requests. Feeling confident from watching my press conference peers, I gathered up the courage to ask him for a request. "Could you sing Pants on the Ground?" No. Sigh. It was getting late and like all good bloggers, I should be in my pajamas blogging up a bunch of lies about Sarah Palin. (Those are the words she used to describe bloggers recently in an interview with Greta Van Susteren.) Did she know she was almost sleeping with the enemies? That there were 500 pissed off bloggers sleeping down the hall from her? I would have warned her, but I'm pretty sure she was packing a pistol anyway. It turns out she's really a closet blogger herself. Since she hasn't quite figured out how the blogging platforms work, she apparently just writes her 'blogs' on her hands. We here at Blissdom call that just plain "Bliss dumb".

And the winner is......

2010-02-01T10:48:00.016-06:00

It's Monday again and that means I blog on our stupidest fight over the last week. This week is really easy since it just happened yesterday. I mentioned something to Dave about a subject I had blogged about during our trip to Las Vegas last week. He didn't say anything. Hmmm.... I purposely mentioned another part of that blog. Still no comment. I was on to him. "You didn't read my blog, did you?" "Not yet" "Did you read the one about how I import fabric softener from the UK?" (That was a blog from two weeks ago.)"You do what?" That got his attention and mine. "Why don't you read my blogs? That hurts my feelings." He explained that he wasn't out to hurt my feelings but that he just hadn't had time. (This coming from a man who spent 4 hours playing online games on his new computer this weekend between naps and a Clint Eastwood western) He had time. When I pointed that out to him, he said I was overreacting. He would get around to the blogs. Besides, he already knows everything that goes on in our home. Really? I dropped the verbal argument and decided to prove him wrong to the world. So here is it is. The proof is in the pudding....or should I say the pizza? Let me explain what you are seeing (and what he isn't!) My dog has a curious habit of pulling the eyeballs off of her stuffed toys before she shreds them to pieces. (I don't know if she was a cornea donor in her past life or if that's her attempt at mercy killing) Nevertheless, these eerie eyeballs sit around the house staring at us when we pick them out of the shag carpet after we've stepped on them and drove them painfully into our feet. To prove to my readers that my husband's vow to "start reading my blog" is an empty one, I tampered with his single serving pizza he has just baked for lunch. When he took it out of the oven to cool, I placed the eyeballs and the fingers that had been collecting over the week on top of his pizza like toppings. I've renamed this yummy new dish the Ted Bundy pizza. Then I snapped a picture and took them all off. He was sitting in his recliner maybe 12 feet away and never had a clue. Let's watch the comment section to see how long it takes him to read my blog and see what his pizza looked like minutes before he ate it. Honey, you don't know everything that happens around here! Read my Blogs.

Does AT&T offer Marriage Counseling?

2010-01-28T15:46:00.008-06:00

Because really they are wrecking my marriage. You knew we couldn't go to Las Vegas without having an argument, didn't you? Actually I had very little to do with this argument but I did feel the need to put my two cents in. Dave has this problem with his cell phone. It never rings. Or vibrates. Neither did the last three he owned. According to him, they've all been dysfunctional. This has been a source of some good arguments over the years. I'm not stupid. I realize that a man who rarely answers his cell phone, claiming it never rang or vibrated when I called, is either a) avoiding my calls or b) deaf, dumb and well, too "padded" to feel it. So over the years, I continue to buy him new phones and fuss at him when he doesn't answer. Sometimes he gets better for a while. Usually, he doesn't. While in Vegas, I didn't expect to have much communication with him. I was in meetings the entire time. He would be at the poker table where answering your phone is a no-no. One morning he left around 9:00 a.m. to get some breakfast and wander around. I was already at my conference and he woke our sleeping college son who had come with us (read Leaving Las Vegas posted earlier today) Tyler told him to go on ahead, that he wanted a little more shut eye. Unbeknownest to the world, a miracle occured and this college student who usually sleeps until 1:00 p.m., decided to get up right after Dave left. He immediately started phoning his Dad to meet him for breakfast. Dave didn't answer his phone. Imagine that. He called for 30 minutes. He texted. (which still makes me laugh....Dave get and answer a text?) He got mad. He searched the whole entire 90,000 square foot casino of Treasure Island where we stayed. No Dad. No Dad meant no breakfast, no games, no fun. He called me out of my meeting and told me his dilemna. After explaining everything he did he said (and I quote) "Mom, I'm really, really mad at that husband of yours!" I found it mildly amusing that he was now "my husband". My amusment lasted about 2 minutes and then turned to anger when I began calling Dave and getting no answer. I had to go back to my meeting. I couldn't expend the energy it would require to fight this losing battle. When they finally met up, Tyler turned up the volume on Dave's cell phone and vibration mode and felt confident he had solved his dad's problem. I just chuckled. Later in the airport the next day, Dave's phone began ringing. Loudly. He didn't hear it. It buzzed. He didn't feel it. I was standing right next to him. By the time I told him to get his phone they had hung up and my phone rang. It was Tyler down the hall at the snack bar. "Why didn't Dad answer his phone?", he demanded. I have no explanation. I'm not a cellular psychologist. As I was sitting on the plane before we took off,I noticed the man sitting next to me texting away on his Blackberry. The man across the aisle was talking on his cell while typing away on his laptop. Everywhere I looked men were interacting with technology in one form or another. Except my husband. He had his blow up cervical pillow around his neck and his eyes shut. We hadn't even taken off yet. For the first time in my life, I began coveting these other men and their technological savy. I'm calling AT&T when we get home and demanding private lessons for my husband on the easiest phone they make. I'm getting his hearing checked. I'm sending him to Mavis Beacon typing school to learn that he has more than two index fingers to type with. Then I'm threatening him with his life if that doesn't work. And when I bury him you better believe a cell phone will be in his pocket and I'll be calling night and day so he can get no rest. I'd like to hear his excuse for not hearing it in there!

Thank you Southwest Airlines!

2010-01-28T15:09:00.002-06:00

We were the last one's to check in to our Southwest flight (which doesn't assign seats) so we were told we would have to split up and take the only three open seats left. As we waited for them to call for boarding, we conjured up our seatmates in our minds. "One will be a fat lady", said Tyler. "And one of us will have to sit next to a screaming kid", Dave chimed in. "My worst nightmare would be a stinky guy", I concluded thinking about my olfactory issues. We argued about who would get "stinky", and who would get "screamer". We thought about playing rock, paper, scissors for seat positions. Then we decided if we had a choice, Dave would take "stinky" because his nose - big as it is - can't smell a thing. Tyler would take "screamer" because he had his Ipod and earphones and I would get the fat lady because I was cold. (you figure it out) I was the first of the three of us to find an empty seat and the two guys kept filing to the back of the plane in search of their unknown seatmates. A few minutes before take-off, I pulled out my phone and texted Tyler, "Stinky or screamer?" We had to turn off our portable devises before he could text me back. We all ended up having great seat buddies and on the last leg of our trip we got to sit together in first class when most of the plane disembarked in New Orleans. I recommend Southwest to everyone who flys. The airline attendants were funny as they sang and cracked jokes over the speaker making even a white knuckled flyer like me feel at ease.

Leaving Las Vegas...

2010-01-28T11:10:00.019-06:00

We just returned from a fun three day trip to a business conference in Las Vegas. The we being myself, my husband, and our 19 year old college son. The conference being mine. The fun being theirs. I hesitated signing up for the staging conference in the first place because of the fact that it was in Las Vegas. Of all the places in the world I would choose to gather up my little itsy-bitsy bit of courage to fly to, Vegas would be at the bottom of the list. I hadn't been there in over 31 years when, in a fit of temporary insanity, I flew off with the original Biggest Loser and got married at 18. Those memories didn't hold any fond remembrances of the town for me. Another reason for my less than excited anticipation, is the ambivalence I felt about inviting my husband and son along. While I knew I would enjoy their company, a part of me was afraid they would never come home; fancying themselves the next Phil Ivey and Chris Moneymaker. They liked poker. They really liked poker. On more than one occasion, I have threatened to check them both into the Betty Ford Center. (Do they handle "Texas Hold Em'" addicts there?) As it turned out, Las Vegas may be it's own cure for what ails you when what ails you can be lost in the first hour you're there! In the end, I had a good conference and they divided their time between losing money and visiting landmarks on the strip. (Editors note: I feel the need to clarify that my money-losing husband and the biggest loser I referred to earlier, are not one in the same. Nothing I possessed at 18 remains in my life today, including husbands.) Although I gained a great deal of new information at my seminar, our real education began on our way home. You know that stupid, redundant saying about "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas?" It's true. Did you know the cure for cancer has already been found? Our government is hiding it from us so they can continue to make money on cancer grants and pharmaceuticals? This wealth of information came from Benny our shuttle bus driver. I was so believing him (I don't really trust the government either) until he got to the cure. Benny invented it. Yep, tried it out on his friend. (who of course had incurable cancer and a few months later.... you guessed it...cancer gone.) Happened it Vegas... stayed in Vegas. Oh, I almost forgot to tell you the cure! Benny said put 1 tablespoon of baking soda in 8 ounces of water and drink it. Then take 1 tablespoon of organic honey and eat that. (Benny stressed over and over again that it has to be organic) He said he was a smoker, but not as heavy as his wife. She smokes so much that their dogs cough after every few barks. I swear I'm not making this up. But he is not worried about the cancer thing, because he has the baking soda and honey on stand by. He hasn't figured out a way to get the dogs to eat it. Later, Benny remarked rudely about a homeless man we saw standing outside a fancy hotel. He was drinking out of people's leftover beer cans while simultaneously puffing on stranger's discarded cigarette butts that he had collected and lined up in a neat row. Benny found him disgusting. I thought it very judgmental since the Benny and the homeless man looked like they could be next door neighbors. Benny said that homeless beggars shouldn't be pitied because they make between $50 and $300 a day panhandling. That's about three times more than I make selling real estate and staging homes. I decided I would google "panhandling conventions" as soon as I got home. We arrived at the airport, said good-bye to Benny and he wished us well. As he was hopping back on his bus to pull out, he yelled back to us "Don't forget. That's organic honey."
Benny the Shuttlebus Driver

John Doe Homeless Man

Olfactory Issues

2010-01-20T22:39:00.002-06:00

If you have been following my blog, you might remember that one of my 2010 New Year's resolutions was to quit buying candles. I am a self confessed candle junkie, who was given an ultimatum by a very patient husband to either quit buying candles or join a 12 step program. 20 days into the new year, I'm proud to say that not one dollar has passed through my fingers to a candle check-out clerk. The bad news is I've moved on to other olfactory obsessions. I never knew that candles were a gateway drug. My newest smell cravings have been directed toward laundry and bath products. The problem all started when my massage therapist made the fatal mistake of describing her somewhat OCD issues with making sure her clothes smell very clean and fresh. She goes through more bottles of Downy Fabric softener than a drunk goes through vodka on a hot Las Vegas night. She rinses and then re-rinses and does some more hocus-pocus and she has the best smelling family in town. (Which is important since her husband owns the largest portable toilet business in West Alabama!) This conversation set off a whole new obsession in me and I was off to transfer my need for wonderful candle fixations to my laundry. I discovered the most wonderful fabric softener called "Tulip" made by Art Home. Of course it was expensive and had to be ordered, but the fresh and clean smell was well worth the price and effort.It was like nothing I had ever experienced before. When my packages arrived bi-monthly, Dave would eye them suspiciously and ask "Are there candles in there?" I assured him that I was only buying a necessary household laundry cleaner. He seemed a bit confused why the UPS man brought mine and other women could simply buy theirs at the grocery store. Sadly, the website I purchased it from informed me that they would no longer would be carrying my drug of choice. I hunted like a mad women on every website on the web to find it somewhere else, but the company had decided to discontinue the scent. (I did find it on a UK site, but even in my obsession I felt that importing my fabric softener from the UK would be grounds for commitment.) So I have spent the last month searching in vain for that "special smell"....trying every softener in every store and coming up disappointed. I've joined web support groups who do nothing but discuss how to get your clothes smelling really, really clean. I was so excited to find tons of these online communities sharing reviews of laundry detergents and homemade detergent recipes. Last night I made and bottled my own fabric softener for the first time. (To see the formula and outcome, visit my site at www.awelllovedhome.com).

And the winner is...

2010-01-18T16:01:00.009-06:00

It's Monday again and that means I get to pick the winner of our Dumbest Discussion of the Weekend. This weeks most stupid argument goes to a conversation that took place Saturday morning. My girlfriend called needing my help with a 911 decorating emergency. After ignoring her house for 22 years, she was ready to paint and redecorate. Now. When I told Dave that I was planning on going out to her house to help her he said and I quote, "No problem, I have a lot of work to do around the house today, anyway." That comment stopped me dead in my tracks. Dave do housework? I'm still trying to get him to learn to put his cereal bowl in the dishwasher. I began re-thinking this painting gig. I wanted a front seat on the couch for this show. "You're working around the house?" "Yeah, I'm putting up some shelves in the garage" Gong. I have an imaginary gong from the old Gong Show and he just got gonged. "Playing in your garage isn't working around the house. The garage isn't even part of the house" "It isn't playing and it is part of the house. It's attached." "No, it's not. We don't sleep in there. Our cars do." "It is part of the house and that's where I'm working today" "So you really think it's imperative that those old coffee cans full of nails and boxes of stuff we never use get new shelves?" "Why do you have a problem with this?" Why did I have a problem with this? Honestly I'd have to think about this for a minute. The truth was I was feeling a little sorry for our toilets. If Dave was in a once in a lifetime working-around-the-house mood, I felt the toilets were much more deserving of his time than that junk in the garage. And for that matter, so were the windows, floors and dirty laundry."Do you think I'm reorganizing my shelves because I want to?" Yes, I did. And therein lay the problem. Work is something you don't want to do. He was electing to do this. People have elective surgery because they want to. I don't do housework because I want to. So it was all semantics. I didn't care what he did. I just cared what he called what he did. And so, if you ask me what Dave did this weekend, I will tell you he tinkered around in his garage. He will tell you that he worked around the house. Okay, maybe he did work. He just hasn't gotten around to the house part yet.

2010-01-18T09:51:00.002-06:00

Surviving the Complications of Simplicity

2010-01-17T18:15:00.019-06:00

Once a year, Dave and I sit down and have a heart to heart about how life is going for us. We include everything from financial matters, the children, the business, our relationship and anything else that happens to be on our minds. Last year around September, we decided that since the boys had moved out, we would sell our big house, downsize to a garden home and begin to simplify our life. I am so in love with the word "simplify". It sounds so ethereal. I began to research just how one would go about simplifying their life. Author Victoria Moran described simplification as what you get when you remove from your life certain complications: items that don't serve or delight you, and activities that take more energy than they give back. With that explanation in hand, I began to make my list. Kind of a reverse Christmas list, if you will. Things I didn't want in my life anymore. Cooking, grocery shopping, doing the dishes, and cleaning the house would all be at the top of my list of things to go. Likewise, Dave's list removed going to work, maintaining the house and cars, and cutting the grass. I began to see that the only way we could live with this definition of simplicity is if we morphed into Lisa and Oliver Douglas on Green Acres. I used to love the way Lisa would wrap up the dirty dishes in the table cloth after they ate and throw the whole thing out the window. And Oliver never really went to work. He just rode around on that old tractor arguing with the neighbors. Trust me, if money weren't a factor, we would already own a pig named Arnold.
We soon came to realize that this matter of simplifying wasn't so cut-and-dried. Even if it were possible to cut out all those undelightful things; what would we do if we had nothing to do? Let's face it: sometimes our greatest joys complicate our lives the most. For example: we're planning a trip to Las Vegas next week and it is requiring shopping, spending, packing, time off work, looking for a dog sitter, putting the mail on hold and suffering jet lag. So travel, for instance is an example of a terrific disruption! Instead of simplifying, maybe what we are really seeking is selective complications. Kind of like selective hearing? In the end, we hear what we want to hear and we do what we think will make us happy.

Seeking Compatible Frequencies.

2010-01-16T21:00:00.009-06:00

Dave and I are the happiest and most productive when we are surrounded by places, people and activities that are in sync with us. We are continually surprised on those rare days when we are in sync with each other. Here's our problem in a nutshell: while I see life in varying shades of grays; my husband sees life and all of it's issues and dilemmas in either black or white. Just like my poor worn out wiper blades, there's no wishy-washy inside of him. If he doesn't have an opinion or know an answer, he's happy to make something up for you. The kids and I fondly call these made up facts of his "stick-outs." Three or four years ago for his birthday I bought him a card that had an old man talking to his wife on a pier. He was pointing out to sea and said "See that land mass over there? They call that a stick-out". And then on the inside of the card, it said "Another year older, another year closer to making up crap.." Last year, one of our boys found the same card in a store again and bought it for him a second time. Do you think we're trying to make a point here? Before you assume we're picking on him, catch the reason for the second card. We had spent a family week at our beach house on the gulf. One night when we were all out on the balcony gazing at the stars and listening to the waves roll in, my husband pointed out a strange set of lights very far into the distance to the east. We all wondered what it was. It didn't appear to be a ship or vessel of any sort. Not content without an answer at hand, I could see the wheels start turning in Dave's brain as he attempted to create his own Wikopedia moment for us. "Those are lights from New Orleans over there." What? "They say you can see New Orleans from spots in Alabama at night." By now, the boys and I are busting up laughing. But he isn't finished. "New Orleans isn't that far by water and it is positioned so that part of it sticks out. That's the part we're seeing" Oh my God, he really is his Hallmark card! We can't stop laughing now. I'm so glad my husband has the ability to laugh at himself. Today I refer this as his Sarah Palin moment. (She can see Russia from her balcony, you know.) Most of the time we operate on different frequencies only to find it irritating rather than humorous. He likes Fox News; the sound of Bill O'Reillys' voice is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. I listen to sports talk or NPR in my car; I can hear his oldies rock station blaring halfway down the block. I like to hitch my wagon to a star; his feet are planted firmly on the ground. No one ever tripped over Pike's Peak. It's so often the little stuff that gets us. We try to identify the irritations with as much humor as possible. It's just part of the price of admission into the life we're trying to create together and yet, make sure it still looks like us.

Coexisting gracefully.

2010-01-12T17:08:00.006-06:00

I heard the most remarkable story today. A realtor co-worker of mine has a neighbor who is also a good friend of hers. They have children who play together and spouses who golf together and they have enjoyed each others close friendship throughout the years. Last month, my coworker and her friend threw a big neighborhood Christmas party together followed by a special celebration with just their two families the day before Christmas. Yesterday, three weeks after the holidays, her friend told her she would soon be needing her services as a realtor to purchase a new home for herself because she had divorced her husband. Not, getting divorced, but divorced - final - decree granted. My coworker was still reeling from the shock of the news. Her friends' explanation for her secrecy was simply that they had decided to maintain as normal a life as possible over the course of the year that they had been working on their divorce. They had made a decision to keep their impending divorce to themselves and act as if nothing was amiss in their relationship. Wow. Talk about keeping something under wraps. I'm trying to envision any circumstance where I could possibly live with Dave for a year while we were getting divorced and not mention it to anyone or act any differently. Nope, none. The ability to coexist with the unresolved is something I have had absolutely no ability to do. I can only function at my best when everything in my life is perceived to be under control. The older I get however, I'm realizing that we rarely have as much control over life as we like to think we have. That realization really hits home when your children grow up and move away. I'm learning that even solvable problems seldom have the instant answers I wish they had. Until problems are worked through, I need to learn to share space with them. Most of the unresolved irritations I have to live with are simply that: irritations. Occasionally we have to coexist with serious issues or health trials. It can be agonizing to live in the limbo of not knowing about our own health or that of someone we love. It seems that those people in my life who have had the courage to get through the truly difficult trials are the ones who cohabit fairly serenely with the trivial ones. Hmmm...this could be a light bulb moment for me. Maybe my coworkers neighbor wasn't "in denial" because she had a problem, but she simply decided to behave normally in spite of it. I'm going to try that tonight. Dave just walked in the house 45 minutes late from work. Supper is cold, the dogs are impatient for their nightly walk with him, and he forgot to pick up the gallon of milk at the store. Minor irritations, I tell myself. I am going to share space with these issues without opening my mouth. I am going to act normal. Within 3 minutes, Dave asks what is wrong with me. "You're not acting normal" Sigh. I guess I have more to work on than I thought. If I wake up tomorrow and we have nothing to deal with, my address has probably become Forest Lawn.

And the winner is......

2010-01-11T08:35:00.008-06:00

Every Monday morning I have decided to choose one of the arguments Dave and I have had over the past weekend as the winner of my "Dumbest discussion of the Weekend" award. I'm doing this for 3 reasons. 1) Because I need to prove I can write short blogs. 2.) To make my readers feel better about their own marriage. 3) To hopefully solicit comments in my favor as the sensible one in our family. So here is this week's winner: The dumbest argument of the weekend was the: "What I want my grandchildren to call me discussion", that later became known as the: "What I want my grandchildren to call me argument". People rarely call their grandparents "Grandpa" and "Grandma" in the south. There are so many variations like "Nana" and "Papaw". We were commenting on how cute our daughter-in-laws name for her french grandmother was, "Meme", to which Dave replied, "I want my grandchildren to call me "Big Daddy". I seriously thought he was joking. One look told me he wasn't. "Our grandchildren will not call you "Big Daddy". "But, I like it. It kind of elevates me to a higher position." "It kind of makes you sound like a pimp". Can you imagine someone hearing my sweet granddaughter at, possibly fourteen, saying into her phone "Hey Big Daddy, will you take me out for dinner tonight? Appalling. After fifteen minutes of arguing my point, he never agreed. I forgot to mention that we don't have any grandchildren. Little facts like that never seem to matter in our arguments. I've decided to ask all his employees to give his "endearing nickname" a test run this week. I predict the point will have been made by lunchtime today. "Mrs. Smith, you can come back with me. Big Daddy is ready to examine you now".

Are we having fun yet?

2010-01-10T23:56:00.007-06:00

I have always been the Chairman of the Fun Committee at our house. It's a job that suited me well until all the committee members moved out except for one. The un-fun one. That would be my husband. I can tell you the things that are fun in his book: napping on the couch, watching westerns on the couch, eating potato chips on the couch and working on his computer on the couch. His recliner was banned from the living room years ago due to his overly close attachment to it. Unfortunately, he only transferred the hub of all of his activity to the sofa. This weekend I was determined we would work on building new memories together and so I spent 30 minutes explaining that meant that we would have to actually do something together. I said. "Let's play a game!" We decided we would play a board game if we could find the box we packed the games in when we moved. He went to look in the garage. I went to look in the attic. We never found them but I calculated that we ended up playing three games that afternoon without even trying. First, we played Marco Polo. It consisted of me yelling from the attic down to him in the garage. "Dave?" "What?" "Dave!" "I said what" Where was he? I couldn't get a box down to look inside and needed his help. I moved to the back of the attic which was directly over the garage. "DAVE!!" "I said WHAT!!!!" (I never heard him) From Marco Polo, we moved on to Blind Man's Bluff. This is where Dave moved up to the attic after deeming the garage a waste of time, and tried to help me. "Get that box, on the third shelf." "Where?" "The third shelf. It says Misc. stuff on it." "I don't see that." "Look again. It's there." "I don't see any boxes on the third shelf". "Then you're blind." It was there. On the third shelf. It didn't have games in it. We continued our fun with the game "I spy." Remember that game you played on trips with your kids when you said, "I spy with my little eye, something beginning with the letter c?" Our children used to love it and would take forever naming everything in the car until they got it. Our new adult version began when we decided to call the kids and see if they had our games or knew where they were. They didn't seem to have the enthusiasm or patience they used to exhibit with this game. "Tyler, we're looking for that game we liked to play so much. Do you know where it is?" "Which game?" "I don't remember the name. You read something to someone and then the other person took a turn or something like that. Dad thinks it started with the letter m" "I don't have a clue what you guys are talking about." "Oh, I think it was in a purple box! We played it that one Christmas, remember?" He didn't. We didn't either. By the time I had gotten off the phone, my husband was well situated back at grand Central Station with his bag of potato chips in hand. The dogs wanted fed and I needed to start supper. Just as I began to think our purposed game day was over, my husband asked, "Have you seen the remote?" "It's on the green thingy' "What?" "The green whatchamacallit" "I don't see it." "It's there." All three games rolled into one. What fun. I can't wait to see what next weekend brings.

Building Soul Equity

2010-01-10T16:43:00.003-06:00

I knew that the holidays without the children living at home might be a bit hard to adjust to this year. Being a responsible woman, I decided I would get ahead of the sadness and begin some therapy in early November. Retail therapy that is. It worked! I shopped and shopped and got through the holidays with no adjustment problems at all. The family was all here Christmas morning and even the egg casserole turned out semi-edible. The new dog chased the old cat and the old dog chased the new dog chasing the old cat. Glorious, wonderful noise again. Flash forward into January. Actually two days ago. I went out to get the mail and noticed the Mastercard bill had arrived. I knew it was going to be higher than usual but I haven't seen that many zero's after a number since we bought our last car. I could have flown to Los Angeles to have a few personal therapy sessions with Dr. Phil cheaper than my retail therapy sessions cost me! What was I thinking? Is this what a manic episode was? You are probably thinking that I'm getting to the part where Dave explodes when he sees the bill. Sorry to dissapoint you. Dave and I argue alot, but we never argue about important things like; kids or money or values. We just squander away our lives arguing about what kind of noodles should be used in spaghetti and which route is shorter to Ihop. I spent the rest of that morning feeling ill and working on my real estate staging business where I had begun the study of Feng Shui. Truthfully, I was pretty skeptical about this whole far eastern system of aligning energies in a house. And then...like an ancient Chinese secret, the truth sprung out from my Feng Shui book and smacked me in the face! I read, " Some of the important principles of feng shui are a large kitchen which implies having an abundance of good food and money. Also important are having no protruding corners jutting into a room that cut into the human energy fields. A very important factor is not having a staircase that leads directly to the front door or you cannot keep your fortune inside, and lastly one must never have your toliet in the direct line of sight when you enter the bathroom or your money can be considered flushed away. If any of these problems exist in your home they can be sometimes be remedied by hanging wind chimes near the problem or possibly prisms " I couldn't believe what I just read. Our house had all of these problems! Equipped with this new found knowledge, I sat Dave down for a serious discussion later that evening. I explained to him how very lucky we were to get off with only having a $10.000 Mastercard bill this month when our entire house was set up to suck out, burn up and flush away our money. I explained our toliet placement issues and staircase leading to the front door problems and small kitchen implications. The small kitchen was actually a double whammy: it explained our underabundance of money and good food. Armed with the evidence at hand, I impressed upon him there was only one possible solution. Move. We must move before our entire savings gets wiped out paying these high credit card bills our evil house is causing me to incur. He looked at me in disbelief for just a moment and then asked me if I had my credit card handy. I gave it to him. "I'll be right back". He headed in to our office. I knew he had a lot to digest with our upcoming move and all. In about 10 minutes he returned with a receipt from Amazon.com. "I went on one last shopping splurge for you". He handed me the paper he had just printed out. I read the receipt for four oriental windchimes and two prisms. "And just in case those don't work", he said. "I have one more safety net for us." At that, he tucked my credit card into his wallet, smirked and said "ancient chinese secret,..."