The Good Day

Shhhh…

Don’t say it too loudly, but Northeast Ohio has been giving us some fantastic weather lately.

Yeah, I probably just jinxed us.  It will probably snow 4 inches overnight.

(Not 6 inches.  That would give us a snow day, and Ohio doesn’t work like that.)

Never underestimate the chances of “More Winter” invading “Road Construction”

So anyways, awesome weather means that it has just been…great.

Today was such a good day.  It wasn’t spectacular or amazing or out of the ordinary.  It was just deliciously, deeply good.

I got a large task done at work that I’ve been tackling for a while.

I came home to hugs from my hubby and my children.  My husband watched the kids while I took a short nap.  (Naps are fantastic…but I always feel guilty for taking them.  Am I the only one?  Yeah?  Fine then.)  On the negative side, I thought of an excellent Facebook status as I dozed off…then I forgot it.  Wisdom lost for all time, folks.

After my nap we played and did art together and practiced Corinne’s letter cards.  We read some stories.  We watched some Scooby Doo.

For dinner I made one of our favorites, Brunswick stew.  For once, the girls were happily occupied in their own toy kitchen and did not attempt to fall in the soup/add toys to the pot/drop bar stools on my feet.  I also made some ranch snack crackers. SO addicting.  Those crackers turned out to be all Ashlynn ate for dinner, but whatever, you know?  She’s not going to starve to death.  She’ll just be…ranchy, I guess?

And she’ll have great views and horses and invite mom to come for vacation every winter…oh sorry. Got distracted.

After dinner we grabbed popsicles and played outside until dusk fell.  We came in and did the pajama routine, then we started Stuart Little.  The girls saw the movie and fell in love, and bibliophile that I am, I couldn’t let it go at that.  A) I’ve been dying to start reading them chapter books, and B) They did a truly awful job with that movie.

Hugs and kisses and the girls were in bed, on time, and with a minimum of excuses to get up and whining.

(I swear, the other night Ashlynn got up FOUR TIMES to ask me if I was going to feed her breakfast the next morning.  I know sarcasm is lost on young children, but I was finally like “What?! Do you think I would suddenly and randomly decide that tomorrow is the first day in your life I would cancel breakfast?!  TO SLEEP!!!!  GO!!!”)

Also the dog stalked neighbors out the window while totally missing the squirrel two feet from the house that was making faces at him.  Thank God we have an electronic security system.

Now it’s time for a bath and a book and probably some brain-rotting tv.  Hopefully no insomnia, as my pre-interview jitters have turned into “the million things I want to do with my class next year” ideas and I’ve been running on fumes the past week.

My husband will be home soon.  I love and miss him and we’ll probably curl up on the couch together.  What was that noise?  Did you hear that?  It sounded like gagging.  Oh well.  Must be imagining things.

Ooooo, and it sounds like there’s a thunderstorm coming!  I sleep best with rain pouring down!

Who needs TV?

There you go.  My good day.  Deliciously, happily good. What makes your days good?  I know you’re out there, readers!  Comment and share!

 

You Can’t Have Him. He’s Mine.

I have the best husband.

WARNING!!  This post contains craploads of mooshy stuff.  WARNING!!

I am so that person sitting in the staff lounge listening to all my co-workers (mostly women-it’s education, after all) complaining about their husbands, and silently thinking to myself, “Yeah, my husband would never do that.”

I got lucky in love.  I met (okay, stole from a friend) Kirk our senior year in high school, and despite me slightly going crazy (teen angst) only a few weeks after we met,  it brought us closer together instead of driving us apart.

This past December 3rd, we celebrated 12 years together, and this coming August, we will be married for 8 years.  High school sweethearts do work out sometimes, and couples like us do exist.

See? Mooshy.

All this time, and we still can’t get enough of each other.  Still hold hands, say I love you, kiss each other good night, send “I miss you” texts.  Yeah I know-gag.

He’s a man who helped me 50/50 with the kids (ok, sometimes like 60/40…cuz I get lazy…or sometimes 40/60…since he couldn’t nurse the children.)  He does his share of chores, loves to cook dinner, puts the toilet seat down, opens doors for me.  A man who works two jobs to support this family and still comes home ready to play with the girls every day.  They don’t make them like him anymore, ladies…but I hope there will be a least a few throwbacks like him for my daughters to marry.  Because man are they going to have some high standards.

As you read in this post, last week I turned thirty.  And my husband loves nothing more than to spoil me, but my birthday is always a little hard.  We just wiped ourselves out for Christmas, we don’t have taxes back yet, and Corinne’s birthday party is right around the corner.

Needless to say, he was a little disappointed when we did the bills and the budget provided him a number available for my birthday that was way lower than he wanted.

So you can imagine my surprise when I opened my birthday gift and found a brand new Nintendo 3DS*** gaming system, complete with popular game…

This one. In my favorite color, no less.

At first I wanted to kill him.  Where could he have gotten that kind of money?  These systems are almost $200, and that was not the limit we’d devised.

But then he told me.  This awesome guy, who loves himself some XBox 360 and PS3, had taken all his video games and traded them in.  For me.  He combined the credit he got with his birthday budget to get me the game he knew I wanted.  You have to understand the sacrifice he made…he loves those games and they’re a big source of stress release for him.  And he gave them up.  To give me a happy birthday.

Do you need a tissue?  Because I almost did.  UNbelievable.  Amazing.

And.  And!  AND!!

That wasn’t even all.  He called his mom and arranged for the kids to spend the night the Friday after my birthday.  Then he took me out to dinner and shopping, and I got to come home and sleep in the next morning.  My parent friends will know that is possibly the best gift ever.

This guy.  People, I can’t begin to tell you how awesome he is.

Although I have to admit.  He set the bar a little high for his next birthday!

***Yeah, I love video games.  I’m not by any means a hard-core gamer, but I love me some Super Mario and puzzle games as much as your average gaming nerd.

Mommy Brag Blog

Parenting engenders a lot complaining.  I can see why.  You get this little bundle of joy popped into your arms (I’m not even going to get into the complaining before that, since it’s usually just the mom’s territory), and you take it home and it wakes you up and makes weird smells and creates noise pollution in your formerly quiet home.

Plus you can’t even have parties whenever you want.  Yeesh.

But this is a positive blog with a positive spin, and although I have been known to whine about my children like every other parent, today is not the day for that.

My kids are awesome.

• They fall asleep between 8 and 9pm.  They stay asleep until at least 7:30am.  They have done this since Corinne was 15 months old and Ashlynn was 9 months old.
• If, by chance they wake up earlier than 7:30, I can give them a stack of books and they will sit in bed and read until I tell them it’s time to “wake up.”
• They say truly hilarious things.  All the time. 
• They are very huggable.  I even hug them when they don’t want me to.  Because they are smaller than me and I can sneak up on them and squeeze them until they collapse into giggles.
• Corinne potty trained herself.  Ashlynn is in the process.
• This seems like ancient history, but they both weaned themselves from the breast and the bottle.  Ashlynn dropped her pacifier overnight and never looked back.
• They take simultaneous naps.  Which means I can, too.
• They help me set the table and get their dishes for themselves, AND they put them in the sink when they are finished.  Oh yeah, I train’em early.
• If I come home from work and Corinne is awake while Ashlynn naps, she’ll cuddle on the couch with me and let me doze.  She’ll even wake me up when her show is over.
• Their take on the world and questions give me a constant new perspective on life, the world, and how I see things.  I love it.

Double Standard

Sweetest Day is kind of stupid.

It started out as someone passing out candy to people who were overlooked by other holidays…the elderly, small children. 

But like everything else, we turned it into this big huge commercial thing so someone, somewhere could make money off of it.

Ugh.

Shame on you if you need a day on the calendar that requires you to tell the important people in your life that you love them!

Sweetest day does make me notice something, however…we seem to have this huge double standard about love in our society.

We have loads of romantic comedies and love stories and fairy tales about “true love” and how love is supposed to be.  And after you see these movies (or read the books, or whatever) people walk out sighing and thinking “Wow, I wish I had love like that…”

But here’s the double standard:

When you DO have love like that, people deride you for it and think it’s gross.

When I randomly text “I love you” to my husband  in the staff lounge and people laugh at me because “Oh GOD, you must be one of THOSE couples!”

Really?

What the hell is wrong with being one of those couples?  Yeah, we’re in love with each other.  And no, we aren’t going to freakin’ hide it because what?  People are jealous?  Embarrassed?  Afraid because they don’t have that?  Maybe because they’re afraid to show affection like that?

Why?  Why would you be afraid to show you love someone?  Be proud!  Love, real love, doesn’t happen often enough in this world!

If, against all odds, you managed to stumble upon the 1 out of 6 billion people that is made for you and makes you happy, you should be proud!

Shout it to the heavens!  Celebrate it every day! 

And…perhaps most importantly…don’t give a damn about what other people think…and don’t hide it just because they laugh or think it’s “cute” or bizarre or gross or whatever.

Celebrate your love…not just when the calendar tells you to, but every single day.  What you have is special.

Things my husband and I still do that we are never, ever apologetic for:

• hold hands in public
• hold hands in the car
• kiss each other (in front of people and even our kids! gasp!)
• hug often
• cuddle on the couch
• kiss at stop lights (sometimes)
• never end a phone conversation with anything but “I love you.”
• dance
• go on walks
• randomly text or email “I love you” or “I miss you” messages
• tease, tickle, and laugh together
• sing along to the radio

Sorry if any of that makes you uncomfortable, but I don’t really care. 

We have been married for 7 years, together for 11 years and 9 months, had two beautiful children together, and we are still madly in love. 

We must be doing something right.

 

This is our fairy tale. I love every minute of it.