Dirty Thirty...or Something?

So, the hubs has had like two weeks off for the holly daze. And I am off of school till' February. It amazes me to think our first Christmas together was in 1995, and this was our 16th Christmas together. 

You would think that all these years would have worn down the whole sexy factor in a marriage. But lately...well, I've really noticed that my husband is HOT. I mean, like I catch myself mooning over him. Like, his mom gave him new jeans for Christmas and I keep hoping he'll walk to the kitchen or something so I can check out his butt. He smells really good. He's so warm and toasty. I could just...kiss his face off. 

There was once a time in our marriage, when kids needed diaper changing and somebody always needed a nose wiped and I hadn't had more than an 8 minute shower in....well probably months....and he would you know, get a little randy, and I would run for the hills.

I distinctly recall many a time when I would hiss "Oh God honey, really? Right now?"  You see, he would always go in for the kill just as my head hit the pillow and my mind rolled out a list of to-do's for the next day. It always seemed he was hoping for some loving, just as I was hoping to God and the Sand Man and all that was holy that the kids would sleep through the night. Romance for me in those days seemed like the stuff of dreams and All My Children. I'm sure Erica Kane never turned down sex because she was worried about the fact that she hadn't seen a fresh razer and a free half-an-hour in two to three months.

People joke that women in their thirties hit a peak. In my case, I've certainly hit something. Maybe it's a peak, or

• Maybe the kids are old enough to stay home by themselves so we don't have to worry about having enough money to order an appetizer for dinner because the sitter costs more than our whole night out together.
• Maybe I'm not sitting at the "date night" table praying my son doesn't call the babysitter "fatty" again
• MAYBE I'm free to just be me again, just a little bit, because the kids are older now  you know? Like, maybe though I'm still mom, I'm a lot less of a "mommy." So...I'm free to look across the table (without entering the mommy worry zone) and think, "my God my hubs is a hottie. Look at that stubble on his cheeks, so sexy...you know what I'd like to do with that stubbly cheek???"
• Maybe MY peak has to do with the fact that I've done good work, I've paid my dues. And by gum I've earned my Afternoon Delight.

Marriage is a challenge because having two people on the same page for any length of time is pretty much impossible. I mean, now that I want to be a little crazy in the mini-van or sneak off in the woods, the hubs is happy with a foot rub a movie and a snuggle. In other words, HE has become the challenging one and I'm the challenged! I'm chasing him around, winking and he's throwing the coy little smiles. My how times have changed. 

A few years ago, our marriage was on the rocks. Heck, we were on the rocks as individuals. Ultimately, that's what threw our relationship into a tailspin. He was unsatisfied with his life at almost 40 years old, and I was intellectually rotting away. But instead of taking stock of what we wanted out of life on a personal level, we let eachother take the blame for why we weren't happy. We both made a lot of mistakes because we chose to blame game, rather than take responsibility for our own unhappiness. Somehow I held on to the idea that "the better CAN come after the worse" and thank goodness it did.

I think we both learned a very hard lesson in making ourselves happy. We had it all wrong for so long. When a couple member says "he/she doesn't make me happy anymore" warning bells should go off for everyone involved. Being happy is something personal, it's not up to anyone else to MAKE us happy, it's up to us to be a happy person, and in doing so we improve our relationships, our marriage, our everything.  It's about doing what you're doing at a higher level, and having the one you love along for the ride.

Pursuing my degree and excelling in class makes me happy. And apparently horny. So, as the kids roll their eyes and screech "gross! I could have lived my whole life without seeing that" as I smooch their dad from the first step (he's really tall and I can reach his lips better from above) I know deep down that we've all learned a lesson in love...forgiveness...and creating happiness rather than waiting for it to happen. 

Which is why I'm going to go chase my hubs around the house. Wish me luck when the lights go out tonight! 

Marital Angst & Ass Shrinkage

KK, so I want to talk a bit about channeling anger and/or frustrations into exercise.  DF Garden Mama calls this "excercizing your demons."  Heading out on an anger patrol walk, it does wonders for shrinking your ass (I lost a ton last summer fury-walking.)  As does splenda (especially the fiber enriched stuff):

Green St. Patty's day nails, green shamrock & Green fiberlicious Splenda.  

(Anything that helps keep me regular has my vote.)

DH has recently come public to me with the idea that he simply cannot be happy if the house and mini-van are not in pristine shape vs. myself who is happy if she has time to write, watch the birds, and cook, even if you can't eat off of the floors, and even if the joint ain't jumpin' spotless this mama is glad to be alive and healthy.  Worrying about living in a magazine cover, not my biggest concern, and I don't feel that this attitude makes me warped, psychologically unsound, a failure or discusting...

I mean, we're not talking TLC's Hoarders here. We're talking 3 kids a house full 

of pets and 2 hrs away from clean.

In other words, I don't care if there is dust on my treadmill. Like, a LOTTA dust.  I'll get to it when I get to it...

...Which happens to be now because I'm so pissed at my own inability to turn down a Whoopie Pie, or a ho ho, or a mocha latte.  Soooo, I walked a lot yesterday. Like 10 miles total.  Too much probably, but this pre-coffee morning I weighed 3lbs less.  Soooo I have lost 3 lbs. since Wednesday. A pound a day.  Not too shabby.  And as I'm viciously striding along East Lake Rd. or ask-me-for-something-while-I'm-treadmilling-I-freakin'-dare-you'ing, I'm trying to release a little anger, and understand where my DH is coming from.

I am using this website Fit Tracker to track food and exercise.  Essentially I need to be accountable to somewhere/when, and work toward a deadline.  I also don't want to go to Weight Watchers because I just don't.  

My message to my body? "Beware fat cells in my ass and belly, for you're time has come!"  I plan on bringing some other "health foods" into my diet, to see if switching from regular oatmeal to sugar free actually makes a difference.  Who knows right?  Let's ask Jillian, oh that's right, she is a pill-hawking sell-out now.  (Still angry about that. Boycotting Biggest Loser.)

RANT RAVE ALERT!!!

Oh and I'm also checking out this site Fly Lady to find some ways to keep the house up more, while not fueling frustration, anger, and a general feeling of "who the hell do you think you are" toward other individuals also known as my husband and children, who live with me and create mess but expect it all to be cleaned up after them.

So what are YOU going to do to feel better about yourself today?

Best wishes,
RebeccaFlys

Blood is Thicker Than Water?

There has come a time in my life where I’m looking around at the people who are family, and the people who I choose to call family and thinking it all over.

An ounce of blood is worth more than a pound of friendship. ~Spanish Proverb

They say blood is thicker than water. I see that, I would do anything for my sisters and brothers, be they full siblings or half. I would also do anything for Navy Guy, my chosen brother. He came into our lives and has been the best family anyone could ask for.

There's an awful lot of blood around that water is thicker than. ~Mignon McLaughlin

How do these people, best friends, children of people our parents once dated, sisters of boys we once dated who now live 3000 miles away, or sisters of friends we knew in high school, become family? And how is it that the people we choose as family can often warm our hearts so much more than people who are tied to us by blood or marriage? Well we often just plain like them more. At the same time they are often the people who care the most for you when they don’t owe you anything.

I’ve learned our place in a family, and the traditions we hold dear, should not be dependant on who we are married to. We can love people like family because we’ve married into them, we can leap gung-ho into their traditions forgoing building our own, but we need to know we’ve left ourselves open to losing that if our marriage falters.

Where are we when we are left out? Well, we’re at our best friend’s brother’s house roasting marshmallows and oogling his wife's beautiful hand made Jewelry (take a look WOW!), playing Rock Band with someone who has become a brother/uncle, chatting endlessly with an old co-worker, hanging out with cousins and aunts and an uncle we always wished we had spent more time with. We’re wondering how 15 years can mean so little so suddenly and amazed at the people who still consider us family.

Building a life no one can take away from you will protect you in a storm. I’m thinking about that today, the day before Thanksgiving. A Thanksgiving with a family I almost lost after Summer Implosion 2009. And I think, after all of the sadness thinking about how what I lost, though I didn’t lose it in the end, I’m ready to build my own traditions, in my own home, with my children, my husband if he so chooses, and anyone who wants to be a part of my family.

It’s my turn to singe the turkey and forget the squash is still in the oven until everyone’s finished their pie.

And thank you for a house full of people I love. Amen. ~Ward Elliot Hour

Best wishes,
RebeccaFlys

On Anxiety Meds, Inhibition and Dirty Texting

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Slander, Blow Jobs, and promises

So, my *DH is a little goofy about me blogging.

He likes to pop in and look at what I’m working on. As for me, since reading The Five Languages of Love I stop what I’m doing and give him the love, after taking our self tests, I know we are both physical. It’s so nice to get into the habit of hugging and acknowledging your spouse when they address you. I had no idea. Thanks to my little *IC.

I’ve never made it a habit to keep things just between my DH and I. I have no good excuse for why I discuss my problems with him with others other than that I’m a chick who overanalyzes and likes feedback. This bad habit has made him somewhat nervous about my public blog attempt, which of course he saw when I posted a link in my Facebook…

Post His Mid-Life-Crisis me is trying to be reassuring and recognize that even though he is a big strong guy with strong opinions, that doesn’t mean he is impervious to my words, and it doesn’t mean he doesn’t hurt when I turn them into daggers or darts or when I spew and vent like a chick to whomever will listen. I don’t want to be that girl anymore, even if I don’t get the feedback from him I’d like.

So I got up from the puter’ and huggled him tonight and sweetly promised “If I blog about you I will tell you and you can see it before I post it” to which he replied, “You have to or I could sue you.” He was smiling or he might have been clocked by my coffee mug (the closest heavy item I had at hand).

“Sue me for what? Blow jobs every night? Because everything I have is yours!” I mean honestly, you know?

DH likes to start the wife-fire, because he thinks I’m cute fired up. At the worst point in our 15 year relationship-marriage, I was a screaming and a shouting, and with my hair on ends and my arms flung out wide, I asked “is there a single thing you like about me??? A single single SINGLE thing?” to which he replied coyly, “you’re feisty.”

So he said, “I could sue you for slander.” Then he went out and finished frying the pork chops. He makes me nuts. Honestly, there is not another man I have less in common with in the whole wide world. The only thing we agree on is living room furniture and not letting our teenage daughter out of our sight. The things we do have in common are private and can’t be posted publicly.

We went to a marriage councilor this week, purpose; learn to communicate better. The guy asked me, “why are you with DH?” Now we’ve been through a whole lotta stress and hell over the years my DH and I, especially during summer implosion 2009, but there was only one answer to that, “because I love him.”

I hope he doesn’t sue me for slander…. (o;

Best wishes,

RebeccaFlys

*DH: Dear Husband

*IC: Individual councillor

Anxiety & Panic, a bane.

After our house fire, I had my first panic attack. You would think the actual fire would have caused me to panic, but it didn't. It wasn't until weeks later the whole thing closed down on me. Post traumatic stress. Fabulous. They blame it on my father the fallen fireman, but I'm not sure that was it, I think it was realizing I wouldn't graduate college because I had three kids under the age of 5 and we were suddenly homeless.

Since then it seems that I always find myself with things to fix. They are never small things, but the sort of things you ruminate upon and worry over and regret for years because of all the could have beens.

Right now? I'm hiding. From everything that's good in my life and every spinning whirling thought I have in my head. I can't remember a time when things didn't worry me and my head wasn't full of gyrating concerns. I've cleaned the bathroom and it's spotless. I'm thinking of who I would want to raise my children if I were gone. There are enough ghosts in my past to make worry about that. I hope everyone feels this way, because if not, I must be crazy and I work so hard at making things orderly that I would rather die than be crazy.

"Anxiety is the space between the 'now' and the 'then'" ~Richard Abell

Earlier, after I cleaned the bathroom, when I felt like a panic attack was coming on, I got in the closet because scrubbing the shower and the toilet didn't help. I like that closed up muffled feel of being encased. It helps. It probably makes me crazy but it helps. One can breathe in a closet, with all those walls everywhere.

I'm lucky. I've been loved. By my mother and sisters and brother. By friends. And by the boy and men I've loved in return. I wonder who I would have been if I'd never let them in. Why is it that men shape women's lives to such an extent? Why is it that they come in and have the ability to alter our courses so inexorably? Please appreciate the subtle hint at pregnancy, it's intentional. I would like to say that I influenced them right back just as strongly, but that's not true. They walked away unscathed, even when their time on earth was through. And me, I'm freaking out in my bathroom.

There are days, when I'm driving my mini-van, heading out to work or to buy toilet paper or cat food, and I feel like *HSBFOD is sitting in the passenger seat, amused by how grown up I've gotten. I can feel him smiling. The girl in me belongs to this boy-man who never really grew up, and who took the course of my life and choked it into what it became. Stupid boy, sitting there smiling at me. I knew he loved me, even when he did what he did. It haunts me, wondering if maybe as he realized no one was going to save him, he might have looked up at the sunlight slanting through the water and thought of me and our baby and wished he had stayed true. He could be alive today if he had.

I need to shower and get dressed. And I do. It's a holiday and my family is chomping at the bit to get to grandma's house. My mind is not on the job though. It's circling around and bringing me back to places I wish I could fix.

When my husband comes to see if I’m ready, and smiles his little smile at me that says “aren’t you pretty,” I roll my hair into a twist, clip it up and I’m ready. Living life well is about learning how to focus on our blessings. Being married to someone who can calm you with a smile is a blessing.

For those of you who have anxiety or panic attacks, breathe. Breathe. BREATHE. This too shall pass. Focus on something positive and be strong.

*HSBFOD: high school boyfriend father of daughter