Category Archives: darling husband

if it’s love

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Ear worm in my head right now…

While everybody else is getting out of bed
I’m usually getting in it
I’m not in it to win it
And there’s a thousand ways you can skin it…

I confess you are the best thing in my life…

If it’s love
And we decide that it’s forever
No one else could do it better…

Then suddenly I hear something else…

Chirp…chirp…chirp…

I walk through the Big Top listening carefully…

Chirp…chirp…chirp…

Damn these smoke detectors!

Chirp…chirp…chirp…

Found it!

It’s in one of the kids’ bedrooms. No problem. I grab the step ladder and a 9 volt battery and (BOOM!) I replace it.

Chirp…chirp…chirp…

Seriously?!

Honey, can you please check the smoke detector in Daniel’s room. It’s chirping.

Now?! (it’s 9:45 at night, bedtime for someone who has to get up at 4AM)

Yes, now.

I replaced that battery two weeks ago.

Well I just now replaced the battery and it is still chirping. Maybe I put it in wrong or something else. Can you please check it?

:::grumble:::

Seriously, honey. I know you’ll have no problem sleeping through that chirping all night but I know that I won’t and neither will Daniel. Can you please just check?

So he checks…with a little bit more grumbling…but he does check and it chirps no more.

Thank you.

Yeah…

Where was I? Oh yeah…

If it’s love
And we’re two birds of a feather
Then the rest is just whatever
And if I’m addicted to loving you…

Getting ready for bed, my little ear worm is interrupted yet again. There’s a damp bath mat on the floor in front of the shower.

UGH!

Really, how hard can it be to pick it up and hang it over the shower door, I grumble to myself as I pick it up. I want to shout it and wake up my darling husband but…

And you’re addicted to my love too
We can be them two birds of a feather
That flock together
Love, love
Got to have something to keep us together
Love, Love
That’s enough for me…

For thirty years now we have been loving and annoying the hell out of each other. That’s a very long time…a lifetime…our lifetime.

If it’s love
And we’re two birds of a feather
Then the rest is just whatever

If it’s love
And we decide that it’s forever
No one else could do it better
And if I’m addicted to loving you
And you’re addicted to my love too
We can be them two birds of a feather
That flock together
Love, love
Got to have something to keep us together
Love, love
Got to have something to keep us together
Love, love
That’s enough for me

Happy anniversary my darling husband. It’s been quite the adventure the last thirty years what with raising five clowns, including the one who decided to be born on our anniversary 17 years ago…Happy birthday Jodie!...and driving each other crazy with honey-do lists and leaving wet towels on the floor. But we are definitely in it to win it together.

Now if only we had the money to celebrate it properly.

Oh well.

Happy anniversary my love!

directions

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Last week under the Big Top it was hot. It was hotter than it usually is or expected to be the first week of May with temps in the 90s nearing the century mark. Yes, I am well aware that in other parts of the country people were shoveling snow…in May!

I know!

I’m sorry.

Unfortunately I can’t control the weather. It is not part of my job description as the master juggler around here…no matter what my kids might think.

Still I did my best to keep the Big Top cool. Hurray for the window tint I got for my birthday. It worked…it really worked!!! I also, after careful research…which came after discussing it with the wise folks on Twitter, changed the direction in which all of our ceiling fans were turning.

Counter clockwise was the overwhelming consensus that a fan must turn in order to produce a cooling wind chill effect by the downward air flow.

As predicted it did not change the thermostat but the living room and kitchen area, as well as the bedrooms did indeed seem to be significantly cooler…oh, and I didn’t have to turn on the ac until the day we hit the century mark last Thursday late afternoon. I liked that. I liked that a lot.

And my circus clowns came home all week to a nice, cool Big Top after their long days at work, school, dance, Krav Maga and Tae Kwon Do.

Saving energy and keeping the Big Top comfortably cool; I win!

Thankfully, by Sunday there was a change in the weather and this week has brought temperatures that are 20-30 degrees cooler along with cool evening Delta breezes. As it should be here in the merry month of May. It is then that my darling husband wonders out loud if we should turn on the ac because he is hot.

Close the blinds and open the windows and let the breezes in, honey. It is only 75° outside.

But I’m hot!

Oh for goodness sake! (opening some windows and closing the blinds to block the setting sun)

Then looking up I notice that the ceiling fan is now turning clockwise.

Um, honey?

Yes?

Did you change the direction of the fan?

Yeah. I changed them all. They’re going in the wrong direction.

Um, no! I checked. They are supposed to be counter clockwise to cool the house more efficiently.

No, they are supposed to be clockwise in the warm months. I’ve got this.

No. Seriously honey, I did some research on this. In order to cool the house more efficiently and decrease our ac usage…AND save on our energy bill, the fans need to be turning counter clockwise. It helps to cool the whole room so we all can enjoy it.

When the fan turns clockwise it isn’t cooling the whole room. It does however seem to create a mini tornado under YOUR chair when you turn the fan up to high.

As it should be.

No, it should not be that way. Look, I’m just trying to save us a little off of our energy bill. It is crazy during the summer months and every little thing helps.

Fine! (he gets the step ladder and proceeds to change all of the fans directions back to counter clockwise)

A few hours later…

You know, I have been doing my OWN research and the direction the fan has nothing to do with cooling the room. It is how the blades are angled.

And so now the fans are turning clockwise…for now.

The moral of the story is it would seem that married couples are always arguing about directions.

So…what direction is your ceiling fan turning?

a cautionary tale

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Parents, isn’t it fun to dress up your little darling children? It is. It is indeed.Oh the oh-so cute little dresses and sailor suits and t-shirts and shoes and hair styles and…if you have more than one darling child…the match-y, match-y siblings look.

A total win! People can totally tell that they are all sisters. And the first born isn’t resentful at all over the fact that she is dressed just like her barely-potty trained sisters because she is a mature, confident third grader and totally trusts her Mom’s fashion choices…like dressing her kids exactly alike.

Heh!

But it gets better. At least Mom imagines that it gets better.

No, we are not match-y, match-y but we are awesomely Gap coordinated. Weren’t the 90s just too stylish?I think so. Hollie, on the other hand, believes that this is just photographic evidence that her mother dressed her funny on purpose.

Whatever!

Oh, and in case you are wondering, Bill is smiling in this picture. He is smiling on the inside. Don’t believe me? Ask him. He’ll tell you.

But I digress…

Parents, while it is truly, truly fun to dress up our children not unlike the way we used to dress our Barbies…or our GI Joes.

Did boys dress up their GI Joes? I don’t know. Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t.

Whatever…

Parents, be careful how you dress your babies because it will come back to haunt you with all of your babies’ judgement and angst and bitterness when they are all grown up.

This.

This is evidence enough.

 

and in a flash I am back in 2001

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Oh to be 12 years younger! The things I would (and most definitely would not) do. But one can not go back in time…can they?

My darling husband early this morning ran in Dell Osso’s 2nd Annual Mud Run on the Farm. Yes, the same mud run I ran last year. He trained a little with his Krav Maga class that he takes twice a week but I won’t lie to you, I was genuinely concerned about how he would do…considering how heavily he STILL smokes (even when he often finds himself gasping for air after a coughing fit) and considering how high his cholesterol is and that study released this past week linking male patterned baldness to a higher risk of heart disease.I had a dream/nightmare last night that he collapsed while running and then I woke up…HATE when that happens! So this morning, as he headed off to run in the mud and Jodie and I headed off to another dance competition I couldn’t help but be worried.

What can I say, I sometimes often worry for nothing. It’s my nature, it’s who I am, it is a result of decades of bad things happening and my worst fears realized. But, thankfully, Bill did great completing the run and obstacles in the mud in just under an hour.

Way to go, honey!!!

So now I could exhale, relax and enjoy watching Jodie and Hazel dance. Then the phone rings…

Actually it was FaceTime…

Up pops my daughter Zoë. She’s crying. Her face is bruised and bleeding and she is crying. It seems that she was in an accident on her way to work. She crashed her skateboard.

WHAT?!

Yeah, she likes to get from point A to point B on a skateboard and yeah, without a helmet…

Mom, please…

But yes, she crashed her skateboard and hit her head, scraped up her face, chipped a tooth and broke her nose…broke her nose for now the 4th time.

OH dear glob! And people think I’m joking when I declare that she has an exhausted guardian angel who probably cringes every single time she leaves the house.

Every.

Single.

Time.

She is so lucky.

So damn lucky.

And I am perhaps another 20 years older thanks to her latest misadventure.

I might have aged greatly but this picture she sent to me while in the ER in LA took me back 12 years…and not in a good way.

I swear hours later I am just starting to breathe a little bit easier. Thank goodness for a late night run and some wine. My darling husband rocked the mud run today. My dancing daughter, Jodie and my tiny dancing grand daughter, Hazel, both are off to a great start with this weekend’s dance competition earning high awards and my daughter Zoë is home safe in LA under the watchful eye of her boyfriend…and a guardian angel who likely could use a good stiff drink right about now.

living in a greenhouse

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That is what we have been living in for a little less than two years. With the front of the house facing east and the back facing west and five large sky windows offering southern exposure, the Big Top was basically a greenhouse. It has always been, depending on the season, 10-30 degrees warmer inside. Perhaps a good thing in the winter but it has been absolutely, positively unbearable in the spring, the summer and the fall. Think about it. When it is say 110° outside, which it is often anytime June through September (and October last year!) it is overwhelming inside…if we didn’t have air conditioning…which we do but the ac pretty much would have to be on from 9 AM through 9 and even 10 PM just to maintain the indoor temperature in the 80s.

Yes, our PG & E bill during the late spring, summer and fall is insane.

Yes, many people are desperate for the light and the bright, especially during the winter months. But these people have not spent any length of time here under the Big Top greenhouse.

Truth be told, I hated it. I have hated it even more than the rental white walls that are poorly painted and the mis-matched painted baseboards and doors throughout the house. It is just too damn bright. Rarely does anyone ever curl up in one of our cozy leather chairs to read or just relax in our sitting room. It is just too bright and too hot. I could not and still have not hung any of my precious photos (there are a lot of photos) or any of the art that we have (mostly thanks to our talented niece). Are you kidding me? The constant sunshine streaming in through all those freaking windows from sunrise until sunset would destroy our precious, valuable-to-us treasures. So all those treasures, photos and objects d’art have remained packed away in the little cupboard under the stairs…the long-promised playhouse for Hazel, and now, Fallon.

A couple weeks ago I got to the point that I just could not go through another spring, summer or fall living in this greenhouse. Something had to be done, I told Bill and our landlord. So Bill and our landlord together decided that yes, I was right. Of course I was right. It was decided the least expensive, easiest and best option for us and our landlord was an energy saving tinted window film.

Bill and Ben together worked on this last weekend. I told them this was the best birthday gift! The difference is so dramatic.

And so very much appreciated these last couple of March days, before the official start of spring, with bright, sunshine-y highs in the 80s. The Big Top has remained a comfortable 70°!

I KNOW!!!

Buh-bye greenhouse effect!

As for me, I have spent the last two afternoons curled up in one of my cozy, comfortable sitting room chairs reading…at four-freakin-o’clock in the afternoon!

Best.

Birthday.

Gift.