Thankful

Infidelity surrounds me this week. It’s in the daily chit-chat with my female coworker who took back her cheating man but struggles to forgive him and frequently reminds him of how much he has hurt her. It’s the sad eyes of my hairdresser who just severed her 16 year relationship with her man and explained to me how she is picking up the pieces of her life. It’s the depressed appearance of an employee’s wife who waits as her husband is terminated from being a very naughty man during work hours. So even though Hubs and I bicker from going on nearly a year without a date night, and even though I am pretty sure Bon Jovi’s ‘Livin on a Prayer’ was pre-written for us….today I am thankful. I am thankful to go home to my husband. We might be stressed out, we might be broke but we are rich in love, together.

If you give a Mother a strawberry margarita pouch....

If you give a Mother a strawberry margarita pouch

She’ll find it is too frozen to drink and place it in the refrigerator

She’ll notice a few stray items left from dinner and clean them up

She’ll go to take towels to the laundry room and see the basement lights on

She’ll realize the windows were left open and close them

She’ll reminiscently look at old photos in frames and remember the years past

She’ll hear her daughter ask for help with her medication

She’ll assist her son in a nightly sip of water when he hears her in the kitchen

She’ll turn to find her other son pointing to the milk cup not yet washed

She’ll step on a toy as she retreats to her recliner

She’ll soon be accompanied by her oldest son to cuddle for a bit

She’ll wake up in the middle of the night with her hand numb

She’ll realize that she never got to drink her margarita pouch

She’ll silently say ‘There is always tomorrow’ as she carries a sleeping boy to bed

Kindergarten Day!

Today was Boy 1's first day of Kindergarten. He was a fidgety mess. He kept putting his arms in his shirt and pulling the strap off his backpack. He rarely looked up but answered clearly when the teacher asked for his name. I luckily wore my sunglasses as my eyes pooled up with tears, so he did not fear that this was a bad thing. It was all good. Familiar school, familiar teachers. I knew he was safe and what was to come the next years of his life because Daughter paved the way. Brave girl. So I suppose IT DOES get better. The hot mess I was years ago dropping off a pretty 5 year old to her first day in a brand new, strange building....was long gone. I was....stately. I was calm, I stood tall and when it was time for the parents to skedaddle...Hubs and I did. And although my eyes shed a few tears on the way to the car, it wasn't an ugly cry. I feel like I should graduate to the next belt color like in karate or something.

1st day of middle school

Where the heck does time go? It seems like not too long ago I dressed Daughter in a red, Hawaiian style dress on her first day of preschool that I paid $1 for at the thrift shop after her father walked out and left us with nothing. This morning I helped her choose her outfit, custom picked by her from the mall, for the first day of middle school and gave her an ankle bracelet of mine. I told her that every time she felt the bracelet move with a step, it was me helping her put one foot in front of the other. She needs all the good vibes she can get…Lord knows middle school was rough. Maybe y’all could send some her way too. *wink*

The What?! Factor

I know the old saying goes something like “You can look, just don’t touch” when it comes to the opposite sex while in a relationship and many people agree with that sentiment. I, being the product of divorce by unfaithfulness, do not agree wholeheartedly with that statement. In my experience a look led to a touch, led to unfaithfulness, led to the demise of a marriage. I have always said celebrity crushes are a-okay. Those people are on a different level and the odds of ever contacting someone with celebrity status are astronomical. But….the young female who prances around, locally, who does not have thinning hair from years of supporting a failing family business, who does not have body aches from keeping up with the mountains of laundry…the daily meals…the housework, who does not have Goodwill clothes on due to sacrificing so her family can have better….is off limits. To me. Nothing anyone can say will ever change this feeling for me. This may be from the residuals of a failed first marriage but whatever the case finding out that your spouse sends a text message to a friend that this female has ‘The Wow Factor’ and you have not received a compliment since Obama’s first term in office….it hurts. The very same way stepping on a hidden Lego on the floor feels. I, too, still desire that passion. I crave that animalistic draw. I want to feel not only needed…but wanted. To be craved. So I suppose I am putting this out there for any guy who reads this. Go home tonight and tell your wife she is hot. That she is stunning and you desire her even when it doesn’t seem it. And for all the ladies out there who feel unappreciated and undesirable…you are not alone.