Undeniable Relief

Last night, laying in bed before the husband had to leave for work, we were watching a high quality movie, "The Marine":

moi: honey. . . if I was kidnapped, would you come save me?

the husband: I would try, but I doubt I'd be as successful as that guy. . . .I'm not a big bad-ass like he is.
moi: awww . . . . but, honey, you're my big bad-ass! All that matters is that you'd try!

*************************************

There are many things I want to do. There are many things that the husband wants to do. There are many things the husband and I want to do together. This is not regularly possible. Sometimes I no longer feel as if there is enough time. There are always two directions available to each of us. We can take one or the other. I constantly hope that we choose the path of living life even if it proves to be the difficult course. Even if that is not one of the two choices offered.

Both the husband and I have been working long hours; barely passing one another in the bedroom. Lately, "goodbye" and "goodnight" are the staples of our communication. I have foregone the gym this week in order to just have dinner with him - to make sure he has not become a complete stranger. To know I haven't forgotten the lines of his smile, the tone of his voice and the pitch of his laughter. My biggest fear is that the "we" in us dissolves into the "one" alone. I don't want to begin again. I don't want to make my past transgressions once more. I don't want to lose. I've made the mistakes I've already made. I do not wish to go there once more - at least not alone. I am lucky to have the better-half I do as that path won't be trodden.

As an anniversary gift to one another, we have chosen to take a trip to the mountains. The two of us alone together for a week - hiking the Grand Teton National Park. We leave for Jackson Hole Saturday. I've never been. The husband says I'll forever want to stay. I just may. As long as he stays too.

I'll bring back pictures.

Food Is An Important Part of A Balanced Diet (F. Lebowitz)

So the husband said that I could not bring the camera into the one chef's establishment (forewarning: turn sound off/down) that beat the Iron Chef in one of his seven (only) defeats. I wanted to take pictures of the food and wine, not to mention us having a fabulous time, but the husband said with a shake of the head in objection, "no honey. You cannot do that" all stern-like. Flashback 20-years: as if I was standing before my dad and had just done something heinously wrong. . . . I felt like I should go to my room and realized I was already there. Anyway, that was that. I suppose, as usual, he was right. Again. Hmpf. [As a result, you are sadly missing out on some pretty, pretty food and you, unfortunately, will just have to use your imagination as to the presentation of it.]

Likewise, since access to the camera was denied, I made the husband take our picture at home. Before we left. Which means this bit of action from my end made us 5-minutes late for our 7:30 PM reservation.

. . . ahem . . . Oh. Like that's unusual.

Anyway, I can honestly say this, Chef Tim Love completely earned his title to beat Chef Masaharu Morimoto. I cannot even find the words as to how wonderful the cuisine at Lonesome Dove Bistro is. After a filling three course meal, which is made to order, as well as an impressive bottle of wine followed with spectacular chile-chocolate cake, the staff had to roll me out the front door to our waiting vehicle. I'm still full - it's now the next morning. I wish I could relate to you the exact name of all goodies consumed, but they were far more fancy-schmancy-pants than I can remember. Suffice it to say, in a teeny-tiny nutshell, I had spicy barbecue shrimp with spicy fruit salsa, yellow squash fraîche and for the main course deer filet's with white truffle mac & cheese and fried artichokes. My 7 readers, may believe that I ordered the main course for the meat. Alas I did not. I ordered the meal due to the mac & cheese. At a Western Gourmet Bistro.

It did not disappoint. I wanted to eat nothing else.

Finally, I unsuccessfully tried to get the husband to eat the mac & cheese, but he said he had plenty himself. In my usual pesky manner, I did not give up. The husband had to taste this most breathtaking, spectacular and astonishing truffled cheese covered noodles. He needed to. They were that great! He steadfastly refused. So, when I finally accomplished getting him to taste a wee little bit - with a wide opening of the eyes and a, "mmmmm! That's really good!" - my mac & cheese disappeared within 1-minute and 14.3-seconds. Gone. My bowl of mac & cheese. ***

Men. You got to love them.

Still, we had a lovely time with one another. As mentioned previously, the food and wine was stunningly remarkable. Absolutely delicious. I just wish every day could be anniversary day.




***Note to self: all mac & cheese from this day forward is mine, mine, mine! I shall not share. Ever.

Three Years.

You, who are most familiar to me. You. The way you smile, how you hold my hand, how you snore softly, how you catch my gaze from across the room and the way you laugh so easily. We two are similar, but not so much actuality in mirror. Our language, our sense of humor, our love, our laughter and our understanding are one. The same. As if you had been a part of my entire life. How I wish you had been. You have become my soul, my rock, my heart and my essence in my life, my thoughts, my prayers and my dreams. My gift. I am grateful. You add happiness to those who know you and those who will be lucky to cross your path.

You are kind, thoughtful and generous. Pure. Unassuming and revealed as much as necessary. You are sensitive, careful, diplomatic, reliable, calm, intelligent and strong. Teaching me the same. You are handsome and loyal. Choosing to look past that of which I am. I am perplexing, clownish and headstrong. Sometimes disheartened. I am erratic and occasionally distant. And yet, you still hold a deep love for me.

You saw through my brokeness, my flaws, my vulnerability and my blotched mascara. You could have left me, but you chose to take me. I have finally loved the right person.

Happy anniversary, Thomas. I love you.

It's Not Official Groveling Unless Your Down On Your Knees

Is it wrong to hide the ice cream from the husband, if he eats the entire pint [or even quart] in one sitting?

Let me explain. I go to great lengths to purchase, on rare occasion, ice cream. Yes, I know - it is hard to believe, but I do have weaknesses. Ice cream being one. So, I do not buy ice cream. Ice cream is sugar. Sugar is the devil. I know this and yet I still loves me some sugar. . .mmm. . . .ice cream . . . . [***drooling***]

. . . . back to my insanity regarding all things ice cream. So, I may buy ice cream. Where in one full-swoop, the husband consumes the complete tub of frozen-goodness. (If I manage to actually find the perfect hiding place, pah-lease. . . . ye have little faith, the husband will seek, the husband will find it and the husband will have it AWOL within the day. I guarantee it.)

Enter me three, maybe four, days later.

me: hon, where's the ice cream?
the husband: I may or may not have eaten it.
me: you ate the entire thing of ice cream? ? ?
the husband: I don't recall, specifically. . .
me: [birds chirping] . . . . lawyer wanna be
the husband: I was self-soothing after losing my computer cycling race.
me:WITH A QUART OF ICE CREAM? ? ? !
the husband: it's just a pint's equivalent today. ***calm down***
me: whatever. Go back to kindergarten and learn to share. ***pffft***

Maybe I'm just jealous the husband can do this and not give a second thought to this thing we normal humans call, fat cells. Maybe? I look at the stuff and gain 2-pounds. I smell it and gain 2 more pounds. I eat no more than my 1/4 cup allotment and gain 10-pounds (um. Okay, sometimes I may or may not consume more than a 1/4 cup. That's not the point. The point is, oh - nevermind). Anyway, this is why I must stretch out the devouring of most beautiful ice cream. 14-pounds is a lot of weight, people! The husband eats it like it's water and he doesn't gain a pound. just. like. water. Life is so not fair.

Finally, and to the point of my whole post, I have just purchased yesterday, one of my beloved Ben & Jerry's ice cream, the Karamel Sutra. Not only does it have the most fabulous name, it also is this little piece of heaven on this here earth of ours. I've had my 1/4 cup tonight. I am now satisfied. I find myself in my pretty, happy place where I dream of flowers, puppies, couture hand bags, butterflies, the husband, stiletto shoes, kittens and sugar. However, as of tonight, I don't believe the husband has detected it.

So, I hid it. Is this wrong?

The Fires of Hell Will Consume You

He trusted me with a knife at that very instant.

the husband: um. Can't you cut that for me? *almost grabbing the lunch I just prepared for him before jerking his hand back as if a venomous non-revivable death cobra was about to strike*
me: I'm sorry, what? You can't pick up a knife and cut your own . . . What? *laughing*
the husband: well, no. It's like a surgeon. It's precision. . . I just can't do it. *peering with pitiful, forlorn and the most dejected glance ever produced in the history of mankind*

me: holy crap. *shaking my head while cutting his sandwich in half*

********************************

Upon seeing the immediate construction of this blog.

the husband: you have no shame.
me: huh? me? what do you mean?

Renewing Our Vows

Front Yard Before Picture . . . .

So, today is Monday, March 26, which means that the husband and I were going to travel to Hill Country for a 4-day vacation so that we may actually have alone time together. No bike riding, no bike races, no running, no work, no gym, no dogs, no cats, no housework, no blogging, basically, no nothing unless it was done together.

I, on the other hand, decided to have a meltdown along the lines of Chernobyl approximately 2-days ago. This great grumpy-pumpkin sized cataclysm of mine will have forever changed our holiday plans that had once included artistry, fine wines, gourmet dinners, bike rides (together, people, together), movies, hiking or to just view the inner beauty of the great state of Texas. No, we will no longer be enjoying such luxuries outside of this longhorn city, because crazy time began Friday, March 23 at approximately 3:15 PM in the Honda Ridgeline while on the way to the movies. *Shudder*

Instead we will be staying at home to start & finish desperately needed landscaping and house painting. We have 4-days to plant 50 bushes, research [we did have a cool trip to the Botanic Gardens this morning], purchase, dig out existing grass, hedge and plant innumerable native Texas flowers around trees, the front walk and the garage fence, as well as paint the house trim - yes. all. of. the. trim. 4 days. I might as well be strapped to a chair getting my ear cut off.

And to make things even better . . . today, it is raining like the sky hasn't opened since Noah built the arc. The forecast shows possible thunderstorms for the next 4-days. Oh yes. We will be digging in the mud as my mini-Chernobyl was not for nothing. The plans have not changed. I certainly showed the husband who the Alpha Diva was. . . .

Um. Right.

So, while the rain pounds the pavement in mass quantities, and the husband pulls a Homer, I, the Alpha Diva, blogs. . . .

Sharing a Chimichanga

This was the original blog I was going to post when I first opened this site:

New beginnings. Again. This whole new blog of mine has been hard for me to figure out. As there are all these new kinks to work on and I am still confused as to how this whole Blogger thing works. For example, it only took me 18+ hours to finally download my photograph, which caused me to almost pay the money to stay with iMac. Almost. But not quite.

Somehow, and 2 months later of severe lessons in trial and error, I have debuted my newest blog: "When the Godiva is Gone".

When I think about my past two blogs here and here, I realize I have never really smelled a chicken while it's still on the farm. So, I'll explain myself to my 6 readers.

For those of you who may not know, I am a Stay At Home Wife (SAHW). Which may cause some of you to conjure that I sit at home, eat bon-bons, drink champagne and watch salacious movies. While I could be very good at those things, I don't actually do them. There isn't possibly enough time in a day for me to accomplish that on top of what I normally perform. I will say that for the most part I do the SAHW thing pretty darn well, but there are those times when I wish I had my big desk back with my very own office door to shut while someone answers my phones. So, yeah, for those of you who may not think so, I do have a brain and I do have an edumication. I did graduate from Carroll College in a time far, far away from now. I majored in Psychology (let me tell you how messed up you really are) with a minor in General Communications. I can and have publicly spoken - at NASA, on TV and radio as well as in Washington, DC. I still get gigs every now and then. This doesn't mean I love to get up and open my mouth, it just means I can.

Drifting off course again . . . .

After a few years of getting my arse kicked by sociopaths, paranoid schizophrenics, delusional's, gangsta's, alcoholics/drug addicts (or boyfriends of) and what most people would label in general "the crazies," I decided it was time for a switch of professions. When your psych degree is no higher than university, you are of the bottom feeder of healers. I'm not going to lie, the money was crap too and the hours long. My awakening occurred as one of my paranoidschizo's clients chased me around her apartment with a butcher knife yelling at me that the toaster told her to do it. To which I responded, "I'll be back when you take your med's ." Some people just were not cut out to live in society with the rest of us. I decided to get out with all my phalanges (and noggin) in tack.

On to the beauty industry. Almost 4-years. Enough said.

Then on to the business of Advertising & Marketing. Ahhhhh. . . I finally found my calling. I learned I could publicly speak and not die from doing so. I experienced the highs of hiring and the lows of "you're just not going to work out." I constructed, created, taught, developed, trained, registered, established, wrote, published and researched. I used my brain. A lot. These were remarkable jobs and I experienced more than I ever expected. Especially with regards to signing contracts. If at all possible don't. do. it. And if you have to do so, have an attorney read it over first. It's worth the $500.00 per every five-minutes of consultation. Trust me on this one.

Then, I met the husband. My life completely changed. Over the course of a 2.5 year marriage, I have landed here. And am none the less happy for it. I am blessed. I am loved. I am lucky. I am more so very grateful. I have the husband. I have the 4 dogs whom I constantly step on/over/lay at my feet/take over our bed/play with/run with/walk with and guard with. I have the 2 cats who greatly wreak havoc in my life just for the fun of it, but have also been known to cause peace now and again. Finally, we have our home. I can't complain. I really can't. In this life I still have much to do - it may just not be behind a big desk. I have hopes. I also have dreams. Some may be revealed on this here site from time to time. Some will not.

Overall, I hope you too enjoy my blog as much as I love leaking my brain onto it and in the very least if not a laugh you give, a smile will do.

He Was Going to Take My Water, Possibly My Soul

As most of you know, the husband that I married is a really good man. I am more than lucky. I know this. He is gentle, he is funny, he is smart, he has white teeth (in fact, he has all his teeth), he has no known criminal record, he is kind, he has all his fingers and toes, he works hard, he has a heart full of love among loads of other positive traits most women look for in a man before becoming Mr. & Mrs. Ball-And-Chain. I love him fully - even the faults he holds are endearing (if you give me a couple days and a couple bottles of wine, I can find a way to make any annoyance almost heavenly. Mostly, but not always.)

This includes the our exchange at 1:47 AM the other morning.

I awoke from the dead of sleep to a TV blaring something from the Military Channel. This most likely included bombs exploding on the earth somewhere. Or large guns going off in repeated succession. Or both. I'm not sure which, as I was dazed and slightly confused. . . . Yet, I do not believe that I awoke because of the TV. No, I believe I was kicked to consciousness.

But the act alone did awaken me and because I was 1/2 dead and wanted some sympathy for my hurting shin, I meekly said, "Honey. . . You kicked me. It hurt."

To which the husband responded, "Wahhh, wahhh, wahhh. . . go cry to someone who cares like you always do. . . ." Mass confusion set in. Do I really do that? Why did he say that? What had I done to make him be mean to me? At 1:47 AM? This should have been a huge clue as to why the husband said what he said, but being blond and 1/2 dead is not a good combination for me at that time in the morning. Besides, the world was being blown to bits right before my ears and that only added to my utter bewilderment.

So, I wanted to prevail. I needed to, as I needed the TV off. I then humbly and in the most docile way asked the husband who had successfully rolled over and fell back into a blissful sleep in less than 2.3 seconds, "why are you being such a jerk."

Somewhere a bomb exploded. Literally.

The husband rolled back over with his eyes closed said, "@#^%&* Jennifer! If I want to be a jerk, I can be a jerk." And with a "hmmmphf" he disgustedly rolled back over, pulled the covers up to his chin and fell back asleep. I don't even know this man. There was suddenly a stranger in my bed.

I was not done.

"What's going on? Why are you being like this? Can you at least turn off the TV?"

A few more seconds go by.

"Thomas. Please. Turn. Off. The. TV. . . "

More time passes.

"Thoma . . . "

"WHAT!"

"Could you please turn off the TV? You have the remote and stop being so mean to me. I also expect a full apology in the morning."

With that the TV was finally turned off.

**************

The very next morning. . . .

The husband gets up a bit too early and within a few minutes comes crawling back into bed. With a kiss on my shoulder he said, "G'morning baby! I love you!" My eyes flew open to see his humble pie eating grin where I preceded to look at him like he had lost his damn mind. The husband looked back at me and with his smile fading he said, "What? What's wrong? What'd I do?"