It really IS funny how time slips away.

In two days, I'll be 35.  For some reason, the 5s hit me harder than the even decades do.  At 25, I was divorced, living in a crappy little house with two high maintenance cats, drinking too much good beer and cheap wine, occasionally dating my ex-husband, and thinking the best years of my life were likely behind me.

Fast forward 10 years.  

I'm living the standard American dream.  I've got the SUV and the sports car on the side, the 4 bedroom, 3.5 bath house for the 3 people who live here, I've got a good job, a good husband, and a kid I absolutely adore.  

Oh, and by the way, I'm pregnant again.

At 35.

Good grief.  Don't they teach birth control in school anymore?  Oh, wait.  I haven't gone to school for about 17 years, so I guess that doesn't really matter.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm thrilled.  This baby is wanted, and planned for,  but as I am rapidly approaching what at the age of 20 I thought of as "middle aged," it seems a little daunting.

I started playing the "When the baby starts school, I'll be 40.  When the baby is in high school, i'll be..."  game the other day.  Oh good grief.  I can't even think about that too much.  The truth of the matter is that I'm glad I'm more mature and stable and able to make good decisions for my kids than I would have been ten years ago, but that doesn't stop me from feeling,  well, OLD.

I've spent the morning washing the maternity clothes that were in storage, and wondering if it's possible that I'll really get that fat again (I will).  Oh, and did I mention that I'll be 35 in TWO DAYS???

So, here's to the next decade.  Although the years between 35 and 45 hopefully won't be as eventful as the ones between 25 and 35, I can certainly hope that they are as fulfilling. 

Happy Birthday to me.

 

Alternate theory of my life, V1.

Over the past 15 years or so, I have watched enough of the Sci-Fi Channel with Hubby that I can now speak intelligently about alternate time lines, disruptions of the Space Time Continuum, and the Butterfly Effect to hold my own in a group of Trekkie's. I mean, I don't have Spock ears or anything, for God's sake, but I'm pretty well versed. (Ok, I really do have Spock ears, but I don't WEAR them or anything. Very often.)

And it made me wonder...

What would my life be like now if, oh, say I'd married my high school sweetheart?

Let me give you a little background on... for the purposes of this post, let's call him Stud Muffin. See, Stud Muffin and I started "going together" at the tender age of 13, and we dated all through high school, and even into my first year of college. Stud Muffin had some things going for him. He was really, really hot. I mean, really hot. He was tall, and dark, and ripped, and he had a mullet that could melt butter. It was lust at first sight. And he always has some classic car or other in the works. Old souped up Novas and Chevelles were our typical date cars. But there were a few issues, shall we say. For one, he wasn't very smart. Not just "I'm having a hard time getting the answer to this algebra equation" not smart, but more like "I'm going to have to go to the class with the boy who drools and throws shit and humps the teacher" not smart. For two, his main ambition in life was to someday own his own junkyard, just like his big brother. It's like the redneck American Dream or something.

To say that Stud Muffin and I had little in common would be something of an understatement. However, we did manage to date for six years, which is longer than Hubby and I stayed married the first time. Go figure.

But I digress. I'm here to talk about what my life would have been like had I married Stud Muffin.

I can only imagine that he would have realized his lifelong dream of being the youngest junkyard owner in the tricounty area. We would have pulled our like-new double wide (only the best for his woman) near the property, in order to defend the 'Yard from would-be looters. I hear tell that a catalytic converter brings a pretty penny on the black market, and a man's got a right to defend what's HIS, by God.


My double wide would be painstakingly decorated with lace covered teddy bears, which would have all been crafted with love by Stud Muffin's Momma, who, by the way, would pull her somewhat smaller but no less stylishly appointed single wide into our back yard.

The babies would have come quickly and often, and would have been named nice biblical names like Luke, and Jacob, and Adam, and Michael, and Timothy, and Dale Earnhardt III... I suspect that Stud Muffin's potential virility would have only allowed for male children...

I'm sure I would have been a lovely housewifely type. I might have been "allowed" to help keep the books for the business, but likely not in any fashion that would have put me in the public eye. My leisure time activities would have been bingo with Stud Muffin's Momma on Thursdays, hosting yard sales on the weekends, and church every Sunday at the scary motor-oil-anointing church of his youth.

Evenings would have been spent quietly at home, listening to Keith Whitley and occasionally watching a rousing NASCAR race or UK basketball game.

And really, the whole point of this is so that the next time Hubby leaves his socks in a strange place, or that the Kid has a meltdown in the grocery store, I'm going to bite my tongue, smile, and thank whatever gods that are looking out for me that I am not in a position that I might think that old toilets make excellent lawn ornaments, and that I don't have to regularly clean grease spots out of the carpet.

My Two Weddings: A Comparison.

So, I've married the same man twice.

Yep, it's true.

I'm afraid that I don't have enough time, or energy, or desire to discuss how that all came to be, but I would like to take this opportunity to do something of a formal comparison of the two weddings that we have had.

Here goes:

PARTICIPANTS:

Wedding one: Me and Bobby

Wedding two: Ditto.

OFFICIALS:
Wedding one: A justice of the peace whose name was Deathridge. Really.
Wedding two: I can't remember his name. He was nice, though.


SETTING:
Wedding one: Said JOP's living room. There was MTV on for ambiance, and a rather large rebel flag hanging over the mantle.
Wedding two: A lovely balcony overlooking a waterfall.


DATE:
Wedding one: Sometime in May, 1994. The fact that I couldn't ever remember the date did not exactly bode well for the longevity of the marriage.
Wedding two: June 3, 2004. Almost exactly 10 years after the first one.


ATTIRE:
Wedding one: He wore khakis, I wore a dress with a floral pattern. I also wore sensible shoes, as I was late for work and had to hurry to get there (For additional information on this, see HONEYMOON).
Wedding two: He wore shorts. I wore a skirt of some kind, and I believe it was black.

ATTENDANTS:
Wedding one: His best friend from high school and his college roommate. I didn't invite anyone, because no one else knew that we were getting married.
Wedding two: No one but us and the official. Some nice lady acted as our other witness for the low, low price of $50.


HONEYMOON:
Wedding one: As mentioned above, I was late for work, so immediately following the wedding I rushed to get to my 10 hour shift at Wendy's. Bobby and the attendants went to Chi-Chi's and got really drink on $.99 margaritas.
Wedding two: A lovely cabin in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. However, mere seconds after the ceremony, the skies opened up and in rained and hailed for several minutes. For those of you who are familiar with the literary term foreshadowing, this would seem to be some sort of sign, wouldn't it?

OFFICIAL WEDDING PHOTO:
Wedding one: Didn't happen. I was too busy trying to get my Wendy's uniform on.
Wedding two: I don't believe this really needs an explanation, now does it?

OUTLOOK:
Wedding one: Poor. We lasted somewhere around five years the first go around.
Wedding two: Better. We now have a shared mortgage, a shared retirement fund, and a shared Kid. It's likely he would be harder to get rid of this time.



Till next time,

My secret fetish.

Ok, I'm ready to own up to it. I have a secret fetish that has followed me from my childhood and into my adult life. I'm not proud, but I'm willing to to come forward. Admitting that you have a problem is the first step.

So here goes. I'm addicted to school supplies. There, I said it. I feel better already.

See, I told you so. This is a view of the top drawer of my filing cabinet. These are the writing implements currently in use. There are more.

If I remember correctly, it started very,very early in my school career. I remember getting my new box of crayons, and cracking them open for the first time. There were so many possibilities in that new box. So many pictures to color, so many things that could happen, so much...potential. Even today, the smell of new crayons is sort of like... possibilities.

Once, when I was six or seven, my big sister (yep Barb, I'm going to tell this story, so just brace yourself) was helping me color with my BRAND NEW BOX OF 64 - my first one ever. And she broke one of my crayons. Not on purpose, but that doesn't matter. The damage was done just the same. I remember it was the white one. She remembers it too, because I remind her of it every chance I get. It falls somewhere in the top three injustices she did to me as a kid, right before cutting my hair and right after dropping a can of corn on my pinkie toenail so hard that it fell off and has never been the same shape since. But I digress.

She broke my new white crayon in half. Then tried to fix it with - I'm not making this up, I promise - duct tape. So not only was one of my new crayons broken, it was rednecked up to the point of unusability. A few years ago at Christmas she tried to make it up to me with this:

I'll admit that I thought it was a nice gesture. At least I did until I opened the box up and saw this:

Ahhh, family.

Anyway, back to me.

I remember the absolute pleasure when Mama agreed that the Trapper Keeper with kittens on it would NOT do for 5th grade, even though it was still in good condition. I was in 5TH GRADE, for goodness sake, and I wanted, no I NEEDED, the blue one.

This fetish, or addiction, or whatever you want to call it, has followed me into adulthood. I have very specific needs when it comes to my pencils (.7 lead, 3-4 inches long), my pens (rollerball, black ink), and my legal pads (small in size, white only). The manager of my local Staples believes me to be in love with him, and truth be told, I can see his appeal. That employee discount... lord have mercy, that's hot.

I've always heard that confession is good for the soul, so I've put this out there for all the world to see and to judge. But now it's time to sign off. I need to refill my stapler.

When I grow up, I want to be...

Pretty much everyone I know, myself included, is at least a little bit unhappy with his or her job. It's not that I hate it exactly, but trying to solve everyone else's problems all day long can be a touch, well, challenging at times.

So I decided to sit down and take a good, realistic inventory of my strengths and then try to figure out what type of job I might be suited for. Here goes:

I LOVE TO COOK.

If you've read any of my past posts, you know that I make Best Damn Spinach Artichoke Dip In The World, and I have other talents in the kitchen as well. I make excellent potato salad, fried chicken, authentic Vietnamese Spring Rolls, and my liquor laced cakes and cupcakes are to die for. Or at least pass out to. A couple current creations of note are my Blueberry White Chocolate cake and my Chocolate Covered Cherry cupcakes. Yum!

I LIKE TO ORGANIZE THINGS.

Drawers, closets, pantries, folding, sorting... I LOVE IT. Get over it. I know it's not normal. I've learned to deal with it, and so should you.



I LOVE TO GARDEN.

Flowers, vegetables, you name it. If it allows me to dig in the dirt, I will try to grow it. However, I will be the first to admit that my herbs are a little, well, lacking this year. The cilantro is an especially fetching shade of brown, don't you think?

If I'm being completely honest with myself, I also enjoy cleaning my hardwood floors to a highly sheened gloss (Again, you're going to have to just deal with it), playing with The Kid, sewing and quilting, doing home improvement projects, and just generally puttering around the house. Oh, and drinking beer. But that's maybe not completely relevant here.

So, when you add all those things together, I am basically jonesing to be a housewife. I believe the current politically correct term is SAHM, but whatever. You and I both know a housewife is a housewife, PC or not.

Now if I can just figure out how to take care of a few little things, like say, the mortgage, while still pursuing my career of choice, I should be able to find true happiness.

It's always good to have something to aim for, right?

Till next time...

My Secret Blog...REVEALED!

So for a while now, I have been living something of a secret life. I mainly blog at Keeping Up With Zackie, which is an action packed, fun filled blog that chronicles the days of my two year old Kid, from his own perspective. However, a few months ago, I started this blog, in the hopes of... well, I'm not really sure. I have journalled on and off pretty much my entire life, and I though this would be a good extension of that.



It's not.



See, when I journal, it's for me and me only. Things that are funny in my head are also funny to me when I write them down. Oh, and I don't have to censor anything. And everything that's private stays that way. So when I thought about starting this blog, that's pretty much what I had in mind.



But when I realized that other people could read this, I sort of clammed up. Apparently, I have a lot of really important things to say - to myself.



So I've kept this blog up only sporadically. Oh, and by the way, I haven't told anyone about it. But today, in my normal drive home from work and talk on the phone date with my friend Natalie, she outed me. It went a little something like this:



Nat: "Blah blah pool, blah blah work, blah blah trip."

Me: "Blah blah work, blah blah Kid, blah blah blah."

Nat: "Oh, by the way, I found your secret blog last night."



You did, huh? So how exactly did that happen? Did you Google "My Friend MJ's Secret Blog" and this just happened to appear? I'm not completely sure what that might have looked like, but in any case, hello world, here I am:). Anyway, it's got me thinking about this blog again, and how (or if) I want to go forward with it.



Really, the thing that I have struggled with my entire life is finding my own voice. So maybe, just maybe, I can use this as a forum for that. How that might happen remains to be seen.



Till next time...

Things I never thought I'd have to say (before I had a two year old).

"Please stop picking your butt."

"Fishing poles are for outside."

"Thank you for not hitting Mommy."

"Where are your shoes? In the oven? Good job."

"Let's blow the boogers out of both sides of your nose, ok?"

"Please stop picking your nose."

"Please stop picking your scab."

"Please stop picking (insert body part here.)"