Anything But Gray

Ceci, Zak and I are in class and of course we are all sitting together.
Our task was to answer some either/or questions.
This exercise was supposed to make us find out about ourselves, if we are risk takers or not.
One of the questions was
"Ride on a plane or fly a plane."
I turn to my so-terrified-to-fly-she-takes-valium-and-drinks-diet cokes-with-rum-like-mad-before-she-flies best friend and say "You should just write die."
She shoves her pad of paper toward me so I can see what she's written down.
I look down and see one word.
Die.

It's so the twin thing.
ha!!

Of course Ceci and Zak have the twin connection going on. They'll be thinking the exact same thing at the same time and stuff like that and when it happens, we always say "It's the twin thing". So whenever Ceci and I do something like that..think the same thing or do the same thing at the same time, we look at each other and go "It's the twin thing."
Like somehow because her and I are so close and I am so close to Zak, the twin thing rubs off on me, too.

I actually really love that when that happens and it just cracked us both up today.

Day 1 went really well, the kids did good. They both had little "issues", like I wasn't here when Danielle dropped Ben off and he was asking "Where's Mommy? Mommy's not here." And Jaime was a little upset that we didn't pick her up until dark, but other than that it went great and the day went by amazingly fast. Zak and I went and had lunch with Jaime and she loved that.  So all in all it was a lot less stressful than I thought it would be.

Huge shout out to Danielle for picking up Ben. She wound up picking him up 30 minutes early and that made me so happy. THANK YOU!!!

I gotta get to bed and get ready for Day 2. Hopefully it goes as well as today did.

Night!

Alaska requires its real estate agents to get 20 hours of post education, every two years.
So Zak, Ceci and I will be in class all day Thursday, all day Friday and half the day Saturday.
I am so not looking forward to this….
The kids are having to go to school and daycare early. And stay late. I'm sure they'll do just fine, but a part of me worries. We have an 1.5 hour break for lunch today, so Zak and I are going to go to Jaime's school and have lunch with her.
Our job is so flexible, real estate is so flexible that I am stressing out a teeny bit, the idea of having to be somewhere for 8 hours…I'll have my cell so if anything happens, I am a phone call away, but it's definitely taking some adjusting.

But this is why there won't be any Halloween pictures until tomorrow and why I'll probably be scarce for the next few days.
I can't wait until Saturday at 1pm!!!!! Then this class is DONE.

There is this professor who claims to be able to predict, with a very high accuracy rate (94%), if a couple will last. And not only can he predict that, he can also predict when the couples that don't last will break up. He has studied couples extensively and developed a calculus equation based on his studies (700 couples over 14 years).
Yes, a calculus equation…
This is funny to me but you can't scoff at an accuracy rate like that.

This is absolutely fascinating to me. First of all, I'm all about self-analyzing. I could take those kinds of quizzes all day long if you let me. But I think I also find it so fascinating because I'm pretty certain that if Zak and I had been analyzed at the beginning of our marriage we would've been told we wouldn't last. We were both so young when we got married and we both had big "issues". And I didn't love him in the way I grew up thinking you would love the one you married. He didn't make my heart go in a frenzy when he was close. He made my heart feel comfortable and safe. I didn't see stars when he kissed me, but I saw my future. What's funny is now, even after 16 years together, he makes my heart go crazy, (granted, sometimes it's because I want to kill him, but whatever…that's not what we're talking about right now.)  now when he kisses me, it makes my heart race and head spin. But it wasn't like that in the beginning. The best way I have to describe it is the saying.."Love is friendship set on fire." That was the way I loved him, in the beginning. He was like my best friend that I got to have sex with and how friggin' cool is that?? lol. And he made me laugh….he has always made me laugh so hard. And really, that is still how I love him. He's truly my best friend. I just wonder how we would've been analyzed. Would they have been able to get us right. I don't think so, but who knows.

Even now, I wonder if we were to be analyzed would they get us right. In so many ways we are a typical couple but in a lot of ways, we about as far from typical as you can get. And we have our times when we're so not working, but we plow through it and in the end we work, for us. And we are doing something really right. Of all we screw up, of all the mistakes we make, one thing we do right…is us. And we're fun. People like us, as a couple, which is such a good feeling. We can go out to a bar and by the end of the night, we will have a "following". lol. That sounds horribly conceited, let me rephrase…we'll just have people move to our table and hang with us all night. And they love it. And we love it. Because we're just being us. Our flip-each-other-shit typical selves. It's a nice feeling….a very fun feeling. I wish I could bottle it up and sell it because we'd make a fortune.
Actually, now that I type that, over the past week or so, I keep thinking I should start a blog, for us. Just because we are so real, funny, laid back and we have something to offer. A 15 year marriage that is working…and if we made just one person laugh or if one couple took something from us and made their marriage work just a little bit better….how cool of a feeling would that be??

Hmm…something to think about, anyway.
Cause I don't have enough to do.
ha!

Last week I was reading Jaime and Ben their bedtime story. They each get to pick a book. Ben picked a Winnie the Pooh book and we were reading it. On the inside of the front cover I noticed that I had wrote in who game Jaime the book and it was from Bev and Lonnie. We had just seen Bev in the grocery store the day before. So I say to Ben, "Remember the lady you hugged in line at Fred Meyer's?" (We wound up behind her in line and while we were all chatting Ben had went up to her and hugged her. Mind you, this child has no idea who Bev is, he hasn't seen her in AGES. He does that, randomly hugs people when we are in check out lines at stores. I have got to work on getting him to quit doing that before we move back to the real world.) Anyway, Ben and Jaime both say yes, they remember. I tell them that's who gave them this book, Bev and her husband Lonnie, who is our dentist. Jaime starts asking how long we've known Bev and Lonnie and I tell her that we've known them for about 7 or 8 years. I say to her "Actually, you know how I met her? You know Mommy's friend Kim? Well, she used to be my boss at my job before I had you and I worked with Bev AND Danielle. That's how Mommy met all of them." She looks at me, completely interested in the story and waiting for more. I tell her "And you know what? The building that our office was in isn't there anymore. There was a fire and it burned down. Now it's just a big hole in the ground downtown." Jaime looks at me, very serious and asks
"Is that like getting fired, Mommy?"
I completely die with laughter and Jaime and Ben start laughing too and I tell Jaime, "No..not quite, pretty, but that was a very smart question."

I just love the stuff that kids come up with.

My sister's birthday was today and she got the BEST present evah!

What? You didn't hear me, okay…I'll say it again..

WHOO–HOOO!!!!!!

CONGRATS to the Red Sox and Happy Birthday sistah!!!

Saturday morning my phone rang. It was Danielle. She said she was 2 minutes away with Joey (her son) and she was coming to get us so we could go to the pony rides they were having that day. I tell her cool and I'll get the kids dressed and we'll go.
She gets here, we get the kids ready and I get me ready and we go. It was fun. A little cold, a lot wet but the kids had a blast.
Then when we were leaving we figured out we'd grab lunch and go back to my house to eat. Perfect!
She so kindly paid for all of this, by the way, cool friend that she is. The plan to reciprocate is to have a painting party at my house in the near future and I'll supply the wine…ha!
Anyway, we ate lunch, the kids are all playing happily and we're chatting.
She tells me how she went to Anchorage for the day last week.
I give her the look and ask "You went to Anchorage for the day and didn't tell me? You GOT ON A PLANE and didn't TELL me???" She starts laughing because she knows I'm going to freak on her. So I do, of course.

I don't know why, but when someone I love gets on a plane, I really like to know about it. It's a RULE of friendship with me. J is notorious for doing this. Going on a trip and telling me AFTER the fact. Drives me nuts!! lol. I know some people just don't see it as a big deal, but I do. And it's a rule. If you are my friend, if I love you, once you book the ticket, I should be notified as soon as reasonably possible after but BEFORE you leave on the plane.
I mean, this is NOT complicated, people!!

Geez.

<wink>

2 young men.
Gone.
In the span of almost 2 months.
By their own hands.

I heard the sirens for the second one.
I remember thinking…wow, those are close by. Wonder what's going on.
And saying a little prayer, let it be something little.

Never could I have guessed what it would be.
I was browsing wesbites, emailing a friend, drinking my coffee…while a mother found her son's lifeless body.
And it breaks my heart….as if I should've known the complete and utter heartbreak that was happening a minute away.
I don't the family well at all, but I know who they are because Ceci is very good friends with them and dated the mother's brother years and years ago and from everything she has ever talked about, these people adored their kids. Their daughter drives a huge lifted truck with "Daddy's Girl" scripted on the back.

The mom went in to see JR because JR gave her son guitar lessons for years and was still teaching him. Once a week. I asked Ceci how she (the mom) was doing and Ceci says she's just living, doing what she has to do.

It's just so sad and terrible and your heart just completely breaks for these people.
And you find yourself hugging your kids a little tighter and praying, praying so hard, that your kids never feel like that is an answer for their angst.

Even though I didn't know either of these kids, my heart hurts for the families left behind, for the mom's that don't have their sons tonight. And I just wish I could fix it…

I woke up at about 2am to Jaime crying in our doorway…
"Mommy, I just threw up in my bed…" Oh no, I think and get up out of bed.
I get to her doorway and see that she did, indeed, get sick in her bed.
Ugh. That is the only thing on the planet that I have a hard time cleaning up..it's a battle the whole time to not get sick myself. Not fun.
I take her to the bathroom to make sure she's okay and to get her some water.
She's upset, but okay…
I go take care of her bed and in the meantime she has climbed into our bed and cuddled up with Zak.
I finish cleaning up her bed and I go to get back into bed. I shake Jaime and tell her she has to go to the edge of the bed, in case she throws up again. I'm thinking Zak would not appreciate getting thrown up on. <shrugging> Call me crazy…but I just know he would not like that. lol.
So Jaime goes to the edge of the bed and I get in the middle and put my arm around her and we fall back asleep.
45 minutes later, she does get sick again but she didn't quite make it to the edge of the bed. So again we go to the bathroom and take care of her and I take care of the bed. Zak wakes up and he's helping me. Jaime goes back to her bed and lays down and goes to sleep. I go back to bed and I can't sleep because now I'm certain she is going to be sick again….and sure enough, she was. A couple more times.
Finally at 5:30am I just get up. She stays asleep for a few hours.
I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth and she wakes up and comes in the bathroom and she's crying.
I ask her if she's okay and she says "I did not like that night last night, Mommy"
I hold her and tell her "Neither did I baby, neither did I."

Poor thing. She's in great spirits today and she says her tummy hurts a little. I think she could've managed to go to school but I'd rather be safe than sorry and I don't want her passing a stomach bug around.

These are the times that it really hits…wow, I'm a mom. On the one hand it's a cool feeling, knowing I'm who she's looking for when she's sick, I remember being sick and all I wanted was my mummy. It amazes me sometimes that I'm a mom and now this beautiful little girl feels that way about me. It's an awesome feeling and sometimes I don't feel worthy. But then on the other hand, when they get sick like that and I have such a hard time cleaning it up… it's like "Oh come on, you couldn't ask for your daddy for this?"

The joys of parenthood.

Every Wednesday we have agent tour. This is when the Realtors sit at their new listings and all the Realtor's go through them, checking them out. It's really good to go. It's very beneficial to see listings for yourself so when/if a client or customer asks about a new listing you know exactly what you're talking about, and it's good to keep up on the inventory and it's good to see where pricing is at/going, etc. I also enjoy going because it's pretty much the only time I get to chat with the other Realtors.
We were at one house and someone asked T.K. (one of the broker's) what happened to his truck because the front end is a little banged up. I pipe up, "He hit a school bus." I then say "I have to say, he was very concerned that the kids on the bus were okay."  T.K. then goes on to tell this Realtor that there was only one kid on the bus and they start talking. Zak and I go through the house and leave and go to the next house. T.K. was leaving that house just then and as he was getting in his truck, I ask him "So how come you don't get that fixed?" He looks at me and says "What? Are you writing a book? Kiss my ass and call it a love story."  Zak and I just died laughing and I think to myself…hey..that's cool..he's hot (for an older man) and a comedian! <smirk>

I really dig a man that makes me laugh.

I picked Jaime up from school this afternoon and she tells me how she is in a club now.
I ask her what kind of club.
She starts naming off some kids from her class (about 10 or so…) and then tells me they are just a club.
I ask her if this "club" is going to meet again.
She says yes, every recess they are going to meet by the blue toy in the playground.

Oh, that's just wonderful, I think…they are forming packs now.

I'm curious to see how this "club" works out. All of the kids she named she is friendly with and gets along well with, so it should be okay….but in my mind, this is where the hurt feelings start. One day one kid isn't going to be allowed in the club or someone will want someone new in the club…just on and on.
Totally typical kid stuff and it's a part of growing up and it's good for Jaime, obviously. She needs to experience all these normal childhood things.

But there's a small part of me that wants to put a force field around her heart…