Happy 43rd birthday to my awesome wonderful put-up-with-me-able husband!

I started off the morning by telling him that I’d just found out the mortgage payment on the rental house was due yesterday and I hadn’t paid it because I assumed it was due the 14th like it was last month, forgetting that February is a shorter month. STUPID CALENDAR. I called the mortgage company to 1) figure out how to pay it online and 2) beg them to take the late fee off because it was an honest mistake and I’ve never paid it late before. Well, they told me that they don’t put late fees on until 10 days past due. Which means I still had time to mail it! Hurray for me! (And I just saw the mail truck come and pick it up while I was typing this, so we’re good to go.)

I also told him if he wasn’t home for dinner by 6, so we could be done by 7 (in time for American Idol), I might have to kill him and that would be sad since it was his birthday and all. Am I a good wife or what? Edited at 7 pm to add: Of course, I just realized that American Idol isn’t on until 8. But he was home at 6!

On the other hand, on the way home from the grocery store, we stopped at the church where he was in a staff meeting, and decorated his car with a balloon and streamers.

I’m also making his favorite pasta dish for dinner and LG and I are about to go make this yummy chocolate cake for dessert. And I got candles and birthday plates even. So, I’m not totally rotten. ;)

Either way, Happy birthday honey. I love you more than I could ever say.

Seventeen years ago today, I married a wonderful guy. He’s a good husband, a great provider, puts up with me (which is not always easy), and seeing him with our daughter makes me smile.

I wouldn’t say our life has been perfect, because we’ve had our ups and downs, but I wouldn’t trade the last 17 years for anything.

Happy anniversary baby. Here’s to 17 more years and 17 more after that.

I love you. You are the wind beneath my wings.

It’s looking (at this moment) like Mike is going to have Thanksgiving weekend totally free. (Other than church obligations, of course). This never happens. And, of course, there is always the possibility that something will come up and screw up all my plans, but for the moment at least, I’m going to assume that it won’t.

One thing we are going to do is work on some more cleaning and decluttering around the house (and maybe the countertop on the island). The other thing we are going to do is go out to a movie on a weekend NIGHT. I can’t remember the last time we did that. It’s been years, I’m sure.

Enchanted is opening that weekend, and I’ve been really wanting to see that one. And since Mike is not averse to seeing “chick flicks”, he will go without complaining…lol! Anyone else planning on seeing that one?

Scroll down for Surfer Sunday

My relationship with my father has been strained for several years, but I do appreciate the fact that we had a close relationship when I was small. I was most definitely a Daddy’s girl.

Mike has been able to learn from my father’s mistakes, and I’m positive he won’t repeat them as LG gets older. It has been a blessing to watch him be a dad and how very much he loves his little girl. When I see his face relax into a smile or scrunch up in laughter when she entertains him, when I see how proud he is of her, I know that there is nothing on this earth that he has done that he is prouder of than her. He is not perfect, but none of us are. He makes mistakes, but he tries to learn from them. He is absolutely a partner in this parenting gig and I couldn’t (and wouldn’t want to) do it without him.

So, to my father and all the other fathers out there, but most especially to my husband I say: Happy Father’s Day.

That Mike is a smart one. I got some steaks for dinner, but they ended up being a little chewy instead of melt in your mouth. LG will just sit and chew meat in her mouth for hours it seems, rather than swallowing it, and then finally spit it out. I’m sure she gets some nutrients from doing that, but she’d get more if she actually ingested the meat. Mike, however, came up with a great hack. He asked for some applesauce. I just happened to have purchased some peach mango applesauce at the store today. He chopped some more of her meat up into little pieces and mixed it in with the applesauce. Bingo. She ate it with no problems at all and even swallowed it.

Personally, the thought of eating steak mixed with applesauce kind of grosses me out, but LG is not that far removed from the jars of baby food meat mixed with fruit so to her it’s probably still a delicacy, because she loved her some chicken and apples, I’ll tell ya.

Either way, her papa is a good parent hacker. I think I’ll keep him. ;)

Happy birthday to my best friend, the father of my child, our tireless provider, and the man I love more than any other. Hope you have a great day honey*!

*Mike and I call each other honey quite often, and LG has taken to calling us honey as well. It’s very cute and it makes us laugh. :)

I went to Target this morning and left Mike with the camera, the dog and a Little Girl. This is what he saw through the lens…

There’s something I should tell you about Mike. Back before we ever met, he was into photography as well as music. But it being the pre-digital camera age, photography was a costly hobby, as is music if you are an instrumentalist. He chose to put his time and money into music and not do very much with the photography.

As for me, I was never really into photography if it meant I had to do anything but point and shoot. Until after LG was born, that is. At that point, I asked Mike to teach me how to use the camera and of course he did. And he doesn’t get to use it all that much anymore, even though it’s something he enjoys. But you know what he tells me? He tells me that looking at the photos I take makes him happier than taking them himself. He both encourages and critiques my work and even more important, he is proud of me. There is no greater gift he could give me than that.

Well, obviously it was a good day to begin with since it was our anniversary. But, the day started off good and just kept getting better. (Read on …)

Sixteen years ago today, I married a guy named Mike. And sixteen years later, I love him more than ever.

Dearest Mike, you are an awesome father, a tireless provider, and my very best friend. Happy 16th anniversary! I love you, and I’m looking forward to the next 16 years and the next 16, and however many more after that we can squeeze in. I’m sure they will be awesome as long as we’re together!

This morning after Mike got up and took over Little Girl duties, I escaped the house for a couple of hours to Wal-Hole and Mervyn’s. The Wal-Hole trip was a total waste of time because they didn’t have the thing I went to find anyway. It’s bad enough when I have to actually step foot in that store, but when they don’t have what I wanted? It’s that much worse. But at least I got a few cute tops at Mervyn’s. I was also looking for a cute frilly little outfit for my new niece since they don’t have a lot of clothes because they didn’t know what they were having, but I didn’t find one. Darn. More shopping for girl clothes. ;)

On the way home, I called Mike to see how they were doing and he said they had been on the back porch playing in the water (with LG only in her diaper - redneck baby style…lol!) and were now reading a book. I love my husband because I can go off for a couple of hours and he and LG do just fine without me and have a great time together. He’s such a good dad.

After she finally went down for her nap, my wonderful husband spent two hours(!) helping me lay out and design the blocks for the next quilt top that I’m working on. He really enjoys that part of the process and whereas I’m sure my design would be okay, he really helps me make it that much more beautiful, because he will keep changing things around until it pops, and I do not have that much patience…lol! He also came up with the idea to use the digital camera and take pictures of the layouts to help us get a good perspective on what they look like.

I spent the next few hours sewing all the quilt blocks, then sewing them together, and I have a finished quilt top already! Now I just need to go get the fabric for the borders and then finish that part up and move on to the next one. I’ve decided I’m going to leave all the quilting and the hand stitching until the end.

Tomorrow Mike has to do all three morning masses, then we have Generations, then come home for an hour or so and then back to church for evening mass, so it’s going to be a busy day around here.

I hope you all are having a marvelous weekend!

Many moons ago, before I had even met my hubby, I had a friend who we will call Jack (not his real name, but chosen because he loved Jack Daniels…lol!), and we hung out together a lot. No hanky panky, no dating, not even kissing or any of that - just hanging out. He made it his goal in life to see how quickly and how often he could get me to punch him in the arm whenever we were together. Why he did this I will never know, but for some reason he got a kick out of it. So I got in the habit of punching guys in the arm when they irritated me.

Then I met my (future) hubby and we dated and we got married and so on and so forth. And I would punch him in the arm when he irritated me. Except he didn’t find it all that amusing. So, after we had been married awhile, he asked me to stop doing that. But it was a hard habit to break. So instead, he would hold up his hands, palms facing me and I was allowed to punch the palms of his hands to get my aggression out. (Yes, I know we’re weird. Shut it.)

Over the years I grew out of that reaction to things. Until last night. Because of all the stress and crap going on yesterday, I was really feeling like I wanted to give him a good punch in the arm to get my frustrations out. But I know he hates that, so being the nice wife that I am, I chose not to. Instead, I said, “In my mind, I am punching you right now.” And what did my goofy husband do? He reacted just like I punched him. Which made me laugh. And laugh. And not surprisingly, all the stress melted away and I was happy with him again. If nothing else, my hubby has a good sense of humor. And that, my friends, is the key to a good marriage…lol!

Mike has a beer stein that he got when he was in Germany twentysomething years ago. It has been sitting on his dresser full of pennies for as long as I’ve known him, which is over 18 years. On the stein are stickers - some in German and one that depicts a stick figure couple in a certain position, if you get my drift. And it says “Let’s do it”. For as long as I’ve know him, that sticker of the couple has been facing outward on the stein. I’m pretty open-minded so it didn’t really bother me and after awhile, I honestly didn’t even notice it anymore.

But today? I was looking for something on his dresser and I happened to notice that the sticker was not visible anymore. One of the German stickers is facing out now.

I’m thinking this is because a certain impressionable young toddler spends a lot of time hanging out with us around that dresser. And her father actually realized that maybe that wasn’t the best thing for her to be looking at all the time.

Score one for Mike.

Mike has definitely been on top of his game the past two days. Last night, he suggested giving Little Girl some Tylenol when she went to bed to help with the teething pain and get her to sleep through the night (hopefully). It worked like a charm. Not a peep out of her all night, which meant I slept very well also. So I wasn’t so tired today.

And he got a call to do a church gig tonight and he actually asked me before he accepted it. Well, technically he accepted it on the condition that he would talk to me first and make sure it was okay, but I’ll take that. Just being respectful of me!

So, I think I’ll keep him. ;-)

I actually spent most of the past two days away from the computer other than answering some email and reading a blog or two, and from someone who usually has a very hard time being away from her laptop for more than a couple of hours at a time, I have to tell you that it was a good break. Not that I would want to do that ALL the time, but once in awhile is nice. :)

So we had a great weekend and accomplished a lot…. (Read on …)

Mike has an entire day and night off and it’s a Friday. This is a very rare occurrence since he usually works in some capacity seven days a week. This morning I’ll drop them off at the railroad park and go to my hair appointment. After that, we are going to find cabinet hardware because I’m really tired of breaking my nails every time I open a drawer.

This evening Little Girl will go hang out with her godfamily while Mike and I go to dinner and a movie or whatever we decide to do and then we’ll pick her up, come home and hope we don’t fall asleep too soon. *ahem*

I’m going to enjoy spending a day with my family and try and ignore the computer as much as possible today. I doubt I’ll update again today, but you never know. If not, then there will probably be a post or two this weekend.

In the meantime, I hope all of you have a great weekend!