Good Gravy

See this sweet face? This would be my precious Missy Prissy. She is, hands down, one of the most remarkable people I know. She is kind and sweet and generous and thoughtful and I have ZERO idea where she came from because she is a 1000x better person than me or her dad were in our teens.

She is a puzzle and a FBI profiler’s worst nightmare. She is incredibly shy but with those who reach out and get to know here, she is hands down, the craziest funniest person you will have ever met. Her world is pink and glittery with its princesses and unicorns yet she is on route to test for her black belt in kickboxing. Her passion is volunteering with kids with special needs so she serves as a Vice President in her high school’s Best Buddies organization. American Sign Language is her great love and she is a member of the ASL honor society and one day hopes to be a speech therapist specializing with children with special needs and the hearing impaired. Combine all that with the fact she is a manager on our high school’s wrestling team and she is addicted to UFC fighting and you have my sweet baby girl. #paradox

So, a while ago, she starts to not feel well. ALL THE TIME. After every meal there were stomach issues…. bloating, gurgling, pain, etc. This went on for a long time. She has always been more “delicate” so I just thought she had a weak constitution. Finally, last spring we head off to the allergist. Oh boy, her back blew up with testing. Soy, tree nuts, peanuts, sesame, legumes, and all FOUR seasons. Great. What an inconvenience. Shots 2x a week and grocery shopping takes double to triple the amount of time. Did you know that soy is seemingly in EVERYTHING? It is seriously the sneakiest little shit I have ever seen. So we go on, this is our new reality. It is what it is. We don’t complain and we make the best of it.

She started feeling better after we eliminated those allergy triggers……somewhat. Nine months go by and she still isn’t “right”. So off to the GI we go. Five vials of blood later, almost passing out in the office lobby, ultrasound etc., I get a call from the nurse….

“Your daughter’s blood shows that she has a severe case of celiac disease”.

I’m thinking, “Celi-what?” I had honestly never heard of it so off to the google gods I go.

“Celiac disease is a serious autoimmune disorder that can occur in genetically predisposed people where the ingestion of gluten leads to damage in the small intestine.”

The information out there was pretty scary so I bought books and I researched. One evening after my husband went to bed, I read and read and read. Then I cried and cried and cried a little more. I read words like:

Autoimmune

Chronic

Small intestine damage

No medical cure

Possible precursor to other autoimmune diseases: Type 1 diabetes…lupus…. lymphoma

So much information. But you know what happened? I got mad. No, I actually got PISSED. At 16, when friends live to hang out at restaurants and have sleepovers, this all became so unbelievably complicated for her. I know. I know. I could have gotten a worse call. A much worse call. And the fact she can’t enjoy Popeye’s or Whataburger anymore is so a FIRST WORLD PROBLEM. But you know what? This is her problem and I am her mama so I am going to be pissed off all I want.

Not surprisingly, in that anger, I found a challenge. In the past, it may, or may not, have been suggested that I am a smidge over protective, over involved, and NO, I don’t see any similarities to myself and Beverly Goldberg (ahem) but my baby girl is hurting so CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

Celiac had found its worst enemy. We are going to dominate and this will NOT rule her life. Now, she will have celiac disease her entire life and yes, there is no medical cure for the condition. The only way to heal the intestines, prevent further damage, and to feel good is to remove gluten from the diet. And I mean ALL gluten. Gluten is a protein in grains so obviously all breads, pasta, pastries are no no’s. If I thought soy was bad, gluten is seriously the bitch of all bitches. It’s in bouillon cubes. It’s in cream soups. It’s in spice mixes. It’s in fruit snacks. It’s in soy sauce for pete’s sake! It’s used as a filler in so many things you would never suspect. The list goes on and on and on….

Thankfully,  businesses are getting smart. Many restaurants offer gluten-free options and grocery stores have the aisle of all aisles…the gluten free one! Yeah! We are going to dominate this bad boy! Off I go with my super cute readers to read all the microscopic print. Oooooh! Gluten free cookies! Let’s buy those! Crap. They are made with chick pea or almond flour (legume and nut allergy). Ooooh! Check out these neat little chocolate protein bites made with gluten free oats. Oh well, double crap, the chocolate has soy lecithin in it (soy). And it goes on and on and on. But a few things are found and we move forward.

Have I mentioned I love a challenge? Really? Seriously? I haven’t? Nah, impossible. I am the master of research and I am a completely self-professed amazing cook (ahem).  This past Christmas I was able, thanks to the internet, to hack every family recipe to make them completely gluten-free and allergy free for her. And I can honestly, say, you would have never know the difference. Yes, the green bean casserole had to be made 2x because the first one was an epic fail and baking with gluten free flour to try to make her some Christmas cookies was beyond laughable.

But we learn. Apparently one can find individual cans of GF cream of mushroom soup online but only GF cream of chicken is sold by the case so I am the proud owner of 12 boxes of that favorite casserole necessity in my pantry. GF pretzels are like chewing tree bark but I did find some pretty good GF chocolate cupcakes. GF bouillon cubes taste like grass but some GF sausage is AMAZING. And the education continues…..

So we move forward in our new reality. We are ALL eating a lot healthier. And I’m sure when people come over to eat there will be a small amount of trepidation over what they will be served. We don’t eat out as much so we save money (which is good because retailers have discovered anything with GF on it can go for triple the price). And my sweet husband, who traditionally doesn’t grocery shop, has jumped onto this ‘we must read every. last. ingredient. listed’ at the store with me.

My handsome husband and I have a year and a half before she flies the coop off to college so we will be preparing for her to able to handle this on her own. We learn and we educate.

Yes, she will have this the rest of her life. And yes, in the grand scheme of things, managing it is no small inconvenience. But, it could be worse.

Despite this, she will still be amazing and impactful and the light in so many lives and she will touch countless people through her compassion and kindness.

So celiac, SHE WINS. And you can go suck it.

He is gone. 20 years ago tomorrow evening, on September 23, my life irreversibly changed forever. Dramatic? Maybe. But when your world turns upside down in an instant, I think I am entitled to a bit of drama.  For pete’s sake humor me.

Go to a dictionary and look up the phrase, ‘daddy’s girl’. There you will see my shining face staring back at you. Ok, not REALLY, but I was…… in spades. We were 2 peas in a pod. We thought alike (though it was my baby sis, his other daddy’s girl, who received the bulk of the brilliance DNA), reacted the same, had many of the same interests, and sadly….even looked alike. Just what every girl wants, to look like her daddy. So much so he called us Peat and Repeat and teased me that when I got older I would go bald and grow a beard. Joy.

His was the lap I crawled into over some break up, the voice I heard when he would call me at my work during the day, the one who came upstairs to teach me how to dance before my first boy/girl event. He is the one who pulled the car into the garage and made me take all 4 tires off and put them back on, the one I would get up with and watch CBS Sunday morning with, and the dad who went to Hallmark on his own and bought stacks of ‘thinking of you’ cards to send to me in college several times a week.

He was opinionated and stubborn (that TOTALLY skipped me…not).

And let me tell you, when we had a disagreement, it often times ended with my sweet mama dragging us both into the den and the scene would play out like this:

Mama speaking: “Ok now, face each other. Say “I’m sorry.” No, say it like you mean it. Now hug. A little tighter.  Ok, be nice to each other and go to Dairy Queen for some ice cream.” (true story)

So, with my daddy’s unexpected passing, we were completely gobsmacked. Decimated. Pulverized. How did this man, who was larger than life, just disappear?

The recovery was brutal and hard and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. But as time passes, whether you want to or not, you get used to the new normal. It took a long, long time to reach acceptance of the situation. I mean, YEARS. And through these past 20 years, as with any big or small event, there are things you accept to be true. Some may not be apparent at first, but with time and acceptance they have become more and more evident.

Humankind is GOOD.

Watching the news today, society appears to be a mess and ‘evil’ exists everywhere. But we also have incredible good that can often be forgotten in the 24 hour daily news cycle. Looking at 9/11, where we witnessed incredible heroism by ordinary people, our faith is restored.

I’ve already described what happened the night with my daddy in “Psssst….Can you Hear Me?” so I’m not going to rehash that again, but that evening I witnessed my own heroes in action.

It was all the nameless faces that made that horribly tragic evening ‘work’. It was the lady who stopped her car in the street and offered to take over the mouth to mouth for me so I could focus on his chest compressions. It was the teenage boys who, without being asked, took their t-shirts off and literally stuffed them under our knees to relieve the pain of the concrete digging into them. It was the lady who jumped in her car, ran without knocking into my parents’ house, and told my mama she needed to come immediately. And it was the lady, who loaded us in her car and drove us to the ER and stayed with us until the pronouncement of my daddy’s demise. All nameless faces. Those people are my heroes. On that evening, a group of people came together in almost perfect symphony for a family they barely knew, if they even knew us at all.

So rather than focus on all the negative that is thrown at us, I choose to look for the goodness in this world. It is a choice. It’s not always an easy choice but if you look for it, you will see the glimmers shining through everywhere. Faith restored on a daily basis.

I was exactly where I needed to be.

In the months after, along with the extreme guilt (What if I had done the CPR better?) and shock and sadness (Why did he have to die?), I was ANGRY (Why me? Why put me in the position? Lord, what did I do to deserve that kind of punishment?). And it went on and on and on. I am ashamed to admit I had a crisis of faith and stopped praying all together. I mean, what God would do this?????

A colleague of my dad’s wrote me a wonderful letter a few days after his passing. And at first, I read it, I saw the words, but I didn’t hear them. I have kept that letter, and periodically I have pulled it out to read over the years. And through the years, I had started to HEAR what he was saying. And combine that with prayer, I have come to the conclusion I was exactly where I needed to be when I needed to be.

Was I a ‘chosen one’? Absolutely not. It’s just that the stars aligned, God’s will at work, or by ‘chance’ I was there. Take any or take all of those options. What it boils down to is that at the very end, before my daddy collapsed, he reached out for me. And thankfully, it spun me around fast enough I was able to break his fall. And though he was no longer physically there, he was THERE. And all the love he gave ‘his girls’ in our lives came out in that moment in the attempts to keep him here with us.

So my question has changed from “Why me?” to “Why not me?” What started out as being one of my greatest tragedies in life has ending up being one of my greatest blessings.

And FINALLY (I am almost done, I promise!), the most IMPORTANT one.

I didn’t need to say “Good-bye”.

Odd, huh? I didn’t feel the need to say good-bye?

Despite my parents’ missteps, and ALL parents make them, the one thing they completely knocked out of the ballpark was letting my baby sis and I know we were loved. And we knew it on a daily basis. We were raised that it wasn’t enough to ‘just know’. You needed to show it and speak it. Whether it being my parents yelling upstairs from the entryway, “I love you aborigines!” or the notes of encouragement in my lunch when I was punished to SAC in high school (never skipped class again….) ……we knew. We never left the house without saying it. And they weren’t just words. They were words we LIVED by.

Daddy would tell us, “Everything we have and do could be gone tomorrow, but that won’t change who we are and what we mean to one another,” and THAT was the God’s honest truth.

If the good Lord had come to me and said, “He is mine in 60 seconds. On your mark, get set, go”, there is not one thing I could have said to that man that wasn’t said or shown on a daily basis.

I didn’t need to say good-bye. He already knew.

So, twenty years have gone by and his presence and love have stayed with me as if I saw him 20 minutes ago. He is loved, and he is missed, and I thank God every day that HE gave me ‘The Don’ to be my daddy.

I love you Pop.

I am literally trapped in Homecoming hell. Wonder why? Google ‘Texas and homecoming mums’ and you will see the bane of my existence at the moment. Rather than be normal like other parents and just go BUY a homecoming mum, I decide I need to MAKE them. Because you know, all the cussing and screaming and tears that are involved prove to my kids how much I love them. #whatever

Let me explain myself. I am severely craft challenged. The right side of my brain just does not function. Give me a 10 key? Excel spreadsheet? Stack of financials? My world is totally rocking. But sadly, I can barely thread a needle. No joke. I usually hand it over to Missy Prissy for her to do that. Yet here I am. Fingers burned by the hot glue gun and atrocious bows that my 10 thumbs just can’t seem to master. Thankfully I have a couple of angels who swoop in and rescue me from my despair when I get too bad and I want to lose myself in the bottom of a bottle of wine.

Despite all the homecoming madness…and the fact a tutor is arriving at my house later….and the fact the I have to take my Missy Prissy to an orthopedic Dr. today for her knee…. and the fact I now have to figure out how to decorate a homecoming float, I am relatively calm. Why? Because dinner is OFF my to-do list.

I almost feel like Charlie Sheen. #winning! Minus the porn star goddesses, and the tiger blood, and the maniacal rants (children, shut your mouths), and the multi-million dollar bank account…..er uhm…..ok, maybe not so like Charlie Sheen but you get my drift.

You see, yesterday I made another one of my go-to’s. Like the Creamy Italian Chicken, this needs to be made the day before so all the flavors can meld. It literally goes from oven to fridge then back to oven to warm up. It is called No Peek Beef Tips a la Good Gravy (it’s my blog – I can name it after me if I want to). There are a ton of recipes out there for this but this one has been tweaked to work for us. I love to tweak. Seriously, I am a major tweaker. And, it is sooooo easy. Literally dump everything into a giant cooking pot, slam the lid on, and leave it alone in the oven for 3 hours. 3 glorious hours of doing nothing…..though I did go see the new Bridget Jones movie while it was cooking (#winning)…then my prescription sunglasses went missing at the theater so maybe not so #winning.

This recipe is a double batch. Because you know, my kids like to take it for lunch and we have our Thursday night leftover event. You can add more meat if you like as well. It calls for 4 lbs of stew meat but I have been known to sneak in 5 lbs (because as I have mentioned before that I have a 200 lb wrestler in my house so we eat a lot of protein).

The response I received from the last recipe was overwhelming and so many of you liked it so I am hoping you enjoy this easy make ahead meal and it makes your week a little less stressful. Enjoy!

No Peek Beef Tips a la Good Gravy

Ingredients

4 lb cubed beef stew meat

2 envelopes brown gravy mix

2 envelopes onion soup mix

2 cans cream of mushroom soup (or cream of potato)

1 cup water

1 cup red wine

(You will discover I love to cook with wine. In this recipe, it gives the sauce almost a beef bourguignon flavor. The alcohol cooks out! No worries for the kids!)

What to Do?

Preheat oven to 300°F

Dump everything into a large oven proof pot or a 9 x 13 baking dish.

Stir everything together to coat beef tips.

Cover with lid or foil.  Just make sure the seal is tight.

Place in oven for 3 hours. NO PEEKING.

Enjoy your goddess like state of being for the moment.

Serve over rice or pasta mashed potatoes.

Enjoy the accolades from your family about what an awesome cook you are.

 

 

 

This parenting gig is pretty awesome. And it is rewarding. But it can be extremely hard, especially when circumstances are beyond our control and our kids are hurting.

Right now, I am attempting rather unsuccessfully to help my daughter, aka Missy Prissy (first mention for her, second and last born, girl) heal her broken heart. She is in a state of suspended disbelief. I just want to wave a magic wand and make it all go away overnight. Experts say there are 5 stages to the grieving process: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance and I see my Girl Almighty bouncing between them like a ping pong ball.

For my Missy Prissy…. it is over….it is done and she had absolutely No Control over it. She was definitely in the denial phase for a while. She just could not fathom the idea of their demise. They were her One Thing. They were there for her in her late adolescent/ early teen years seemingly supporting her every step of the way. Had a bad day? Let’s consult with them and see how they could make it better. Their plethora of feel good was seemingly limitless. We traveled to see them as often as we could and every time she saw them her face would light up and she would literally glow from the inside out. Her squeals of delight made the effort WORTH IT. They made her Moments. They were never far from her mind as she had pictures of them everywhere. And I mean EVERYWHERE.

While in denial, she was silent for a while. Almost as if the words weren’t mentioned, the scenario wasn’t true. But now, over the past few weeks, she is scraping up every last piece of information on them. All the Little Things. Analyzing it. Searching for clues. And we sit and talk, a lot, about all the fun times we shared with them. And her endless optimism that she will see them again is infectious, and endearing.

I am not sure she will ever hit the depression stage though she is taking a small detour Through the Dark. That just isn’t in her nature. Though I admit, I do see a bit of bargaining with the phantom powers-that-be settling in almost as if she is trying to fill in all the empty Spaces.

So sadly, my sweet Missy Prissy, is going to have to keep navigating her way through the stages the best way she can all the while reaching acceptance that so many young girls these days are having to face……

Right Now, One Direction’s public relations created ‘break’ appears, more and more every day, to be a ‘break up’.

So as the bleeding hearts of the 1D fandom unite, may their memories of dancing all night to the Best Song Ever tide them over……. until the already highly anticipated reunion tour…… in about 20 years.

 

 

I mean, CAN YOU HEAR ME?????? Warning: public service announcement forthcoming because I feel the need to speak out on something I feel is so important.

Do you know what? Your body SPEAKS to you. And you need to listen and pay attention and be PREVENTIVE.

Six years ago, I decided for our 40^th birthdays, my handsome hubs and I would go for his and her cardiology appointments. Isn’t that just su-weet?????? There we were in a room together, gazing across a sterile doctor’s office, gazing into each other’s eyes over the head of the nurse all the while taking turns getting hooked up to EKG machines. (And they say romance is dead.) Why was this important to us? Our gene pool had kind of stacked the proverbial cardio deck against us and we felt like we needed to establish a baseline. HH hubs passed with flying colors while I got the call back for several more tests. The end result? A small, non-life threatening issue that required medication and eventually disappeared for a bit.

For a bit……..

So fast forward to 2016…. late last week and early this week I went to a cardiologist for some heart irregularities I was feeling. And while I’m still not quite done with testing, my EKG, echocardiogram, and stress test came back for the most part really good. Like really, really good.  Apparently my heart is one strong sucker. The same minor issue re-surfaced, so back I go on my low dose prescription.

I went because I am LISTENING to my body. I have experienced what can happen when you don’t. And while preventive testing of any kind will not eliminate every possible thing that can occur, it can be a pretty good shotgun approach to try to find any multitude of medical issues.

AND, pay attention to your loved ones. Look for signs FOR them. There is a difference is being paranoid and being aware. Because if something bad does happen to your loved one, you will question yourself, blame yourself, and kick yourself for a long time as to what you could have possibly missed.

So puh-leeze peeps, listen to yourselves. I don’t want anyone’s life to follow the same path as my sweet daddy, who at the age of 51 and seemed to be in perfect health, one evening in September 20 years ago went for his nightly 2 mile power walk with his daughter. And shortly after leaving the house, started complaining of pretty bad heartburn. And when daughter says, “Let’s not walk tonight” he says that the heartburn is a result of the licorice in the Good & Plenty’s he had been sneaking from the pantry and, “Do NOT tell your mother.” And the next thing you know, three blocks from the house, his daughter is on her hands and knees in the middle of the street performing CPR on her daddy, a man who she thought would live forever, all the while making every bargain with God if He would only let her daddy open his eyes and start breathing again. Suckiest night ever.

There WERE signs. And he missed, or made excuses for, them and we missed them and 20/20 hindsight can be soul crushing and suffocating and completely irreversible.

So please, get yourself to an annual physical every year. Make the appointment. Run the labs. Don’t blow off nagging symptoms and don’t let your loved ones blow off nagging symptoms.

Listen to your body.

Your body speaks.

Your loved ones will thank you for it.

 

(ha…ha…ha…  My kids are going to FREAK I actually posted my bitmoji…)

Do you ever feel like a rock star? Seriously, you think, “Day-yum! I am rocking this mom and wife thing!” Well, here it is Sunday, the Texans are on the TV (not because I watch the Texans but the handsome hubs does have an interest in them), kids are working on homework, and I feel like flying around in my proverbial cape.

WHY? Because dinner for tomorrow night, kiddo’s lunch for Tuesday, and Thursday leftover night is DONE! Yes, I am THAT good. Sorry not sorry.

You see, I LOVE to cook so be prepared, I may blog about it quite a bit. And I am actually pretty good at it…..according to some of my kiddos’ friends  (no names will be revealed in order to protect the innocent).

And…..sadly, I LOVE to eat. I mean, I LOVE TO EAT. I actually have an extremely long list for my last meal on death row. Despite the fact that Texas has now eliminated the death row last meal concept……not that I would ever really BE on death row. You know, because I have mentioned before that I watch NCIS and I’ve learned skills about how to dispose of a body undetected (sigh….. Mark Harmon…. Let’s just think about him for a moment).

Good-bye Mark. Back to reality and my rock star status. Now, you may be thinking I have slaved in the kitchen today. Maybe looking all Leave it Beaver-ish in my heels, dress, and pearls? BAH! Nothing could be further from the truth. Instead, I spent 10 whole minutes SLAVING over my crock pot.

Yes, crock pot. My crock pot is my best friend. And it isn’t even a fancy crock pot. It is the big $19.97 one from Wal-Mart. The crock pot is God’s gift to busy moms. Have I mentioned how much I love my crock pot?

You see, around here, I cook Sunday-Wednesday. Thursday night is every man for himself where we pull out all leftovers from the week, and we wing it for the weekend either eating out or grilling in the backyard.

I know we ALL have days where we look at the calendar for the upcoming week and we wonder how in the world we are going to pull everything off, especially feeding our families. Well, helllooooooo best friend.

The recipe below is one of our go-to’s. I always double everything in it. By doing so, I can feed my family of 4 (one is a 200 lb wrestler so we need to double the protein right there), the kiddo’s have lunch, and some lucky winner(s) get it for dinner Thursday night. Now, I feel it is my duty to warn you, because you know, us moms have to stick together…..if you have never had this before, DO NOT let your children be around when you take a first taste of the sauce. Why? Because you possibly may throw you head back, close your eyes, and a small moan may escape just enjoying the savory deliciousness for the first time. That sight may actually scar them for life.

So give it a shot. It is so easy! I am a huge fan of what I call ‘dump’ recipes. Just go ahead and dump it all in! The only reason why it even took 10 minutes is because I had trouble opening the bottle of wine. Tip: I always make it a day in advance so all the flavors meld overnight. It always tastes better in the following days.

So I am going to go enjoy my rock star status for this fleeting moment. Because I am sure I am about to screw something else up just around the corner. #momproblems

Let me know what you think and feel free to share any modifications you made to it!

 Creamy Italian Chicken

Ingredients:

2 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken breasts (or tenderloins if you don’t feel like cutting chicken)

1/4 cup butter or margarine

4 oz. of an 8-oz tub of cream cheese – herb and chives

1 (10 3/4oz) or cream of chix soup

1 (o.7 oz.) pkg. Italian dressing mix

1/2 cup water or white wine (I prefer wine)

Angel hair pasta

Cut chicken breasts into strips and put chicken strips into slow cooker.

1. Dump remaining ingredients except pasta into crock pot.
2. Sit back and revel in how smart and productive you are being.
3. Cook on low for 4 hours. Serve over cooked angel hair pasta.
4. In the last hour, you can add sliced fungus (mushrooms), sundried tomatoes (my fave), or whatever else tickles your fancy.

Serves 4-6

 

 

 

 

 

*****Warning: Completely cheesy post below******

ZERO plans to post today, but I woke up this morning, laid in bed for a bit looking at my sleeping handsome hubs on what is the morning of our 21^st anniversary, and I decided that we needed to celebrate MARRIAGE.

You see, when I met my HH so very long ago, I was of the mindset I would NOT be getting married. Having come off a 3 year relationship of which I was engaged for a year and a half of it, I just wasn’t sure it was for me.

It felt like you had to give up too much of yourself for someone else; that I would be lost while pursuing someone else’s dream.

And then there were my parents who set the bar high for wedded bliss. Their love for one another was evident to all and they had a deep PASSION that many marriages lose after several years (yes, I think my baby sis came to the realization that removing her carpet in high school down to the floorboards when her bedroom was directly above my parents’ probably was not the wisest decision).

So when this handsome cowboy walked into my life I was definitely unsettled. We had known each other for a long time and there was history. Long story short…

• I TOTALLY crushed on him in high school.
• He knew it and needed a date to senior prom.
• I read way more into that invite.
• We didn’t speak for 5 years after the dance until he transferred to my college.
• He was interested in going out with me.
• Master plan: date him, get him to fall in love, dump him in the most spectacular fashion imaginable and break his heart.
• To my horror, I fell in love. Master plan epic fail.

Soooo, after dating about 6 months, he goes to my daddy and asks for my hand in marriage and we tie the knot in 1995. YEAH!!!!!!

We were challenged very early in the beginning. Between jobs, finances (or lack of), my sweet daddy’s unexpected death and poor HH having to deal with me completely falling apart, let’s just say it was tough at times. But you know what? It was also good. So good, that it was worth sticking it out.

Why?

Because our parents raised us with the idea that marriage is a daily decision. It is a CHOICE you make every D@MN day.  You have to WANT to FIGHT for it. There is no 50/50 in a marriage. It is 75/75. And when your spouse is falling short, you step in and make up the difference because Lord knows there will be days they do it for you.

I know the statistics and I know that is not the case for everyone. It is incredibly sad when one spouse makes that daily choice and the other doesn’t. Life happens. And we can’t control other’s emotions or intentions. I have seen the fallout that occurs when things go so terribly wrong. And my prayer for my friends who have gone through this is that they find someone who is willing to make that daily choice. I have faith in that special someone being out there.

As for us, despite all that is good, I will admit, there have been times when I would like to use all my ‘skills’ I’ve learned on NCIS on how to dispose of a body and not get caught. And I can honestly say, I’m KNOW there are times when HH wishes he watched NCIS so he could acquire those same skills!

But, at the end of the day, I can honestly say we have a great marriage. He is my best friend, my go to guy, the one I vent my frustrations to, and the one I want to celebrate with. We are each other’s greatest cheerleaders and most honest critics. We have 2 beautiful children together and have built a home based on faith, trust, and  lots of love and laughter.

We said, “I do” to each other 7,665 days ago today. And through it all we have woken up most days (let’s be realistic here) choosing each other, choosing our marriage, and choosing our family. It’s not perfect. But it is ours.

So babe…..

Thank you for choosing me.

You are the love of my life.

You are my fairytale.

Happy 21^st anniversary sweetheart.

 *****Cheesy post has commenced*****