Author: Sharon

3 weeks ago  a copy of “American Baby” magazine came  in the mail. It was addressed to my Hubby.

2 weeks ago, a company peddling pictorial Newborn birth announcements sent some information in the mail. It was addressed to Hubby.

Hmmmmm…..

This week I got something from a Life Insurance company and above the line where it is addressed to Hubby it reads,

RE: New Birth Time Sensitive

Double hmm,  and now add-on a scrunched look of confusion.

Apparently, my hubby is either having or has just had a newborn baby. Funny, he didn’t look pregnant to me. He did eat a little more than usual these past few weeks, but I was sure that was due to our fairly hectic schedules at times. At this point, I’m wondering where he’s hiding the little bundle of joy.

After we got the magazine, I called him at work and asked him if he had something he wanted to tell me; something I might need to know? I told him about the magazine and he burst out laughing. He countered by questioning me if there was something I wanted to tell him, because unless I had news, there was nothing to tell.

After we got the birth announcement letter, I set it on the counter and told him he had some mail. He picked up the envelope and opened it without really examining the outside. When samples of birth announcements came tumbling out with pictures of adorable sleeping babies, he had the best belly laugh.

Today, when we got the insurance letter, he again found the whole thing hilarious. I am not as amused. I know my hubby wouldn’t lie to me and if he has…well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, but I’m just saying it might not be very pretty.

I’ve decided to have a slumber party. Or, more accurately, an enjoy-your-adult-beverages- as-much-as-you’d-like-and-by-the-way-there-are-soft-surfaces-to-pass-out-on party.

I’ve invited 4 ladies over and instructed them to bring some kind of munchie they’d like to share, a vodka based beverage, some music so we can dance like we are 12 again, a karaoke machine, nail polish, their jammies and some movies. If we’re lucky, we’ll all forget our chronological ages and get in touch with our inner teen/young adult. I’m looking forward to silliness with the girls and Hubby even threatened to  find an old “Mystery Date” game for us.

Being the hostess, I wanted to see if I could come up with something a bit out of the ordinary for my guests. I originally thought that I’d whip up a batch of Chocolate Chip Cricket Cookies that I’d seen on Yahoo!, but the thought of wasting all that butter and sugar on crickets that no one would eat was just too much for me. I think I’ve settled, instead, on making some Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies.

I found a pretty interesting recipe over at the pete bakes! blog that doesn’t require maple anything, which most of the other recipes called for, and am excited to try it out. Assuming I can get make the candied bacon first without devouring the entire batch, I’ll combine that with a favorite chocolate chip recipe I have. (the toll house recipe has never thrilled me much)

I also found a recipe for Velveeta Fudge that seems easy. Who knows, (shrug) I guess it’ll depend on my mood on that day.

T’was a long day. I’ve got meetings tomorrow and rehearsals this weekend.

I’m annoyed that I haven’t been to the gym this week and that I’ve only walked one day. Blech.. that’s not good. Especially since there are only 14 weeks left til Italy and Germany. I really want to try out the new routine #4 put together for me. Maybe I can fit it in tomorrow night. Gosh knows I should just get up early and go, but my life seems geared to the evening realm.

The other night I had a dream about my parents house. Anyone who’s read my blogs knows that bad dreams always happen at my parents house. My parents have passed on and the house we owned has been solved, but my creepiest dreams usually have some aspect of my old home in them.

As background, the foundation of my childhood home had a piece of runaway machinery bust through the wall and supposedly crushing a worker who died. Of course this was not revealed to my parents when they moved in, but years later, when my hubby was working at a temp service doing waterproofing on homes, he ended up meeting one of the crew that had worked on our house and saw the guy die.

Could be the reason we were ALL spooked at being downstairs by ourselves and why no one wanted to go into that house alone. Who knows.

Anyway, my most recent two whacked dreams were:

I had been in *the house* and went outside to sit with a group of people I knew by a riverside, waiting for an event that was supposed to be occurring on the river. Someone mentioned that there were snakes in the river and I felt one slithering up my leg. I was told not to move. Snakes continued to wind their way up both my bare legs until I had snakes wrapped around both legs up to the thighs and both arms. I felt them starting to slide down the back of my shirt on my neck. I was told to sit still or they might bite me. I was a little freaked out by this and then I felt one clamp onto my elbow and start sucking on me. A man walked up with a larger snake and said the only way to disengage and kill the snake that was biting me was to let the larger one fight it. He put the larger snake on my arm and the battle began. The larger snake did eat the smaller one, but that did nothing for the fact that they were still wrapped around my arms and legs.

The second dream I was sitting  in a car in front of *the house* with Hubby. I have a vision of being in the house as well, with my father wandering. He just kept showing up, like he wanted to talk with me. My mom is rare to show up in any dreams, but Dad usually says something to me. If he did this time, I missed it. (try again, dad!) Anyway, I was outside in the car with hubby and we were talking about something that was upsetting. I was getting so angry I just started swinging at him. The harder I pushed to punch, the wimpier my punches were. They were ineffectual and just plain laughable. That’s what Hubby was doing. Laughing at me over and over, which made me madder and madder.

I know they aren’t as crazy as some of my dreams have been, but since I’m the one who has them, that’s ok with me!

It’s my 26th wedding anniversary today, March 23, 2011.

Outside it is gray, overcast and rainy, very much like the day I was married. I’ve heard that rain on your wedding day is supposed to be good luck, but I have a sneaking suspicion that was made up by a bride who was trying to be optimistic about her rainy wedding day. Who wouldn’t? Whatever the case, it was raining the day I got married and it’s 26 years later. I’m not one to argue the validity of rain being lucky.

For my anniversary present, I told Hubby that I wanted to go to a restaurant called The Melting Pot. Hubby isn’t a fan of this chain because they charge a rather exorbitant amount of money for food you have to cook yourself. (it’s a fondue place) I view it as a leisurely meal that requires conversation with no smart-phone interference. I’m not sure if he’s going to be able to withstand the lack of a technical communication device in his hands for longer than mere moments, but we’re going to try it and see if he can survive.

I’m betting he finds at least ONE thing his wants to tweet to the world. Bet you.

I called and put a reservation in for a quiet corner of the restaurant to celebrate. When the gentleman on the phone asked what the occasion was, and I told him, he was genuinely shocked. This is almost surreal to me in many ways. First, it certainly does NOT feel like I’ve been married for this long. 26 years sounds like a long time and seems to carry such weight when you say it, but the reality of the time with Hubby has been like a blip on our radar screen.  Sure we have lots of memories, 4 grown children and 4 grandchildren (so far), but again, to us it’s just …..right, I guess.

Last weekend, I was building some furniture I bought for the basement. It’s not the best quality, but the price was right and it’ll look good for staging the house for sale. Hubby had been doing other chores, but stopped when he found me working on a coffee table. He grabbed a screwdriver, held some pieces and tightened some bolts and then looked at me and said, “This makes me feel like I’m 19 again and we are just starting out.”  I thought about it for a minute and said, “But we are just starting out again. It’s just us this time.”  Such an odd concept, but not an unappealing one.

Last night I had an incredible urge for chocolate, so I made some dark chocolate, chocolate and peanut butter chip cookies. They are fantastic, but they tear my tummy up a bit and I end up “remembering” the cookies for the rest of the day. That didn’t stop me from having a handful for breakfast…..and then a handful for lunch as well.

Hubby and I went to the airport with DaBoss to pick up our special guest conductor, Michael Kibblewhite. We had debated whether we should or not, but I’m glad that we did, because as it turns out, he was interested in getting a bit to eat before heading to his hotel for the night.

So where do you take your originally-from-England-and-transplanted-to-Italy special guest?

Why Denny’s of course! What says welcome to America better than Denny’s?!

Actually, it was just perfect. It was fairly calm there, the waitress was good and the food came out just perfectly. Michael was happy, DaBoss – who’d never been to Denny’s while she’s lived here, and Hubby and I were quite happy to discuss the differences in choirs and cultures.

I’ve had so many meals with so many different circumstances there that I’m thinking I should write a book called, “My Life at Denny’s”.

We went to play tipsy Bingo with R and N and Jenny. We had a blast!

I actually won a dish of rocks. No lie.

Jenny went as well. The woman who complains that she never wins anything won a purse and a gift card. Yay, Jenny!

After Bingo, we had pizza, played a rousing game of Bocce and enjoyed a fire and a cold drink! Fantastic day!

Today, I felt like this:

Yep! Looks just like me when I’m annoyed. Can’t you see the resemblance just there, around the eyes?

Nothing seemed to be going well and I was tense and frustrated and just plain grumpy.

So, I had Hubby take me down for Happy Hour.

Which turned out to be not so happy. 4 Huckleberry Cosmos and a dark black beer later I was *slightly* more relaxed. I’m not kidding… only slightly. Maybe I’d calmed down to this:

Just maybe.

I’d had enough of the Not-So-Happy-Hour and was ready to walk home. Recently, they’ve put in lights around an area in my community that is an open space. As I walked in the beautiful evening air, this sight did more to calm me than the adult beverages had:

And then, I found a friend who reminded me that you can stay calm, even in the face of imminent danger.

Mr. Frog was directly in the middle of a walkway that people were strolling around (us) and others were biking around (eek!). When I asked Hubby to pick him up for a close up shot, he never moved or squirmed or made any attempt to hop off Hubby’s hand, even though Hubby wasn’t the most stable platform and I was having troubles getting Mr. Frog’s good side. Once we were done  with his close up (Mr. DeMille) we put Mr. Frog into some hay so he wouldn’t wind up under a bicycle tire.

Ahhhh.. much better. That little frog did more for my mood than anything else had that entire day – including Bess.

While we were walking the two blocks back to our house, we passed the home of the little horse I go and visit  on my walks. We don’t live in the country – yet- but there is someone in my neighborhood who owns a small horse.  A few days ago I had walked by and noticed that he’d gotten some new company in his yard. Apparently his mail order bride had come with a ready-made family of two kids. Nanny goat and a little white kid and a little red kid had wandered around the yard, climbing up on a pile of sticks and getting used to their new home. The next day I walked by, the horse was lying by the pool with the kids tucked up next to him. Nanny was wandering the yard. He *almost* didn’t come to get his smuggled baby carrots, but he eventually did abandon his sitting duties to come say hello, get his goodies and trot up and down the fence line with me.

As I related how Horse had gotten a new wife and kids,  while walking in the moonlight with Hubby, I felt calm and at peace once again.