Waah.

I'm so sorry I left y'all hanging after Monday's post - especially when I received so many supportive and "go got em" comments. But alas - the die has been cast and I'm mired in the depths of self-pity...

I have a bad stomach flu/bug. NO - I don't have the f-ing swing flu and I swear if one more person (mostly family) "jokes" about it I'm going to send them some flu-laced-hand-sanitizer so they spread germs all over their own hands. (Seriously though, Manbug has some face masks in his car for visiting properties under construction, etc. and his best friend bet him $250 to show up at his team meeting this morning wearing the mask. I told him that would be awesomely funny UNLESS someone else showed up wearing a mask and he/she was serious about his/her fear. Then it would just be awkward. But, he could comfort himself with the $250.).

Anyway, I'm sick. And I feel sorry for myself. And the only thing I've ingested in the past 24 hours ends in "ine" and "ale" - as in saltines and ginger ale.

The house hunting went OK - we didn't find anything we loved (oh wait - we did...and then we noticed a pile of legal documents on the counter which detailed the HUGE construction project that was slated to begin 200 feet from said house. So, no, we didn't).

We're fighting over a few issues - Manbug wants a house priced below market that requires a bit of work and will rise in value as a result. Also, he wants to spend a LOT less than we are approved for - a LOT. I want a mansion overlooking Lake Travis with 16k square feet, an infinity pool and a gourmet kitchen.

So, we differ a bit on that aspect of it.

But seriously, this process sucks and the only thing we have succeeded at is making it as difficult as possible. I have decided to be the bigger person and put my expectations on hold and let him propose the best house - this way, I won't have to listen to him bitch for the next three years while we live in said house (NO ONE has worse buyer's remorse than my beloved. He experiences it with everything from hair gel to cars. Seriously!). I'm just not going to fight this fight and I'm going to trust his instinct because when it comes to real estate, my man has a golden touch and GREAT foresight.

We'll find something eventually - we're not in a huge rush since we're month-to-month on our lease and we have a ton of money socked away for down payment, closing costs, furniture, etc. - so we can only improve our situation by waiting.

Let's just hope I don't suck the life out of our savings account by contracting the swine flu. WHICH I DON'T HAVE.

Excuse me - time to go visit the bathroom again.

House Hunters From Hell

Said in the voice of Suzanne Wong:

TUWABVB and Manbug relocated to Austin, Texas from Dallas, and are finally looking for a home to call their own. The 950 square foot apartment in which they have resided for the last 9 months is no longer "cozy" - it's just small. Also, they have about 75% of their furniture and belongings in a Pod in Garland, Texas and they miss their finery.

They are scheduled to see approximately ten homes today, along with Manbug's mother who is in town to help with the process. (There are also more homes scheduled for tomorrow, but that's another episode).

Will they find a home that fits the needs of their family, and is worthy of every one's approval? Or, will too many cooks spoil the broth?

Will they become tired and cranky, say words they probably shouldn't say in front of one's mother, and end up strangling each other with the loser being buried in the back yard of one of these prospective homes (most likely a vacant one)? Or, will they find their dream home and crack open a bottle of champagne tonight?

Stay tuned! On the next episode of "House Hunters from Hell."

It's a Hell of a Town

One of my favoritest bloggers is celebrating her new digs - go by and visit and learn how to pay it forward:

Anonymous New York

She's a great writer and an even better cook!

He is a boil on the butt of humanity!

Long before I met my husband, and thus, long before I met my in-laws, I loved the movie "Steel Magnolias." I watched it over and over - always crying at M'Lynn's monologue at the cemetery - always amazed at the great one-line quotes threaded through the plot. Even my high school friends used variations of certain quotes, saying things like "You are too twisted for wine coolers" (it was the 80s - give us a break - color TV wasn't too impressive by that time), or "You know I love you more than cornflakes" (rather than "my luggage" because as of our teen years we had clearly not invested in appropriate luggage) or anything else that mattered at the time (although "I love you more than my Forenza sweater" doesn't have the same ring).



If for only that reason, I have always treasured that film. But little did I know that I was destined to marry into a family of Steel Magnolias.


My mother-in-law is the youngest of eight children. She grew up in a small town in Louisiana and comes from a long line of amazing women. She values family above all else and I love her dedication to her sisters and brothers, her husband and her sons. (And I'll never complain that because she has two sons and no daughters that I'm spoiled beyond heck!)


I remember the thrill I had when I first visited the family farm in Louisiana and was told that I would be spending a "girls' day" with my future MIL (she wasn't my future MIL at the time, she was only my boyfriend's mom but you know what I mean). She said that we were going to Natchitoches - I didn't understand the word she said. But then she said some magic words...


It's the town where "Steel Magnolias" was filmed.


I was showered and in the back of that car faster than you could say "I SLAPPED OUISER BOUDREAUX."


After getting to know my in-laws over the years, I realized, as a Yankee, that Southerners say a lot of things that are "quotable" and really, "Steel Magnolias" just captured that characteristic in film form. When we attended a family reunion almost a year ago, I found myself pulling out my Blackberry more times than I care to remember in order to jot down the gems I was hearing (and yes, I was an outcast because of this).

Yesterday, I was cleaning up my Blackberry and I found a long forgotten quote uttered by an aunt while she was telling a story about her husband who passed away years ago. This particular story concerned yard work, and I swear on a stack of Bibles this is how she ended the story:

I had him hoppin. I mean, I really had him hoppin because he had a botched
surgery and one leg was shorter than the other.

As was once said, "call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family:Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one."

Two Ships That Passed in the Night - And Then Backed Up

Yesterday, as Manbug prepared for a business trip to Dallas, I stayed out of this way by parking myself on the couch to review two precious gems in my DVR line-up: new episodes of The Real Housewives of NYC.

He walked in during one scene when Bethenny was posing with a cocktail shaker and a t-shirt that read "Skinny Girl."

Manbug: Did she used to be fat?
Me: No.
Manbug: Is she a trainer?
Me: No.
Manbug: What does she sell?
Me: Um, different health products and recipes. Oh, and she has a new book out.
Manbug: And she didn't used to be fat?
Me: No - she's "naturally" thin. That's actually the title of her book.
Manbug: Naturally thin? Why the heck is she on this show? That's kind of rude to flaunt it.
Me: She's one of the stars.
Manbug: You watch the dumbest shows.

I was rather perplexed by this conversation until an hour later a light-bulb went off.

Me: You know, that show I was watching before? It wasn't "The Biggest Loser."
Manbug: Ah.

Reconnecting As a Family

This weekend, my husband and I did something that we've never done before as a married couple. Something almost unthinkable given the unparalleled smotherliness of both of our mothers. (Get your mind out of the gutter).

We spend a holiday alone. As a married couple. Just the two of us. With no requirements to travel to Louisiana or New Jersey, and no relatives under our roof.

And it was amazing.

Don't get me wrong, I love my family - heck, I love his family! I know how lucky I am to have such wonderful and supportive people so close to me. But we have been married over two and a half years and it was time to do this. To act like our own family, if that makes sense.

And we had an amazing weekend. Friday night, we shared some cocktails with some friends and played "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader" on Xbox (turns out, after a few tequilas, we're not).

Saturday, we took a ride to Lake Whitney to see my husband's best friend/business partner and his family.

Yesterday, we woke up early, donned our dressy wear (suit for Manbug and dress for me), headed to Catholic Mass (Manbug lost a bet on this one, otherwise we would have been at a Baptist service - yes, nothing makes Easter special like a little sacrilegious wager), shared an amazing brunch on Lake Travis complete with mimosas, and then headed home for a nap. We woke up, had a casual dinner of French Dip, steak fries and chocolate pound cake with fresh strawberries and whipped cream, watched a bad movie (so disappointed in the Cohen Brothers and "Burn After Reading"), and then called it a day.

And for some reason, this simple act of spending a holiday alone just as husband and wife made me feel more a family of our own.

I think we'll try it again soon.

A life with love will have some thorns, but no roses.

I had a post written for today which discussed happiness arising from a wonderful weekend. But nothing seems important right now.

It was a few years ago when I first stumbled upon Gorillabuns. I devoured each and every entry in her archives, staying up until the wee hours of the morning to get my fill. As I read Shana's writing, I thought to myself, "This! This is the type of mother that I hope to be!"

You see - she encompasses so many things...so many amazing qualities. She's loving, but humorous; respectful, but appropriately irreverent when necessary. She is always caring. Always real. Always putting herself last, but able to laugh about it.

When we started to chat via email and Twitter, I was so completely flattered that someone I admired so would take the time to talk to little old me. And that's one of her best qualities - she makes everyone feel special - especially her family.

When I was crying this morning, and Manbug asked me what was wrong, I said, "I don't understand it. So many children have passed away in the past few weeks. How does this happen? I can't believe the heartache!" He paused and then said, "I think these things have always happened, but we weren't aware of it because people far away like this might have been inaccessible to us." So, the Internet has succeeded in providing wonderful friendships by bridging the miles with special people, but it also reveals more heartache than I once knew existed.

Would I trade the friendships in order to be more immune to such heartache?

Never.

Please pray for Shana and her family, and of course the other families, that have experienced such loss and heartache recently. After this week, I'm not sure I'll ever be prepared to be parent - knowing that the possibility exists to have your heart shattered into a million pieces. I do know one thing - when/if I decide to become a mother, I have wonderful role models to guide my journey. Especially Shana.

And if you can help, in anyway, please donate to ease this family's suffering. Here is the original website entry providing the paypay account if you are having issues.

Hoppy Easter!

Yes, I'm lame. But I save this cartoon on my computer so that I can use it every year at this time because really, it makes me laugh so hard that I snort and who couldn't use that right now?

All That and a Bag of Chips

The following transpired between 8:45 a.m. and 10:45 a.m.:

• Woke up at 8:45 a.m. for a 9:30 a.m. appointment to have hail damage assessed on husband's car (He had missed the first appointment so I graciously offered, a/k/a "I have to do everything around here," to take his car to this appointment seeing as he was leaving for a business trip this morning)
• Brushed teeth, changed, put on deodorant, perfume and baseball cap. Gathered purse, etc. and realized dogs needed to go out
• Let dogs out. Normally well-behaved dogs go bat-shit crazy and chase a terrified black fuzzy cat up tree. Cat can't climb very well (or he's pooping his pants) and he proceeds to slide down the tree trunk
• Grab both dogs' collars to lead them back to patio so that the cat can muster up what's left of his dignity and head home
• Murphy wriggles out of his collar and takes off like a bat out of hell after the poor cat again
• I finally scream at both dogs and get them inside. Head out the door to have the car washed so that hail dents can be assessed.
• Pull up to car wash and insert card
• Card failed. Insert again
• Card failed. Insert again
• Realize card is facing the wrong way so insert card in correct manner.
• Card failed. Insert again.
• Card failed. Insert again.
• Try another card. It fails. Insert again.
• Pull through car wash and circle around to mini-mart. Explain the card reader is not working and I need to pay at register. Kind clerk explains to me that it's likely that the card was 'declined' due to insufficient funds (NB: Car wash is $6).
• Bite my tongue and temptation to scream out my balance and pay for wash.
• Pull up to wash to enter receipt number and realize that the f-ing automated car wash HAS ALREADY STARTED WITHOUT THE CAR IN IT.
• Salvage what I can of car wash, but ending up leaving with some suds still on car.
• Return home quickly because I forgot my Blackberry.
• Get back in car, start to pull out of apartment complex and realize something smells.
• Look down at shoe completely covered in dog shit.
• Get out of car, swear at the top of my lungs and try to get shit out of crevices in running shoe.
• Realize that this is hopeless and return home AGAIN to get new pair of shoes.
• Suppress desire to smear it all over his face when husband when asks if I got dog shit all over his car.
• Back in car and head to appointment.
• Look down at car mat and spy minuscule piece of poop.
• Don't have tissue/rag/towel/bag/paper, so take old water bottle and scoop up poop.
• Realize that I don't want to get out of car again and instead, chuck water bottle into bushes (simmer down - I intended to pick it up AND recycle it when I got home).
• Receive $1,895 dollar assessment of damage and am informed that the repairs will take 5 business days.
• Also informed that there are no rental cars available, even though our policy covers it, because....you guessed it - all of the rental agencies' cars were damaged in the storm! Don't laugh at the irony of the situation with receptionist.
• Head to dry cleaner.
• Stop at Starbucks on the way to cheer myself up with a skinny vanilla latte.
• Barista informs me they are out of SF Vanilla. (I have never, in my 4,569,264 visits to Starbucks received this reply).
• Order latte with regular vanilla and cut-out Splenda to compensate for possible sweetness.
• Realize, in the car, that latte tastes like ass. Thankfully, I only wasted over $4 on it.
• Leave dry cleaner and head to bank to get new check registers since I haven't balanced our checkbook since February and I just want to start over.
• Explain to curious Chase employee why we have four separate accounts even though it is NONE of his business.
• Actually, it is his "business," but why should he care? Isn't that making more money for him since since they charge fees on most accounts?
• Walk in the door in a grumpy mood and hear the local news speaking of possible hail storms this weekend.
• Scream.
• Realize, today is my dad's birthday and calm down.

There is so much sadness going around the blogging world lately, but sometimes it's still hard to keep things in perspective. My father had an incredible knack of doing this for me and it amazed me that he was able to do so today, even though he's not with me anymore. If I had called him in a funk he would have listened to my bitching and calmly explained that you have to ignore the small stuff. Because in the grand scheme of things, dog poop, declined credit cards, $1800 repair bills and shitty $4 coffee don't really matter. All that matters is those you love and those who love you.

Gosh, I'm so glad I didn't smear poop in my husband's face.

The Conversation That Immediately Preceded My Husband's Premature Demise

Manbug: (enters room holding the waistbad of his pants out from his body) Hey - look at this! I think I've lost weight. My pants are totally loose.

Me: Really? That's great. (Not really what I'm thinking). How do you think that happened?

Manbug: (has left the room and is standing on the scale) Yep - I lost about13 pounds!

Me: Really? That's great. (Not really what I'm thinking). How do you think that happened?

Manbug: Well, remember when you went to NJ?

Me: Um, yea - three weeks ago?

Manbug: Yea, well I skipped a few meals while you were gone.

Me: #$(*%()#&()@#*$^%!$@#^$(*&*($#^)%$)#*($

Faith is not a thing which one loses, we merely cease to shape our lives by it.

It's amazing how pets know when you need comfort. I had just taken a wonderful walk in the most amazing Austin spring weather and I entered our home thinking that life wasn't so bad. I quickly checked my email and saw a notification which I knew wouldn't contain good news. I clicked on the link anyway, and immediately tears filled me eyes. I quickly got up to let the dogs out, and as I stood in the sunshine and cried, my younger dog ambled up to be and let me bury my face in his fur.

I remember the day we met them. It was the first dinner of our honeymoon cruise and I was so thrilled that there were other newlyweds at our table. They had just been married in Dallas the night before and had left their reception earlier than planned because of the winter storms that were pounding the DFW area. We shared stories of our persistent and dangerous dash through sleet to reach Galveston and head to warmer climates as we raised our cocktails in celebration.

Obviously, we shared dinner with them almost every night (one night Manbug and I decided to order free room service and eat on our cabin's balcony). And despite my own lack of nostalgia aimed at avoiding clutter, I adored that she ordered the "shot of the night" every night and hung on to the souvenir shot glasses to commemorate their trip. We also shared one of my favorite excursions of the cruise - a drive to a beach in Mexico that seemed like it was at the end of the world. We sat on the beach and drank Coronas and laughed until we cried when she returned with a horrifying tale of the women's room that involved a bucket (thankfully her experience convinced me to avoid the bucket and pee in the ocean because we headed back to the ship). They had met in high school and married young, and you could see that they simply adored each other.

In all honesty, they made our honeymoon more enjoyable than it would have been if we were alone at the table. I remember covering my laughter and sharing looks of disbelief when I asked our other dining companion why she held her hand in the air when a certain song played every night and she promptly responded, "Its a Christian thing - you wouldn't understand."

They explained that as soon as the honeymoon was over, they were moving far away from friends and family so that he could accept a lucrative position. We kept in touch - sporadically at best, but I was still devastated when I learned that they had to return to Texas after he had been diagnosed with a rare type of cancer. At 26. They moved to Houston to be near one of the premier cancer centers, reconfiguring their lives on a daily basis and fought.

And yesterday, I received the update from his website that the fight was over. His doctor had explained to him that any additional treatment was futile and that he had, at most, six months to live. Knowing that they were married only two weeks after us, they've only been together as husband and wife for 2 years and 3 months...and they've been fighting almost from the beginning of their marriage.

I'm not writing this because this loss will impact our lives in a significant way - not to sound trite, but we'd only talked in person a handful of times since our honeymoon. I've kept abreast of his situation through a website and signed the guestbook numerous times to let them know they were in our thoughts and prayers. I'm writing this because the whole situation just makes me ache. For them. For their love. For the loss of what could have been.

It makes me feel ungrateful that I don't wake up and appreciate every day that I have with Manbug, and that sometimes, I yell at him for stupid stuff like leaving a light on or putting his dish in the sink when the washer clearly had dirty dishes in it. It makes me think that if it were me, would I really be happy with what I've accomplished in my life thus far?

My faith has been on fragile ground since I lost my father and I can't say that this helps matters. I'm not naive - I know that such devastating loss takes place every day - but I just can't wrap my mind around it. For the time being, I just need to appreciate what I have and pray for those that aren't as lucky, and hope that this heartache won't destroy the faith of his wife and family. But I also wonder how long it will take before I become complacent with things again and forget all of this. And that makes me sad too.