Tongue Tied

I don't know about you, but my life has a definite soundtrack. I can think of music that coordinates with every single season of my life. Specific songs that take me back in time the moment the first bars are played. Music is probably my most powerful memory hook. In a moment, I'm there , in whatever situation that I've forever linked with that event or person or place. It goes without saying that I have hundreds of songs on my life soundtrack, so today I'll keep it narrowed down to just my love story. Every relationship has a soundtrack, so here's ours: A Wink & A Smile --Harry Connick Jr. This has been "our song" since we were freshmen in highschool and sang it with our choir and later performed it with each other in a vocal ensemble. I've probably listened to this song thousands of times, but it still makes me smile and makes me feel fourteen again. Seth just happens to be a winker. Any Man of Mine --by Shania Twain. Ok, stick with me ...

It only took us 30+ years. But it feels kinda oddly fulfilling to be making "the tough choices". Delaying gratification. Being wise with our resources. And all that "mature" stuff. Choice one was to not eat out at all during the month of August. To some, this may seem like no big deal, but we are frequent restaurant eaters. Some of it is necessity--Seth works a lot , sometimes days at a time with no interruption, so it isn't always possible to bring food from home for his lunches and dinners. At the fire department, all the ffs pitch in ten dollars every duty day and get two meals, so that works nicely. When I can, I try to bring him lunch when he's at his part time job the day after working at the fire station. But there have been a few times when I couldn't get over there that he has to eat fast crap for lunch. Or we have plans at 6 in the evening and he gets home at 5:30. Or when we have to be at church at 8:30 on Sunday mornings, nothing sounds...

Today, you are one. A year ago at this very moment, I was holding you in my arms with tears in my eyes and the gospel on my lips. I was introducing you to your brothers. I was marveling at you with your Daddy. I was trying to really grasp that I had a little girl. And, here we are, 366 days later. You are sitting in your high chair and shoving fistfuls of smashed peas into your mouth, laughing and babbling and scrunching up your nose the way you do when you smile. You can laugh and clap and crawl and cruise now. You can hold up your finger when someone says you're one. You holler at your brothers and get down and stare into George's face while he sighs at you for interrupting his regular napping. You can stand when you're not paying attention and you keep taking an unassisted step or two when you race around the room with one hand on the furniture. You like to look at books and get into your brothers' toys. You're obsessed with water and bathing. You c...

I'm not a party animal. I don't like hosting big affairs. My own wedding reception was a cause of plenty of internal turmoil. You won't find me counting down the days between my kids' birthdays, just itching with anticipation of a huge celebratory bash. I've pretty much come to terms with this. I used to feel bad about not being the kind of person that loves large, noisy social gatherings. It seems that being a good hostess means enjoying throwing big parties. I'd hear a lot that I was supposed  to in to the whole party scene, because that's what a good wife and mom does. I'm a little more comfortable in my own skin now, and I've learned that my feelings are just as valid as someone else's. But I still don't stick up for myself when someone pokes at my decision to not love big parties. Here are some common misconceptions that are assigned to us non-partiers that I feel deserve a response. 1. We don't like people. It's not t...

I knew I wasn’t alone, even before I saw her face staring back at me. I’d felt her eyes boring into me as I walked through the warehouse. I’d heard her sigh all around me, the unnatural breath of something unfamiliar. I’d felt the chill of her on my skin, a tingling sensation alerting me that something was different here. So it really wasn’t that surprising when I turned to find her standing not three feet away from me. But I still gasped. Her blond hair lay in strings around her pixie face. She was a pretty girl, probably only ten or eleven. She wore faded jeans and a tee shirt sporting the peace symbol. If it wasn’t for the cut of those jeans, I’d have never known she wasn’t from this time. An untrained eye would have thought she was a ghost. But I knew better. I knew her presence here wasn’t because she was a lost soul tied to this place. She wasn’t haunting me. She was, of course, dead in my time, but that didn’t make her a ghost. I knew she wouldn’t s...