Tell Me Thursday and it’s MY WEDDING DAY! 

I wish you could all be there to witness this joyous occasion.  I’ll post photos later and maybe even have my oldest son send a pic via Twitter.   You can follow me @chele.

Just in the last few days, my mother discovered we are marrying on a Blue Moon.  We giggled and commented that this is a sign.  My mother says I’ll finally be getting married “once in a blue moon”.

I’ve also strengthened a friendship during the months leading up to my wedding day.  This is also the kind of friendship that is so rare that it only happens, well, once in a blue moon!

You may already know about the wedding dress that my sweet friends Annette, Kathryn and Tara made for my special day (we’ve been blogging about the experience as we go and will be completing the story soon).

I am so very grateful for my special friends and I will never be able to fully express my appreciation for them.  Today I will wear the gorgeous dress and know that they were standing with me in spirit as my maid of honor and maidens of virtue.

After the photo of the wedding date text I shared a few weeks ago for Wordless Wednesday, it’s probably obvious that he loves me. I’m pretty sure.

It’s not that I doubted it really, but it does explain some of my funkiness the past few months. And IT would be…

• The economy tanked.
• Up is down, down is up and now vertical is horizontal.
• Everyone flunked and got an F in managing their checkbooks and credit cards (except me, cuz I was already broke anyway).
• The world is heading to hell in hand basket.
• We freaked out a tad. That sorta thing, ya know?

It’s enough to make anyone panic and second guess THE next step in anything. Gloom and doom and panic and job losses, business is slow, blah, blah, blah — We interrupt this program already in progress to bring you the latest news: the economy is STILL tanking – yadda, yadda, yadda!

• Should we get married?
• Should we wait it out?
• We JUST DIDN’T KNOW.

So we decided (after I told the entire internet and a few people that won’t get up to speed with technology the old fashion way, of course) to put the wedding plans on hold.

Then I got all irritated and decided it was stupid to wait if we truly love each other. There’s a part in most vows where you agree to love each other for better or worse.

HELLO? Can’t we just get worse part over with first?

I ever so sweetly demanded, “Don’t you LOVE ME ENOUGH NOW!?”

And apparently he agreed. So… we were left with a last minute wedding to prepare for.

Yes… I’m GETTING MARRIED! Again! Really.

So far, everything is in place for a simple, private wedding. I hope!

The darling “quiet” family has sponsored (I’m giggling with glee!) my wedding by providing me with a gorgeous dress. You can actually hear Annette tell how she wiggled her family into this situation in the Tell Me Thursday Friendship Test episode.  The dress was sewn by two very talented and lovely daughters, Miss Tara and Miss Kathryn. Quiet Mom Annette provided the shopping and supervision (hehe) and Mr. Quiet even drove the dress to the Post Office in the snow. What a great family!

The rings are ready. The license is ready. I’m pretty sure I’m ready.

Just gotta get the man to the church. I wonder if he’s sorry he taught my boys how to shoot yet?

P.S.
If you participate in Wordless Wednesday, you should join us at Tell Me Thursday to tell the full story behind your photos!

I was looking for something under the bathroom sink and I knocked over her shampoo. Shampoo she’ll never need again.

I was cleaning up the patio and I found her collar. My heart ached as I rubbed a patch of her fur that was caught in the velcro.

I stare out the patio door as I type this now. Her empty doghouse haunts me.

The thing is, I never thought there would be a day that she wouldn’t be faithfully waiting nearby.

It’s been two months since I noticed something was wrong with her. David drove us to the vet as I held her in my lap, wrapped in the boys’ Finding Nemo blanket.

The ride was quiet except for the radio. I’ll never forget the song because the timing was perfect. It was an old one, but a good one. I remember singing it over and over as a child. On this day, it had new meaning.

If I had only one friend left,
I’d want it to be you.
Someone who understands me,
And knows me inside out.
And helps keep me together,
And believes without a doubt,
That I could move a mountain:
Someone to tell it to.
If I had only one friend left,
I’d want it to be you.
Dan Seals – One Friend

It was a rough day. My oldest son was 3 when we saved her from being euthanized at a shelter. I delayed the euthanization for almost 12 years. She was saved by my choice and now, ironically, I served her the fate I helped her escape.

It’s been two months since I took her face in my hands and looked into her huge brown eyes for the last time as I told her, “I love you Peach. Thank you for loving me and my children. I love you…”

She drifted to sleep as I kissed her face and bawled like a child in front of the vet. I watched helplessly as David and the vet carried her lifeless body out of the clinic and placed her in back of his truck.

I pulled the boys’ Finding Nemo blanket over her and we left to give her back to the earth and back to her creator. We prayed and thanked our father for trusting us with his sweet creature. It was a rough day, indeed.

Just the other day, I quickly walked past the patio door and saw her out of the corner of my eye. She was standing there, looking in as she often did just before laying down in front of the door to guard her family.

My heart stopped and I slowly turned to look again.

She wasn’t there.

Now that I don’t feel the need to stay quiet about my relationship status anymore…

This is yesterday’s text message log between my phone and David’s.

I almost feel like a teenager passing notes in high school between classes!

Technology has made it possible to sneak notes to each other during the work day for adults.  Don’t you just love it?  (If you aren’t sick from the sappiness of the messages!)

Since the day after I gave David my cell phone number, I’ve always started my day by receiving a good morning text from him when we are apart.  Sometimes, his message would be my alarm clock.  On the rare occasions that they would come late, I would eagerly await the little chime from my phone that would signal his message.

First the messages were simple, such as:

“I enjoyed talking to you last night. Hope you have a great day.”

Then it evolved to:

“Good morning beautiful. Can’t wait to see you tonight.”

We have now transformed into full blown puppy love, complete with abbreviations, typos and bad spelling!  Those texting keyboards have such tiny keys! 

This photo was actually taken a year ago… not long after meeting David. Earlier in the day, I stabbed myself with a knife while slicing potatoes. What can I say? I’m just graceful in that way!

Later, we took the kids out to the deer camp and I snapped a photo of David holding my band-aid accessorized hand in his. From the moment I saw the photo, I’ve loved it. It seemed to say so many things all on it’s own.

At the time the photo was taken, I really felt as though I was a lost soul. Alone again without a partner. Alone again to some how raise my boys to be men. I truly felt as though I’d be operating thru life for awhile with band-aids to hold it all together.

Then I met David. It was as if God knew what I needed and sent him at the perfect time. David just seemed to be the band-aid that we ALL needed. The more I got to know David, it was as if WE were the band-aid he needed as well.

And now, my friends, it seems to be only the beginning of the story.

After attending church on Sunday, July 5th, David proposed.

After getting it thru my thick head that he was serious (he had to ask several times) I said, “Yes”!

The kids are excited and immediately began planning an official wedding (Wrangler tried to arrange a shot gun wedding for us on a three day weekend from school before summer started)! I’m looking forward to being a family that everyone is excited about being in.

This isn’t your average baby bird falling from the nest story. Nuh uh. Far from it!

One afternoon I had the sliding glass screen door to the patio open and heard the strangest unnerving noise followed by the most annoying squealing of my two youngest sons.

The boys were standing over the chickens (remember those adorable little chicks they talked me into?) and freaking out. I couldn’t see what the chickens were doing for the boys, but I could tell they were really making a fuss…

So I run out there and these #%$! chickens each have in their beaks a defenseless baby bird that fell from a nest and they’re yanking at it in a horrid game of 4-way tug of war!

I chase the chickens away and try to figure out what to do. I couldn’t see the nest from the ground but I also knew I couldn’t leave the bird where it was or the chickens would attack it again. So I did what any well meaning mother would do. I brought the bird in the house in hopes of protecting it and nursing it back to health.

Obviously, the birdie didn’t make it.

The boys were crushed when they came home from school the next day and wanted to have a funeral for the bird immediately. I asked David to help the boys while I got the camera. I was so impressed that they chose a lovely spot in the flower bed and David prepared a tombstone for it. Wrangler even dug the hole himself with my little gardening shovel.

How’s the chickens doing you ask? They aren’t even cute anymore. Just annoying, trouble making birds that crap all over the patio and peck any living creature that gets in their path. This includes the family dog.

After my sweet dog started yelping one evening and I went to the patio to open the door and see what was wrong, she nearly knocked me over while running to get inside the house (she’s an outside dog). The chickens were attacking her!

The boys and David got busy the next day building the chickens their very own prison. Didn’t they do a great job?

Now the patio stays clean and all the backyard wildlife is safe again.

We ended up with 2 roosters and 2 hens. The dang roosters learned to crow this week. Why won’t they just shut up already? I think I’ll be inviting my grandmother over to teach me to prepare a rooster from the from coop to the frying pan soon. Those darn hens better get to laying eggs or they’re next!

It’s almost comical the way you can post a photo of an automobile on your blog and say absolutely NOTHING with the photo and people will assume you bought a new car!

Or, as my friend Nell says,

“So, you either are a pimp (ya know, they make lots of money.) or you got this ride for free for awhile. Either way, you’re super cool.”

Hehehe… Um, no, I’m not a pimp. Really. Because all my friends know that I hardly make lots of money!

But I am super cool. Just like Nell would brainwash you to believe!

Actually, I did get a free ride in the previously pictured Ford Flex, but the lucky driver was Erica Mueller. She decided to scope out Twitter to see if there were any mom bloggers in the area that she could make insanely jealous by torturing them with a test ride. I was the only slob local mom blogger that she could find.

We had a ton of fun and took the sexy, flexy ford flex to our local grocery store for some flexible impulse junk food shopping.

At the end of the day, Erica drove off in the lovely pimp mobile of my pathetic dreams and left me wishin’ for one more ride…

Hear us chat about our test ride and our thoughts on the Ford Flex.

View photos from our test drive and shopping spree on Flickr:
My Ford Flex Flickr Photos
Erica’s Ford Flex Flickr Photos

Remember when I lost my mind and allowed the boys to buy baby chicks with their Christmas gift cards? And then they made the move outside and adopted the family dog as their new mama?

Yeah. The bird-brains now think they rule the roost. Literally. My loveable, sweet dog has now lost the title of guard dog. We now have ferocious attack chickens… so don’t even THINK about breaking into my back yard!

These chickens are so big for their pants, they even think it’s OK to crap all over the patio. You know, because they own it or something. David brought a special attachment over to put on the water hose and power wash the patio. It looks pretty good for about 5 minutes. I can sense his frustration already. He mentioned something about shooting a few chickens with his bow…

It seems that everyone you bump into, talk to or eavesdrop on via social media has an opinion on where our country is headed these days. I don’t need to see a poll to know how many are worried or be persuaded that statistics are still high in support of certain politicians. I witness the fear, paranoia and disgust daily. I don’t need convincing either way.

The thing that bothers me most about it though, is how bitter and hateful people I have grown to know, admire, trust and even LOVE have become toward each other in such a short amount of time.

I can talk about my true feelings and fears to family and very closest of friends without fear of resentment, blame, or bitterness. Outside of those few, I am at a loss. Day in and day out I’ve seen heated debates, arguments, finger pointing and arrogance displayed publicly among folks that I respected and valued opinions from – on Twitter alone. I am afraid to imagine how the behavior must be in other environments.

Since the time of the Presidential Election Primaries, I have felt great pressure to watch what I say and how I say it, in fear of accidentally offending others. I have kept my personal feelings private in fear of being labeled something I was not and never have been. I had hoped it would improve after the election was over. My relationships now feel extremely strained.

Now, I’d just like to set the record straight. I probably didn’t vote for the same person you did. I probably don’t support the same causes that you do. I might not even believe in the same creator as you. Why does it bother you? I respect you each despite your different opinions and beliefs. I may not agree with you, but I RESPECT YOUR FREEDOM to have those differences.

I’m just as worried as each of you about the future of our great country and the implications the present actions will have upon ourselves and future generations. I want my great country to at least have the same opportunities and freedoms in the future that it has now.

I WANT my country back. I want to struggle WITH you all, not against you. I want you to be moved and inspired, too.

Watch the video below if you haven’t, yet. If you watched it when I posted it yesterday, watch it again.

If you love America and you love your freedom, you’ll be moved also. It doesn’t matter what you believe or who you voted for. You’ll have goose bumps and you’ll be on the brink of tears by the end. You’ll want your country back, too.

I WANT MY FRIENDS BACK.
Join the 9/12 Project with me.