moosh in indy.

To the outside observer Cody and I are like oil and vinegar.

While I am peppy! outgoing! dramatic! and always with the talky talky!

Cody is shy. reserved. stoic.

I am an exclamation point. Cody is a period.

Both of my parents have never understood us.

We first saw each other in August of 2000. Our first date was mid November 2000. We were secretly engaged in early December, official by New Year’s and I had a big shiny ring on my finger January 16th, 2001. We were husband and wife less than six months later, two months after my 18th birthday.

Needless to say I would “pad” our time spent dating to a lot of people. I usually added about a year when strangers asked and a few extra months when people I knew asked.

I can’t stand newlyweds. Can’t stand people (celebrities mostly) who go on TV and GUSH about how in love they are. They give interviews claiming they have met the love of their life and they are ready to settle down and start a family, they claim marriage “fits” them. (And really when I say “they” I mean Britney Spears. Mostly.)

I was always cautious about admitting how in love with my husband I was. From the moment I met him. I knew people were watching us, waiting for us to fail. As the years passed by I still never proclaimed my love for him openly. When in reality I would squee internally every time his truck pulled up. Or every night when he would reach over to pull me close to him as we fell asleep.

I guess I never wanted to jinx it.

A neighbor of mine said to me a month ago that I never seem happy when Cody comes home. I don’t go to the door and greet him with a hug, a kiss and a “how was your day?” She was completely right, but even though I may not show it on my face, my stomach still does little flutters when I hear his key in the door.

Besides, If I were to run to the door and suddenly greet him he’d wonder what I had broken or how much I had spent.

We’re coming up on being together for eight years. I think it’s safe to finally admit something.

I am so disgustingly in love with my husband I could put any newlywed to shame.

I love the way he smells. I love the way my head rests perfectly on his chest when we hug. I love that his hands are always warm and they have the perfect texture, rough but not nasty. I love that he works so hard. I love how much he loves his family. I love how he looks when he comes home from work, sleeves rolled up, tie undone.

He knows me so well. I can’t hide from him. And yet neither of us completely depend on each other. I am okay with who I am without him by my side, but I know I wouldn’t be who I am if he had never stood there in the first place.

I love him.

I always have.

From that moment I opened my front door and saw him standing there on my porch with white socks, sandals and jeans.

We are supposed to be together. With all of our flaws, quirks, annoyances and faults.

I realize that eight years isn’t that long in the grand scheme of things. Bad things could happen. I could still be considered naïve to a lot of the world.

Cody wrote me the second love letter of our career last week. The whole letter was magical and spewing rainbow love kisses of glittery butterflies, but most of it is none of your business. This however stood out to me:

“I often find myself thinking about what kind of jackass I am for not telling you everyday how I feel about you. I made the perfect decision when I decided to marry you. We may have rough patches at times, but with each month since we have been here in Indiana, I have felt like we have grown closer and closer together. Maybe Indiana is our lucky state; and that just does not sound right.”

I no longer hate Indiana. It is our lucky state. Because whether we leave or stay, I have fallen more in love with him over the past two years than I had in the previous six. Funny how easy it is to love someone more when you share a strong mutual dislike for the state you live in something.

We are good.

We are in love with each other.

It may be the best feeling I’ve ever felt.

Now enough with the mushy mushy. As you were.

In my last post I asked you to vote for me to win a tech makeover. (And you did, thank you!)

But I take it back. I live a blessed life and so what if I have the screen resolution of a game boy?

This father was a firefighter who was injured 10 years ago and is now a quad just like my Aunt Cheryl.

My Aunt Cheryl made me who I am today.

Please vote for him, for his family. He’ll need at least 1,000 votes to get noticed. Can you help him out?

Tweet, blog, email. Whatever. It’s far more important for him and his family to win this than anything I could every use it for.

Thanks.

P.S.Need some crazy irony to help you vote? His wife’s name (who wrote the submission) is Cheryl too.

P.P.S. My aunt has the same wheelchair, and the new model hurts a lot less when she rolls over your toes. Just sayin’.

I don’t do well at keeping things alive. Giving me a live plant or a seed in dirt is only giving that innocent shrub a death sentence. I thought at first I just wasn’t trying hard enough. I was given some paperwhites and told “It’s impossible to kill paperwhites.”

I never did kill them.

Never got the chance, never even got them to grow in the first place.

I wish I had taken photos of my herb garden FAIL! my front yard perennial FAIL! and all the seeds that the moosh has brought home from preschool. FAIL! FAIL! FAIL!

I’m pretty sure the only reason the moosh is thriving is that she has a very shrill warning system if I forget to feed or water her.

I decided to take on a new hobby this summer, birdfeeders. And I was doing really well, until I noticed how much bird food birds actually eat and I realized we’re not on the type of budget that will allow our backyard to be an all you can eat buffet for gluttonous birds.

It was fun while it lasted.

And a little scary when the food stopped coming and the birds perched on my fence and patio set giving me the stink eye.

I did however keep up with the hummingbird feeder. Hummingbird food is cheap, and guess what? Hummingbirds don’t eat a whole lot. Shocking, I know.

I had my little feeder suction cupped to my kitchen window and I watched as all the local hummingbirds started telling all of their friends about the local hummingbird cantina. Soon I had a whole flock of hummingbirds. (This is where I add in the part that I was the only one in the house who thought they were cool. It came to a point where I would tell the moosh to come! look at the hummingbirds! and she’d roll her eyes and if she knew the term “LAME-O” she would have been using it.)

It started to get a little chillier. The stink eye birds stopped hanging around. Everyone seemed to have gone South.

Except the hummingbirds.

I started to get all nervous. Here I was selfishly feeding these little nuggets of birds out of a completely unnautural feeder in the middle of nowhere (for a hummingbird at least, let’s just say my backyard is a last chance fuel station on the hummingbird Highway 66.)

Should I take the feeder down? Where do hummingbirds go in the winter? Do they fly South? Wouldn’t they tucker out awful quick on a diet of hummingbird Kool-Aid? Should I make them a house, become a hummingbird halfway house? Keep the feeder stocked and rig up some sort of heater?

I was seriously worried about what I had done to those little birds. They had brought so many friends…I didn’t want to be the one to lead to their downfall. (Srsly, there were at least a dozen different birds. Shut up, I don’t have many friends. And I’m in my kitchen a lot.)

Before I had time to worry the bitty birds split. Who knows where they ended up. Wherever they are it’s not my fault anymore.

Needless to say birdfeeding is not the best hobby for me.

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P.S. Can you go to this site and click “Like it?” for me? No regestering, no nothing. Just click the “Like it?” button and help mama get a computer with better screen resolution than a game boy. I mean, assuming you like it. Or that you like me. Okay. um. thanks!