Labels

So I finally got around to figuring out how to do a label cloud on the sidebar. *I know, it sounded like incoherent rambling to me too when I first heard it.* But, it looks like it will be helpful in organizing my posts.

And now that I have it up and running on the sidebar, I am systematically going back through each of my former posts and putting labels on them. 266 posts to be specific. *Sigh*

***

I mentally assign labels to all sorts of things. People (even though we shouldn't, we still do), places, experiences. And sometimes we forget that we can choose how we label something, and hence, how we view it. I was just talking with a woman yesterday, who was telling me about breaking her right hip at age 45, and how she made the decision when it happened that she was not going to label the experience as bad. I have to tell you, that just floored me. What a great way to assert power over your own life! You make the decision of how to label something and by doing so you determine how it will affect you.

I have decided to label this portion of my life as the time to enjoy things.
Everything.

Last weekend while we were on the boat out at Palisades, I sat up in the open bow while we zipped across the cool water. I soaked that moment in so thirstily. I couldn't get enough of it, it was amazing.

And yesterday, when I was driving home and stuck in traffic, I enjoyed looking around at the stores and people that I am typically too busy driving to notice. I enjoyed that.

The Sisterwife

My darling husband has this motorcycle. Well, technically he has three motorcycles, but I will forget that just for today.

Where was I? Oh yes the motorcycle. Scotland has spent many hours fixing up this particular project bike, and it only became drive-able about two weeks ago.

Needless to say he has been on it every blessed second of every blessed day. I call it the sisterwife.

"Are you going to take the sisterwife to the store today honey?"

"Are you buying more presents for the sisterwife?"

And I suppose when I am in a slightly more sassy mood, my comments include the sisterwife and various references to "riding" but I don't think we need to explore that here...

Anyhow, last weekend he insisted on bringing her along, and since I obviously have no say in the matter, along she came. And since she doesn't have a headlight, he had to take her up to the campsite extra early on Friday night to beat the approaching nightfall. Minor detail, headlights...

I think they just wanted some time alone, but whatever.

The fam picked me up and headed to the campsite a little later, and when we got there, Scotland got busy telling Dad, Mo and Pants all about the bike and by the next morning, they were just itching to take a ride on her. They cruised up and down the highway by our campsite at unbearable speeds. I was content to play with the baby kittens Judge Kari* brought.

Cute, huh?

Anyhow, eventually we went boating and had a grand time out on Palisades Reservoir whilst dodging the occasional water soaked driftwood. Then, on Sunday we had to take Mo to the Cheese Factory (where he works three days a week) in Star Valley and drop him off there.

But guess what the most amazing part was?

I rode on the back of the sisterwife the whole way there. Hello! Never been on that bike before. Have only spent like .2 seconds on motorcycle with Scotland before! Major accomplishment!

(Although, is it still considered an accomplishment if the only thing you managed to do was hold on and make your knees stop shaking 30 minutes after you get off the dadgumed thing? Accomplish might be a stretch there...)

(And who says dadgumed anyway? Sheesh, not on this blog, NoSirEEEE.)

*****

As a side note, the name Judge Kari comes from a conversation about how my anti-child sister hates being called Aunt Kari by all of Pants's nieces and nephews. So I told her when I have children they can call her The Honorable Judge Kari. But we shortened it for my sake. Really, when do you think I am going to have time to teach a two year old how to say "Honorable"??? He is going to have a hard enough time recognizing that his name also refers to a delicious graham snack!!! Cracker can just refer to her as Judge Kari for all I care!


Over and OUT!

IF I did Twitter {which I don't}

Tweet: Why don't they make drive up windows that work the opposite way? I want a microphone at my office where I can announce into it what I want and have every food place in the vicinity deliver to my window. I officially patent that idea right here and now!

Tweet: I have a love/hate relationship with cantaloupe. I love it when you first cut it open and it is juiciness personified. I hate it when it has been in the refrigerator for a day and it doesn't dribble down my chin. Did I really just say that? Yes. I like the dribble down the chin. Must be why I am so drawn to six month old bald men.

Tweet: Would it be strange if I got a statue of a child and put it on my coffee table? Because I am sure that my "obsessed with other peoples children" phase would, well, phase out faster if I had one of my own to stare at day to day. Although it may be a bit counterproductive because if a woman with children saw my creepy table statue, they might remove their children from my presence thinking I am some kind of weirdo.

Tweet: CampFishBoating weekend was a great success! I rode the deathtrap motorcycle with Scotland and I do believe I am still scraping the bugs from my neck. Ew! That is reason enough to wear a helmet even without all those silly head injury precautions!

Tweet: I wonder if there is some poor, desperate soul out there that I could pay to hold a garage sale for me. I vehemently despise hosting garage sales, which is probably why I am being slowly inched out of my house by the {stuff} that consumes it. Can I pay you to do it for me? Would ten dollars work?

Inch by inch, row by row, gonna make this garden...oops

I have to persuade myself to weed my backyard. Yeah, I know. But really, who ever wants to weed? I mean, when we were kids my parents made us weed to punish us, see so my brain really can't think of it as anything more than a big fat restitution for whatever it is I failed at for the day. And so I set little tiny time limits so it doesn't seem so bad.

I find that during this persuasion, it helps if I speak to myself like a two year old so as to trick myself into weeding.

Ok Kristi, you just have to weed for five minutes today all right pumpkin? You can do five minutes. Look, it will be fun! Yay!

So I trudge outside to do my daily weeding penance once again and grab my trowel and gloves. I find a section of my flower beds that looks particularly fuzzy and plop myself down on the grass in front of it.

Then, I see a lovely purple flower to my right. I stop to examine it closely and think of how nice it would be if I had lots of these instead of just a handful. They look like bluebells or something, but since I am not such an expert in the plant area, I could be totally wrong.

And then, I examine their stalk. And I realize that it looks exactly like the weeds I was pulling out by the bucketful last week.

The stalk that I thought was milkweed.

The stalk that I ripped from the lush earth with a vengance whilst attempting to rid my flowerbeds of anything I didn't recognize. The stalks that I filled an entire five gallon bucket with in the space of ten minutes.

Oh yes.

In other news, Scotland tentatively asked me if perhaps I cut the rose bushes back too far last fall. He wondered aloud if that could possibly be the reason that there are only TWO blooms so far this year.

My thought is, if he loved those flowers so much he should have hired a {professional} gardener.

And now I am forced to find another form of restitution for my failures. As it appears weeding is not working for me.

The Swimming Situation

Yesterday was hot. After spending an hour at my un-airconditioned house, I decided that I had to do something other than sit and swelter. So rather than roasting, I wandered on over to see if I could go swimming again with KJ in her apartment complex pool.

When I stepped into the cool delicious water holding sweet baby J, there were two munchkiny kids splashing around the shallow end and a mean looking woman watching them who was sitting in a plastic chair by the fence.

{One of the munchkins asked me if I was going to take my baby swimming. I said yes, not bothering to correct her.}

ANYWAYS I was very busy enjoying my swim with baby J whilst pretending that he was in fact MY OWN BABY when I was mightily distracted by the commotion coming from the shallow end of the pool. The lemon faced lady was all sorts of yelling at the two munchy-kins to get the heck out of the pool and they were screaming right back at her with insistent "No!"s and such.

But as I was busy minding my own beeswax, I tried to ignore the spectacle that was enfolding in the shallow end of the pool. And a moment later, when I heard a clanging noise from that very direction, myself and the rest of the pool looked over to see the crazy pucker-faced lady attempting to LASSO the girl with the lifeguard pole. Finally after the child had slippery-slipped her way out of the loop at the end one too many times, angry face demanded that one of the other swimmers fetch the child from the pool.

All eyes were on the poor young woman in the black bikini who obediently and gently pushed the wayward child toward the steps.  She nervously chided the girl "you should do what your...um..."and then paused as everyone wondered if the lemon faced woman could actually be the mother. And the angry woman practically spat "mother!" for the poor younger woman as she yanked her child by the wrist out of the pool and marched her off to the other side of the gate. The other swimmers quietly whispered or chuckled at the awkwardness of the whole situation and looked at each other in horror. Just on the other side of the gate, the little girl wrenched free from her mother's grasp and threw the big pink bouncy swim ball she was holding back at the woman with angry defiance and then ran from her.

The air was thick with hanging judgement when another mom with two kids laughed and declared to the whole pool that her kids could never claim she was a mean mom again and we all dissolved into relieved laughter.

For Sale

For sale. Four lovely birdhouses, one metal post that holds birdhouses, and one ceramic birdbath.

Birdhouses are all unique in design and hang beautifully on four arms of the metal post. Will even include birdseed for wild birds. All are in good condition.

Reason they are for sale? Oh... uh... I am glad you asked that... uh......

Uninhabitable environment?

And just in case you think I am kidding...

Pico has a new plaything...

Ew.

Punking the punk

My sister's (supposedly) ex-boyfriend wrote on her car with that winshield chalk stuff that her mustang was for sale for like 1200 or something. She got lots of phone calls on that one. So she turned around and posted a car for sale on craigslist with his number to call. I wonder if he ever found the listing and flagged it?

Sometimes I play hide and seek with my brother. Yeah he is 19. But sometimes he doesn't know we are playing so you can't hold that against him. I like to punk him.

Mo is the king of selling anything he has on craigslist. Humph. Let me rephrase that. Mo is the king of selling anything anyone has that he can get his alien long fingered hands on, on craigslist. So sometimes I go looking around for listings that belong to him. And when I find one that looks like it might be him (but I really have to guess cause he doesn't always list his name otherwise I would just search for that) then I call him from my work number so he doesn't recognize that it is me. And we go through a whole conversation about whatever it is he is selling and I don't even disguise my voice and he doesn't even figure it out. And then he goes about his life wondering about that woman that called about the fish tank and then said she needed to ask her mother. 

And whenever I get off the phone with him, I burst into peals of laughter and congratulate myself on how easily I punk him. Over and over again.

Although, is it still considered a punking if the intended victim doesn't know it is a punk? And is punking a verb? It is now!

Post Script: Last night after I informed my Scotland of my punking of the punk, he laughed really hard and then decided to call Mo. He asked if Mo was still selling the fishtank and then said he needed to go ask his mother, and Mo laughed pretty hard, and stated that my phone call was the most awkward conversation ehhvvaahh. and said he was pretty weirded out that a woman who sounded 30 or 40 years old needed to go ask her mother. Mwahahahaha! And then I told him he deserved it for thinking I was 30 or 40.

I am 27 thank you.

There was this woman...

...on the news today that was arrested for trying to steal a baby. But it was much more complicated than just that. She miscarried and then pretended she was pregnant for eight more months before she targeted the parents of a newborn and in the process of trying to steal the baby from them ended up stabbing both the mother and father.

That is wacked out in so many ways. She tricked her husband into thinking the baby (a pillow stuffed under her shirt) was moving by maneuvering a paintbrush when he put his hand on her belly.

I feel very sorry for that husband. Fooling the outside world is one thing. Fooling your husband is another thing. How could he not have known?

And in other news, I have now commenced wondering if the preggo in my office is doing the same thing.

Therapy

All of a sudden, summer decided to make a surprise visit earlier this week just to tempt me, and then it left again today. But we had a few nights of summer, which helps ease me into the season. Because lets face it, living in Idaho with it's bipolar weather keeps you on your toes. Or makes you need therapy. Either way.

On Monday night, KJ and I went walking, and the entire time we were out there, we talked about getting ice cream. Somewhat defeating the whole purpose of walking, yes but we were practically salivating over our imagined sweet cream concoctions. And yet after all that walking and talking and salivating, we each went home deciding that all of the really good ice cream places had already closed up for the evening. Even though that was the best kind of therapy I could think of.

Tuesday night we canceled walking for the evening because her lil peanut snack baby boy was already asleep. So I listlessly wandered around my house before deciding it was much too hot inside. I found Scotland on the back porch working on his project bike and chatting it up with our always-leather-clad-biker-next-door-neighbor. So I made myself halfway scarce and pulled weeds so I could listen in without being bothersome. And after a million milkweeds met their untimely death, I was sneezing so bad I thought I might have a stroke. So biker dude took off and Scotland convinced me that he needed some ice cream therapy that evening. So we went out for blizzards and instead of driving home Scotland took me across the river from the temple and we parked the car and talked for a while. And I have no idea what led to it, but he started sharing a story about him making out with some girl up at BYU-I which made me feel like I needed therapy to burn that offensive image from my brain FOREVER.

And last night even after it started cooling down, (yes I was a little slow on the uptake) I stopped by KJ's apartment and as we were discussing the options of pool vs walking (which really was not much of a discussion I suppose because who really would take walking over swimming?) Scotland called.

He said: What are you doing?

I said: We were just talking about what we wanted to do tonight.

He said: Well I just wanted to remind you to keep me in mind. You know, if you go swimming.

Like that was a reeealll subtle way of hinting for an invitation to our very exclusive pool therapy party. Sheesh.

So I told him to come over, and KJ and I went down the stairs to get the stroller out of the car for her baby. And wouldn't you know, as soon as he was settled in the stroller we pulled out his blow up swimmer, The Green Frog, and his face lit up like the Fourth of July. Because at six months old that child is already a genius and he knows that Green Frog = Swimming in the Pool. (Thus endeth the paragraph of gratuitous capitalization. Thank you.)

So we walked over to the pool discussing our astrological signs and obsessions with Modbe swimming suits and entered the pool compound with the members only key. Exclusive. And after KJ had affixed a swim diaper on baby J, she handed him to me and let me attempt to wrangle him into the cutest blue swimming trunks ever made. Whew. I am still really lacking on the one handed-ness that motherhood requires.

Then Scotland showed up and I toted baby J all the way back around to the gate to let him in and promptly asked him if the baby made me look good. The answer was yes, thank you.

And we promptly got in the pool and put baby J in the green frog which he was immediately entranced with even though he has been swimming like 30 times in the last three days. Scotland spent like .2 seconds in the pool before abandoning us for the warmer waters of the hot tub, and I swam away with baby J while KJ was momentarily conversing with the six million passersby that she knows.

Then baby J and I played an endless game of Green Frog peek-a-boo because I just can't get enough of that child's laughter. And then it started to cool off a bit, and I saw his lips all a quiver (or rather, a qwiwer) and we got out and wrapped the towel around us both to warm up our wet skin for a bit. And KJ joined us when we went into the jacuzzi room to relax and we put our legs in to soak. And we talked about a million things while I made fish faces at baby J. Which made me think that it was possibly not so much pool therapy as it was baby therapy, but whatever, you say tomato and all that.

And today, Idaho has turned its bipolar weather around again and given us a cloud covered sky, gusts of violent wind and the distant rumble of thunder and threats of rain, and I wonder at all the therapy of the past week being washed away in one summer thunderstorm where we forget that it is almost July and supposed to be hot and dry in this desert we live in. And yes that was the longest run on sentence in the world thank you, but after all of that therapy what do you expect.

The Cheshire Cat

“You may have noticed that I'm not all there myself.”


Today marks another day in the continuing saga of my recovery from my recent surgical intervention. I haven’t mentioned it before but the surgery I had was for an ectopic pregnancy that had ruptured my fallopian tube.

Wow. I really wasn’t sure I was ever going to admit that on this blog. I figured I had better just keep things to myself and hope no one minded the slightly cryptic style of my posts lately. But I have felt very stifled with holding it in. What is the point in documenting one’s life through blogging when one has to keep the most emotional parts hidden?

I am still trying to deal with the emotional aspects of the whole thing, as it has impacted my life in so many ways. And although I am nervous about putting all of that out on paper {screen} I am confident that anyone who would put up with the constant stream of prattle on this blog, could probably be counted on to be a supportive friend.

I was writing some of my emotional goals down today that I plan on focusing on for the next two or three months. And it has been really hard to figure them out. Because not only do you have to determine where you are and where you want to be, you also have to figure out how to get there and how to measure when you have gotten there. I feel like Alice in Wonderland, asking for help from the Cheshire cat when I don’t really know where I want to go.

Alice: I was just wondering if you could help me find my way.

Cheshire Cat: Well that depends on where you want to get to.

Alice: Oh, it really doesn't matter, as long as...

Cheshire Cat: Then it really doesn't matter which way you go.


{I read an online analysis today about Alice in Wonderland.}

So here we are again. When we made the decision to go “down the rabbit hole” and start trying to have a baby, things were new and different and very confusing. And the last couple of months we went through our own personal version of the shrinking/growing scene where things are just not quite right for us to move on through the door to Wonderland.

In just over two weeks we will reach the one year mark. And while I know that is not a very long time at all, it saddens me just a bit to know that we are there, we are out of the newlywed stage and on to the ‘why don’t they have children yet’ stage.

In every trial there is a blessing though, right? And the blessings I can acknowledge from this experience? Empathy and gratitude.

Empathy for the millions of people who experience infertility. Empathy for the pain and longing that I now understand in a very real way. And even if I got pregnant tomorrow, I would still hold onto that empathy and understanding when someone I love is going through it. Because no amount of pep talks or encouraging words fixes that kind of pain.

And also, gratitude. Gratitude for my future children. What an amazing gift to be able to care for them, teach them and see them grow. And all that work we put into bringing them into the world just makes us so much more grateful for them. Because even when they are driving you crazy, you still love them more than anything else in the world.

Cheshire Cat: We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.

Alice: How do you know I’m mad?

Cheshire Cat: You must be…or you wouldn’t have come here.


So here we are again, on the cusp of the adventure in Wonderland...

Why I don't do Facebook and other narcissistic musings

After I wrote this post, it occurred to me that it was rather argumentative and inflammatory. And try as I might, I am unable to edit down the tone without compromising the message I intended. So if this type of message offends you, I am very sorry. But will you please come back tomorrow?

Sunday night, my dear friend CA and I had a nice long phone conversation. Like I think we each said goodbye about eight times before we actually ended the phone call. Because that is how we roll. Because we are 500 miles apart and when we get on the phone we have to catch up on the last month of each others lives. Because we only talk about once a month. Anyway, during said phone call, she asked me if I was on Facebook. And once again, I was forced to reexamine how I feel about Facebook. Cause I just don't want to do Facebook.

Once like a bazillion years ago, someone convinced me to join Myspace, and I did and played around on it for a little while until certain things started to bother me about that form of social media. And then I tried to delete my account. And I don't know if if worked or not, but I don't use it anymore. Oh anyways, the things that bother me.

1. The majority of the time, the "friends" that you have in the social networking sites fall into one of the following categories: your real friends (which I shall call regular interaction friends for the sake of clarity), your former friends (which you don't interact with much/at all anymore but you used to at one point) and your not friends (people you have never had a relationship with other than the social networking site). I would also argue that family members could fall into any of those three categories, if you currently interact with them, if you no longer interact with them, or if you have never met/spoken to them. Interaction is a pretty wide term also for those of you that caught that term, and is broad enough to include those that you talk to or text as well as physically being present with them.

But the problem is, as friends fade from regular interaction to former interaction, you can't just kick them out of your friends list without having problems. That being said, you can't deny a friendship request without the possibility of injuring feelings. Do you see the problems here? And don't you ever think that you would change the way you filter your postings based on who you knew was reading it? You would be able to be much more open and even personal if you knew that only your regular interaction friends were reading it instead of that girl you haven't spoken to in eight years who is now the biggest gossip in town. See what I mean? Problematic! And how weird is it that personal details of your daily life are available to people who are not actually interested in interacting with you on any other level? World wide stalking is what I call that!

2. Social media steps in as a substitute for actually maintaining those friendships. Sure, you have been Facebook stalking your kindergarten friend for months and you know what she had for dinner last night, but are you really friends? You probably assume that she is reading your page as well and knows all about the difficulties you have been having lately, but she hasn't called to see how you are doing or stopped by with a plate of cookies, has she? So how do you know she really cares about you then, and that you really have a relationship with her? You don't! Rather than actually working on making the effort to maintain a friendship, you have fallen into a pseudo friendship. And as CA pointed out to me on Sunday, when you see that person in the grocery store or wherever, you pause and wonder if you should say hi to them or ignore them, but then you realize that you certainly can't ignore them because they are your friend on Facebook!

Now, before you throw a trillion reasons why Facebook/Myspace/whatever are the greatest things since sliced bread, let me tell you that I know there are benefits to them. I know that you are currently emailing the kid that sat next to you in science class in eighth grade, and it is the most awesome thing to find out what he/she is doing right now. I know that. And I know that you are able to keep up with your cousins that have moved out of state and see pictures of the new baby/dog/house/whatever. And both of those are great, and I am very happy for you.

I just don't feel it is right for me. Maybe it is my homebody/hermit personality, but I don't want to do the Facebook thing. The whole rest of the world may be on Facebook, and meanwhile I will stick to my little corner of the world wide web right here. My friends are on Facebook and my husband is on Facebook. Hell, my mom is even on Facebook. And I may be the very last hold out.

But dang it, I just don't want to. And yes, that is a very narcissistic view of the world.

The Law

I used to get pulled over a lot when I was younger. My {formerly} reckless nature led me to believe that I had to get everywhere at the highest possible speed and that every stoplight was just an opportunity to try out my Indie 500 lead food skills. Needless to say, The Law didn't think much of my adolescent ways. And I got stopped on a pretty regular basis. But the thing I had going for me back then was two fold. My gender, and an ability to cry whenever I was pulled over. Please let me assure you, I have no talent as an actress. Those tears were a real manifestation of the fear I had of being ticketed, and the resulting parental suspension of my driving privileges, which as you know is the equivalent of social death to a teenager. And fortunately for me {and unfortunately for the rest of the drivers on the road} I have only ever gotten one ticket in my lifetime. But I still got that anxious shaky going-to-cry feeling whenever I got pulled over.

Fast forward a few years and I am very proud to say I have not only broken my need for speed, but I have also not been pulled over for about six years. That is until last Friday.

I was heading home from work on Friday for lunch when I realized there was a sheriff's car behind me at the stop sign. And then I realized I didn't have my seat belt on. Great. So after I made my left turn, I slipped the shoulder strap down and attempted to buckle it, and wouldn't you know it, the twisted strap was refusing to latch in. And then the lights turned on behind me.

I pulled over and put my arm down to hold the belt in place, knowing full well that when I was asked for my licence and registration, I would have to lean over to my glove box and the belt would spring back to my left shoulder and then it would all be over. But nonetheless, I rolled down my window as the sheriff approached, and managed to squeak out a hello while my knees were knocking together. And nice as can be, he said

Did you know your registration is expired by like, nine months?

at which point I proved once again what an idiot I am around cops.

What?!?! Are you kidding me?

I can only attribute this ridiculous response as an indication that I obviously believe all cops are out to play jokes on me, as we have seen once before in this adventure.

At which point he tells me that just going down and getting my car registered would be less money than a citation for it and recommends that I get that taken care of as soon as possible.

And when he walked away, I did a quick self inventory and noted that while my heart was beating a million times a second and my legs were still shaking so bad my knees were knocking together, I had not cried. A personal victory. And as I let out a sigh of relief, my seat belt flew out from underneath my arm and retracted itself back into place.

And remember the referee that lives in my head? He waved his arms and yelled "SAFE" as The Law walked away.

P.S. Have I ever mentioned that I dated a cop once upon a time? A story for another day I suppose.

P.P.S. Always wear your seat belt and drive in accordance to the laws and rules of the road.

P.P.P.S. This is a public service announcement.

P.P.P.P.S. This is a recording.

Keepin' it real. And sometimes legal.

~k rock~

Bits of random {sewing edition}

1. My sewing machine is officially dead. I even may have cried a bit when I finally came to grips with that fact. I just took it in for a tune up, and they declared the cam is broken and they cannot get replacement parts for it due to its advanced age. Sad fish. Even worse, I am in the midst of a crisis project that needs to be done by tomorrow.

2. I also found the cutest tutorial here for curtains that would be perfect for the freshly painted second bedroom or perhaps the guest room, but I suppose I will just have to hang onto the pattern until I have a replacement machine.

3. I attempted to finish my crisis project last night by hand. It did not go so well. Who sews by hand these days anyway?

4. Last weekends adventure to S Utah made me really really wish for a quilters long arm sewing machine which unfortunately is not in my future due to the $12,000 price tag. Yes I did type that correctly if you are wondering.

I want to cry now. Can somebody get me a hankie?

"Letting go" ~ alternately titled ~ "how I got over the blue bag incident"

All my bags are packed, I'm ready ta go
I'm standing here outside yo' do'
hate to wake you up to say goodbye.

Cause I'm leeeeaaavvvvin' on a jet plaaane
Don't know when I'll be back agaaaain

Blue bag. The one I didn't want. Has grudgingly become an accepted piece of luggage around here.

Why would I not want a blue bag?

Story.

We had just arrived in Las Vegas and were unloading the rental *grimace* mini van in the parking garage of the condo and somebody got a little too aggressive with my maroon bag and tore the strap off while lifting it out. Irreparable. And I was sad, because that bag had been a good and faithful friend. But as it was the beginning of the trip, I certainly couldn't go without some form of substitute to my ultra stuffed bag. So after getting properly checked in and unpacked, we went to the outlet mall.

Now let me stop right here and tell you that very rarely are guys good marathon shopping companions. Like seriously. They poop out after one or two hours and start complaining that they are dying of thirst/joint pain/hunger or they have contracted some form of mall spread communicable disease. None of which squeezes empathy from my cold shriveled heart, but all of which annoys the living daylights out of me. Again though, I said very rarely. My bro in law, Lance the Pants is the rare exception, which is a very good thing being that he is married to my ultra picky clothes horse older sister. He can marathon shop with the best of them. Now my darling husband and my brother, Mo are not such great shopping companions. Lacking in patience, endurance and one might argue, style, they are the type you would rather leave home when on a long shopping expedition. (Short term jaunts into the world of retail are fine, they just fail miserably when asked for more than like five minutes per store.)

So the five of us were perusing this great Mecca of stores in Vegas and after about 30 minutes, Scotland and Mo were ready to head home, having spent exactly 2.5 seconds in each store. Meanwhile, the rest of us were on probably our fifth store, and were certainly not ready to go yet, which I argued vehemently to my husband via cell phone. Besides, I hadn't yet found that blessed piece of replacement luggage, so we couldn't go.

Thinking the matter was settled and those two would just have to stick it out, I perused one of the luggage stores again. Did I want a black bag? Or a pink one? What style would be most versatile and user friendly while being sturdy? Being that this was the second piece of luggage I have ever had the luxury of choosing for myself, I was taking the whole thing very seriously and considering every possibility against the one suitcase I do have. Would the colors and styles go well together? Was it a fair price for an item I would hopefully own for several years? Would the straps hold up well (being that straps was what got me into this predicament in the first place) and did they have the right length and width for comfort?

Whilst I was in the midst of this very great and important decision making I noticed out of the corner of my eye that someone was peering in the window of the store at me. The shop girl to my right was educating me on the valuable features of a very nice bag when I recognized the window man. Husband. And not only was it husband, but he had a store bag in his hand that he was attempting to remove an item from. And then he was holding up said item, a blue and tan bag of the exact same shape and style of my now unusable bag. He had a big smile on his face while he pointed to the bag and motioned for me to come out of the store.

My jaw dropped. What had he done! I didn't want that bag, this was my big chance to get something I really wanted that matched my other maroon suitcase and he had gone and picked up any old thing just so we could leave!!!!!! I was furious!

Chaos ensued as I left the shop girl holding the black bag and went tearing out of that store to verbally ream my husband and demand that he return the bag. Just as I reached him, Mo, Pants and Kari showed up as well, and their laughing at my goofy husband saved him from the head severing I had in mind for him. (I just can't yell at him when there are other people around.) No one understood why I was so mad, and as usual, I couldn't articulate it at the time, so I pouted as we headed back to the van.

It took me a little while to give up on my grudge and accept the bag. I really didn't want to, I figured maybe Scotland would adopt it and I would be free once again to find the perfect item to replace it. But as time has passed, I have realized three very important things. One, my husband will never give up his old army bags as his preferred form of luggage because to him luggage is no big deal. It doesn't matter. Two, I have to consciously force myself to let go of the anger I was harboring from this incident and constantly tell myself "It's not a big deal. It is just an ugly bag" as I am lugging it from place to place.  And the third thing? Shortly after we returned from this infamous vacation, I had just unpacked my maroon suitcase and lifted it to carry it upstairs, when I noticed that the plastic handle was severely mangled on the trip home and is...irreparable.

Yay! New luggage!

And guess who will not be coming when I pick it out?

Cowboy dad