I managed to squeeze my grocery shopping trip into 30 minutes of shopping and make it home and unload the groceries about 15 minutes later. Then the kids got home before I had the chance to put it all away, and plundered through everything between asking if they could have various things for their snack and shoving folders in my face for me to sign. I got them settled and started on their homework, then started putting things away.

While tackling the refrigerator, I remarked that Chad drove me nuts when he didn’t put condiments back on the door in the fridge, and put them on the shelves instead. I said that I had specifically condensed bottles of things that were open, thrown things we weren’t using out and organized it so everything would fit nicely, leaving plenty of room for fresh fruits and vegetables and for me to put leftovers after dinner.

Ethan said “Why don’t you guys just get a divorce?”

I straightened myself up from where I had been kneeling in the refrigerator and asked him to repeat himself. He did. I asked why in the world he thought we should get divorced. He said “Because you said you’re mad at him about the fridge.”

I calmly explained that I didn’t think people should get divorced because they got mad at each other every once in a while and that his father and I were rarely mad at each other. Even if I was griping about the ketchup not and Catalina dressing not being on the door, I wasn’t actually what I would call angry about it.  He asked what a good reason to get divorced was. So I told him that it should only be when you don’t love each other anymore, and that Chad and I love each other very much.

I told Chad about it later that night and he rolled his eyes. I hope that we can instill in our kids that marriage is very serious and relationships don’t have to end when one or both people get mad at each other. I hope that they can see how we handle our differences calmly.

The situation I mentioned in my last post is no different. I spent my day yesterday, after taking two of the kids to Urgent Care to get prescriptions for strep, scrubbing and deep cleaning my sister’s house with her and a friend. I say house, but we only managed to get the kitchen and living room mostly done. She has a full time job and started going to school with me full time on top of that, so she needed the help. Where she should have gotten it is something I won’t address because it still pisses me off.

She’s overwhelmed. She’s exhausted. She can not physically do all of it alone and something has to give. He’s not making her life any easier and she is miserable. You can just tell when you see her. It’s even more apparent when she randomly bursts into tears every time we’re together and tells me that she has given up and doesn’t want to fight with him anymore.

I’ve advised her to go after what she wants in life. She’s too young and too good of a person to be miserable over a relationship. She may be moving back in with me soon. I feel like I’m barely hanging onto the edge of a cliff reaching out for her as far as I can and she’s hesitating about reaching back for me to help her up. It’s difficult to watch and let her make her own mistakes when I want to swoop in and save my baby sister. I know it’s a path she has to navigate herself though. I’ll just have to be here when she’s ready to grab my hand and let me pull her up.

Two years later, we’re in a much better place. I’ve been thinking of the events that occurred during August and September of 2009 simply because it’s been two years. It’s been more of a reflection on how far we’ve come in that short two years.

It’s also been because someone pretty close to me is experiencing the all too familiar signs of cheating from their boyfriend. She’s busier now, with new responsibilities in her life like college on top of a full-time job. He has a job too and their schedules clash a lot. He reconnected with an old friend, they exchanged numbers and now they’re texting each other all the time. No big deal on it’s own. People are allowed to have friends of the opposite sex, if they know where the boundaries in their relationship are.

… but he’s hiding his phone and messages. He’s staying up late after his girlfriend has gone to bed to talk to the old friend or texting her after he drops his girlfriend off at work. He’s got the whole ‘Nothing is going on, baby.’ story down, but there’s something obviously wrong when people around town are asking if they broke up. There’s something seriously screwed up when the ‘old friend’ is having her friends go harass the girlfriend at her job or when she screams obscenities at her when she drives by at a restaurant. When after the girlfriend has told him that it hurts her or that she’s worried about the amount of time he spends talking (texting/visiting) with the ‘old friend’ and he continues to do it despite how uncomfortable it makes the girlfriend and the strain it has obviously put on the relationship. When the ‘old friend’ visits him at work daily. When he hides behind her car when his girlfriend pulls into the parking lot. When there’s a string of ‘You aren’t spending enough time with me or paying attention to me anymore!’ that shift to ‘You are constantly up my ass! Give me some space!’ remarks in the span of a day. There is a very big conflict of interests there.

The signs are beyond obvious for someone who has not only been cheated on, but has also been the cheater. I recall exactly how Chad behaved. I know the lies and excuses I made  up to conduct my own affair.

Last night, I was asked what she should do. I told her my opinions and how I would have changed what I did, because hindsight is 20/20.

Should she block her number from his phone? 

I responded with “Give him enough rope to hang himself.” My position on this is that if he cares enough about the relationship, he will end things on his own. If he continues, it’s obvious he does not care. Chad agrees, saying that if it comes to the point where you have to block her from talking to him, just leave. Besides, blocking her number isn’t going to solve anything. Jess simply contacted Chad at work (as she had become familiar with his work schedule and called 411 to get the number) and through a secret email account. You can not stop them from communicating if that’s what they want to do. I can say that I am grateful that neither of our mister/mistress lived nearby. That would have made it that much easier to get in touch with them after numbers had been blocked or changed. It also would have made the aftermath more painful, had we had to see that person around town.

Chad and I really loved each other. We also had children, a mortgage and a lot of other reasons to work things out. We wanted to work things out. So we did. Their relationship is young, just a year long, and they don’t have any responsibilities. If she wants things one way and he another, she has to decide what her time and effort is worth to her and if she would be happier with someone else.

Cheating is painful, no matter what the stage of your relationship. There is something about betrayal that just cuts like a knife. You deserve what you want in life just like your partner deserves what they want. Sometimes it’s not each other. If you aren’t comfortable opening up your relationship (which is absolutely 100% okay), end things. Go out and get what you deserve from your life. It only happens once and you don’t want to waste any time in a miserable relationship.

.

I see you. A beautiful woman, full of life and love. Your gorgeous dark hair, pale skin and freckles, the curve of your hips. I love your green eyes and pouty lips. I love your smile, your touch, your scent. I love wrapping myself in sheets that smell like you. I love sharing your warmth under the blankets. I love seeing you happy.

I hear you. I hear your sharp wit, your charm and great sense of humor. I love making you laugh and hearing it keeps me laughing. I love your intelligence and your logic, how passionate you are about your beliefs. I love being the person who gets to share those with you.

I feel for you. I hurt when you hurt. Over past experiences with friends, lovers, and family. I feel your pain and want to hold you so tight. I wish the girl back then could see the woman you are now and know she will be alright. That she is worth it. That she is beautiful. That she is amazing. I wish she could see your success, your confidence, your dedication.

I trust you. You are my best friend. I have never felt closer to anyone in my life. You are the single most frustratingly beautiful, stubbornly charming, crazily sexy woman in the world. Through all of our time together, everything we have done and shared with each other comes down to this. There is no safer place for me than in your heart and no safer place for you than in my arms.

I love you. I could search the rest of my life and not find another like you. I tell you every day and still don’t tell you often enough. I love you, Sarah.

But it was worth it.

Chad was playing Gears of War with my sister’s boyfriend, and actually sent them home early so that he could take advantage of drunk me. We had a lot of fun having some of the most uninhibited sex we’ve had in a while. It was messy, it was loud and it was awesome. He bragged about being sore all day long.

He said he wants to get me drunk like that once a month. I’m not very interested in putting my body through that so frequently (the drunk part followed by the re-hydrating, not the sex part.) I’ve worked too hard and come too far to start being careless about weight gain now. This means I have to try to be less inhibited without consuming half a bottle of vodka.

In the beginning, there was sex. And it was good. And there was more sex. And it too was good… – Charlie at HowtobeaDad.com

That’s sort of how it was. The sex was good and the frequency was like rabbits in the Spring. Then I got pregnant with Ethan and there was this weird ‘You can’t get pregnant now, because you’re already pregnant’ condom-less hump-fest. It wasn’t even like having our first baby really put a damper on things because we tried having sex less than a week after vaginal delivery. Very. Very. Slow. Sex. followed by lots of dry humping and more slow sex  until things were healed up.

The good sex lasted even through Dylan’s pregnancy. Then somewhere between Tyler and Kristen, I developed a bit of post-partum depression, lost my ever loving mind and maintained over 100 lbs of weight gain from 4 pregnancies in the span of about 5 and a half years. I’m pretty sure my hormones are still trying to balance themselves out and my youngest daughter turned 4 in January.

Over the past 10 months, I’ve really been working hard on getting back into shape and getting healthy. I’ve lost 32 lbs and been eating (mostly) better foods. There have been some days where I was insatiable, but most days I just don’t have any interest in sex. It’s nothing Chad is or isn’t doing. He’s been awesome. He helps keep the house picked up  and deals with the kids on his days off. He would help more on days he worked, if he was home at all, but working 14 hours and the 2 hour commute keep him pretty busy.

Right now, my periods are starting to go all wonky again. I’m pretty certain the lack of interest is purely hormonal. I can’t even seem to psych myself out for sex no matter how hard I try. Here I am, with a ton of sex toy reviews that I am severely behind on. I can’t review them until I’ve actually tried them, but I can’t muster up the want to for plain old sex, let alone anything that involves getting out a toy.

The kids are out of school for the summer. Hooray. The few times I have been horny, it’s been the middle of the afternoon. Chad’s at work, and until sometime in the last week or two, he was working 5-6 days a week for various craziness going on at his job. Retail holidays, inventory, covering vacations, taking a 7 week management course, getting nominated to spearhead a new program and travel to various stores to help them execute and even traveling for a job promotion (that he apparently did not get, yet has not been notified one way or another about.)

He’s been busy, to say the least. But so have I.

I’ve been exercising (though not this week), getting college stuff sorted out, dealing with school related stuff for the kids, dealing with insurance claims for a dog bite, budgeting and paying bills, and sorting out a vacation trip for my birthday this weekend.

On top of all of this, we haven’t actually had a date in a while. It’s been two or three months. Our last date actually involved taking my father-in-law out to a sushi bar because my mother-in-law was in the hospital for about a week and he looked like he needed the break. We did go shopping afterwards, but we didn’t get to spend alone time together. Before that, we took the kids to the sushi bar because we didn’t have a babysitter. It’s really wearing on us and I can definitely feel the disconnect.

Saturday we are traveling to the coast and enjoying a day on the beach with the kids. While my parents take the kids back to their house, Chad and I are going to go check-in to a hotel for the evening. Hopefully there will be some pre-date shower sex or bed sex or some kind of sex. I’ll then put on a new sundress and panties (that I will buy when I go shopping with my sister tomorrow) and go on a double date with my sister and her boyfriend. I will get tipsy, stroll down River Street in Savannah, GA and spend the evening enjoying our time away from the kids. When we’re done strolling, we will head back to the hotel where Chad will get me sloppy drunk and we can get in some more sex (Hopefully. If I don’t pass out after two drinks.) We will enjoy the free breakfast at the hotel, if Chad doesn’t drag us all to IHOP, and then head back to my parents for lunch before we come home.

It’s going to be a fun, relaxing weekend and I am looking forward to it so much. Hopefully I find my sex drive down by the river. For now, I’m going to see if doing some Turbo Fire will make me stop feeling like crap.

Kitchen before...

Chad came home and started painting our family room, but the shade of green I got wasn’t right. It looked like a highlighter. We had to pick up a new can of the right color and we painted the room Thursday afternoon. We also stopped by Badcock and ordered our new living room furniture. I picked up a couch and loveseat off the floor that was being discontinued. Monday our bookshelves, tv stand and table set should be here.

Kitchen after!

Friday we went to pick up the flooring from Home Depot. The local store only had about half of what we needed in stock so we went to another store and got the rest. We also went on a date! We ate at Mikatas and stopped by Books-a-Million to pick up the new Patrick Rothfuss book for Chad. I bought a larger copy of Name of the Wind so it would be easier to read. The one Chad owned was short and thick, so it was hard to keep open and the writing strained my eyes. I should probably wear my glasses when I’m reading, but reading makes me sleepy and I don’t want to break them.

Yesterday my father-in-law came over and helped Chad put down the flooring in the living room. After lunch my sister’s boyfriend and our brother came over to help finish the family room. There’s just a small section of hallway left to do, but the skill saw died so they called it a night. We also need to put down the molding and t-strips around doors to finish it off. I’ll post pictures when it’s all done. It looks 100x better without the dingy carpet. I hate carpet and we’re going to probably wind up redoing all the bedrooms with the same laminate flooring as the living rooms. Maybe a different shade, but I can’t wait to get rid of the carpeting.

Another after

I’m excited about this week too. I’ve got my Body Media Fit coming in the mail (it should be here tomorrow!) I have an awesome Motion Control sports bra that I ordered from Athleta that should be here this week and a bathing suit (that didn’t come from the plus-sized section) too. I ordered a couple of bags of Shakeology and the TurboFire dvd set from Beachbody and that’s suppose to be here by Thursday. Since my Body Media Fit is coming before everything else, I can get a resting BMR and see if there’s any truth to the HIIT boosting your metabolism for a day or two when TurboFire gets here.

Thursday is my grandma’s 75th birthday (the one who raised me.) I’m heading to Hinesville to see her and baking her a cake. I’ll post pictures of the cake and a recipe once it’s done. We’re doing a girls lunch with her and spending the day with my aunts, mom, sister and daughter. I hope she enjoys it.

Hopefully I’ll get some scheduled posts up and not be completely absent this week. I’ve got some reviews drafted that just need pictures added to them. Today I’ll be taking it easy and flushing out all the excess sodium I consumed when we had Japanese and Chinese food.

Happy Sunday, everyone!

Titanic the Experience!

We had a wonderful time in Orlando. We didn’t arrive until around 8 or 9 on Monday. We ate at TGIFridays for dinner. Tuesday we went to the Titanic Experience, the Ripley’s museum and enjoyed dinner at Kobe. Wednesday we took it easy. We spent the afternoon on Daytona Beach, just walking in the surf and enjoying each other’s company. We stopped at the Melting Pot on our way back, because so many friends had recommended it. Then we found out that we had to cook our own food for $100 and walked out.

Daytona Beach

Lots of friends told us it was really romantic and gave us time to talk. Maybe I’m getting old, but I can cook at home. I do cook at home. If I wanted to cook, I’d have stayed home. The entire point of going out to eat was to have someone else cook for me, serve me my food and clean up after me.

We wound up eating at Bonefish Grill and were very pleased with this decision, despite the long wait outside in the chilly air.

Thursday was Universal Studios. We had breakfast at IHOP (ohmygod stuffed French toast) and then headed over. I wore my Slytherin shirt and the bag checker (who was English) commented that it was the best school and that he was from England. We booked it all the way through the park to Harry Potter World. Several employees high-fived me and commented on how awesome it was to see a Slytherin shirt and tie. It was kind of neat. We spent so much money on food, gifts and such that they froze Chad’s atm card for security reasons. Eek. Fortunately I had mine on me and we were able to finish up the trip by enjoying a meal at Emeril’s. It was delicious.

Waiting in line for Hogwarts.

Friday we packed up the car and headed back to Georgia. It was kind of sad. I was excited to get home to the kids, but I really had fun. We’re planning on taking the kids in a year or two and we’re glad we went to kind of see what it was like, so we can better prepare for when we take all the kids.

Chad’s vacation is over and he’s gone back to work today, so it’s just me and Kristen at home. Things are back to normal. It feels calm and I like it. I’ll write more and get some posts scheduled for later this week. Since Chad is back on 3s, I’m going to make the effort to not spend time online so much while he’s home.

Enjoy your Tuesday, everyone!

Enjoying a Butterbeer!

Chabo

Okay, so it’s cheesy. I asked Chad who he would trade places with for a day because I couldn’t think of anyone I really wanted to swap with. I like my life and there aren’t many things I wish I could experience through someone else’s eyes. He said he would swap with me. For two reasons.

1. Because he would want to trade with someone he could trust with his body and that’s obviously me.

and

2. Because he would want to experience sex from my perspective. He says he would literally spend his entire day masturbating.

So, I guess I would swap with him so we could share those experiences. We’d probably just stay in bed having sex all day long. It would be kind of awesome.

Also, coincidentally, I’ve got the perfect Usher song to go with that.