Happy Anniversay honey! Here's your house!

Today is our 11th wedding anniversary, and we celebrated in style. Fred bought me a house (we closed last night at 8:30 pm). He also bought me a house for my birthday when I turned 28. Pretty awesome husband, eh?

Hopefully I'll get around to telling the story behind this whole crazy house thing, but for now I'll leave you with some pics of Fred and I.

Happy anniversary Freddie! Thanks for my new house.

I love this crazy guy!

Being Weird is not so Strange

My husband walked in on me vacuuming the ceiling of the master bedroom the other day, and what is so supremely awesome about that statement is what followed. He came in the room to get Elise who had wandered in to watch the freak show that is her Mom, saw what I was doing, batted not an eyelash, and walked out.

The reason I was vacuuming my ceiling, besides the glaringly obvious fact that I am insane, was because I looked up there the other night and noticed the copious amounts of dust that had collected on the space that hung over my head while I slept. You see, we are unfortunate owners of a house with a popcorn ceiling. And the dust collects up there on the pebbled surface; holding like barnacles to the side of a boat.

On a side note, I would like to travel back in time so I could meet the guy who thought popcorn ceilings were a good idea and give him a good, swift kick to the groin.

Anyway, if you know me, you know this little dust collection was causing me to obsess to the point of not being able to do anything else until I got rid of it. So I got the vacuum out and did my thing.

Which brings me to the part about Fred walking in on me. What I love about the fact he didn't think it weird that his wife of nine years was vacuuming the wrong surface, is that we have gotten to the point where he is totally okay with all my weirdness, all my quirks, all my idiosyncrasies, all my foibles; and it doesn't even register with him that I'm doing something that most people would think is bizarre.

When I asked him about it later, he just shrugged his shoulders and said, "it was just Joanne, being Joanne."

My husband gets me. I'm glad somebody does.

I think, therefore I am ... what?

It's exhausting being me. And not in a good way. Not in the I-have-all-these-fabulous-things-to-do-and-places-to-go-and-body-parts-to-be-refurbished way. It's more in the I-am-going to-think-myself-to-death way.

I'm what you would call an over thinker. I over think everything. Including this blog post, probably. But that's besides the point. I spend so much of my time thinking and re-thinking, that I end up thinking myself into a corner; unable to move from the sheer thoughtiness of it all. Yes, I'm quite sure that is a word.

Take, for example, this one time Fred and I were driving somewhere. It was quite a drive, and I was unfamiliar with our surroundings. At some point in the trip I turned to him and asked, "are you driving me out to somewhere remote so you can kill me and dump my body?" Okay, I was totally joking when I asked him this, but the way my brain got to there was this:

"Hey, I don't recognize where we are... where did he say we were going again? I haven't seen another car in ages. It's pretty isolated out here. Lots of trees and wooded areas. You know, this would be a perfect place to take someone if you were going to get rid of a body. Fred's been pretty quiet, I wonder what he's thinking about. Ohhh look, a squirrel! Wait, maybe the reason he's being so quiet is because he's plotting my murder and he's trying to figure out the best spot to leave my body."

I think I have Mr. King to thank for thoughts like that swirling around my cranium.

I can blame my insomnia on my tendency to over think things. I lie awake at night dreaming up scenarios that could happen, and what I would do to get out of them. The other day I asked Fred if he ever thought about what he would do if our house caught fire one night.

His response? "Whatever would I do that for?" Fred doesn't really talk like that. Only when I recount a story in my head does his diction take on a much different sound. He also has a British accent and uses words like "fortnight". Anyway, my point is, I do think about these things.

Obviously, it would depend on where the fire broke out, and if it was blocking the stairway. I would, of course, run heroically into Elise's room, grab her from her crib, and open the window in her room. I would then use a bed sheet from the linen closet to scale my way down from her second story window, with her strapped to my back with another bed sheet. I guess I would have to throw Fred and the dog out the window first, since they are utterly incapable of planning an escape of their own.

If Fred and I were superheros, I would be Miss Meticulous and he would be Fly-By- The-Seat-Of-His-Pants-Man. I am the stick-in-the-mud to his flapping around like a paper kite. I usually slow us down with all my thinking, and Fred? Well, sometimes he doesn't slow down enough to think.

But somewhere in there we have found balance, and it works... for the most part. I always tell people that Fred's strengths are my weaknesses, and vice-versa. And we're the same where it matters. I could get all over-thinky about it, but for once, I think I'll leave it alone. I will say this, God really knew what He was doing when He gave me Fred.

I guess you could say that Fred completes me. No you can't... not without me vomiting all over you because that was so, so lame.

Now THAT'S Love

I just got a call from Fred who is in Austin. He gave up his first class seat, just so he can come home on an earlier flight. There were no first class seats available on the earlier flight, so that means he will have to fraternize with the common folk in economy...


The things we do for love!