Happy Anniversary, Sweetie

Life isn't a piece of cake...

Today is my 28th wedding anniversary! (To read our Falling in Love story, click here.) We celebrated a little last night by going out to dinner and spending a little time together. My sweetie took Thursday off just for me, so we have a 4-day weekend. We tried a new place called Wing Nutz. It probably wasn’t the best choice for us since my sweetie doesn’t like extra spicy, but I had a coupon…
We left the house about 9:00, and by the time we got there, it was pretty quiet. Those that were still watching the football game on the big screen were on their second or third pitcher of beer, so they weren’t paying any attention to us. We had lots of time to reminisce about anniversaries from the past while we picked at our food.

We have never been big on anniversary gifts, but even during the lean times we have managed to spend the day together and go out for dinner. You all know how cheap I am, so we almost always use a buy one get one free meal coupon. We bought our first Happenings book when we had been married for about 5 years. That's when my sweetie found a BOGO coupon in there for the Red Lion Hotel eating establishment. We were still so young. I was 23 and he was barely 25. We had never been to such a nice (or expensive) place. We wore our finest clothes and he even remembered to open the door for me. We ate Pork Medallions…they were so tasty! And then they cooked some kind of fancy dessert with flames right at our table. I about choked when I saw the bill. Even at half price, it was our entertainment budget for about three months!


Other anniversaries came and went, but few were as memorable as that one. For a while we got involved in the Dine-o-Round. That was even better than a coupon because we could choose any of the restaurants that were participating and get a meal for a set price. We ate at one beautiful roof-top place downtown. That’s when I learned that true Key Lime Pie is not actually green.

A few years ago we discovered a Japanese place tucked away in a strip mall that makes the best tempura vegetables! It’s still one of our favorite places.

When we had our 24th anniversary we decided that we wanted to something big and exciting for our 25th. We started planning for a trip together…maybe Hawaii. It never happened. Curly was due September 7 and even though he was born almost a month early, we couldn’t really leave our tiny babe with someone else.

Life doesn’t always turn out the way we expect. Sometimes we get Wing Nutz and sometimes we get the Red Lion. It’s our job to make the best of wherever we end up. And that’s what we’ve tried to do. Together. Happy 28th Sweetie, looking forward to at least 28 more. I love you.

Our Second Apartment

I’ve been thinking about our second apartment, you know, the one in my hometown. Maybe it’s because I wrote the “Garbage Strike” story and maybe it’s because my bloggy friend, Katie, just had her baby girl. Bossy was born when we lived in that apartment. We also had our first camera there, so there are lots of pics of it. That makes it much easier to remember.

In 1984 there weren’t many apartment choices in small-town Utah. Even though it is a college town, it is still a small town. They have dorms for students, but married housing was hard to come by. We felt very fortunate to have a “connection” that got us a 3-bedroom apartment at a reasonable rate. It was a pretty nice place, although storage was limited (even with three bedrooms) and it didn’t have a bathtub, just a small shower. The washer hookups were right in the middle of the hallway and on carpet! I stressed about leaking every time I turned on our old washing machine. Dryer hookups were non-existent, but we didn’t have a dryer anyway, so it didn’t matter. We just hung everything up in the spare bedroom on drying racks and planned a couple of days in advance. When Bossy was born, my mom suggested cloth diapers. (She thought everyone should use cloth diapers.) Can you just imagine hanging them all over?

I had to bathe Bossy in the bathroom sink! The bathroom was also carpeted, so we had to be careful about splashing.  We had a basement apartment, so we had about ten steps to get to ground level. Rain is not a huge problem there except that if you remember right, I said the year was 1984. Remember the big floods in Utah that and the previous year? More than once our carpet near the front door was soaked by rainwater that backed up in the tiny drain.

Picture Credit

I remember one night that the rain was just pouring down. We were hunkered down with the baby, doing homework and waiting for it to pass. Suddenly, someone pounded on the door! And I mean pounded! My sweetie jumped up and bounded across the wet carpet in his bare feet. He wrenched open the door just as my mom burst through it and slammed the door. She was slightly hysterical and she was clutching something that smelled divine. “What’s wrong?” I managed before she collapsed onto the couch. “Frogs!” she panted, “You have hundreds of frogs!” My sweetie pulled the front door open again. Sure enough there were frogs! Not hundreds, but about thirty 3-inch frogs were hopping all over the stairs and the ground near the drain and our front door. He quickly slammed the door. My mom spent her longest visit with us that evening, and then my sweetie had to escort her back to her car. But by then the rain had stopped and most of the frogs had moved on to bigger and better puddles.

The complex owners were kind enough to let us plant a small garden the second summer we spent there, but sadly, we turned our veggies over to the neighbors when we decided to move right before harvest time. It was a difficult decision to leave our families and friends and branch out on our own, but my sweetie had secured a good job in the Salt Lake Valley and I was anxious to complete my degree. So off we went…we didn’t miss the frogs.

Garbage Strike

pic credit

Even though we’ve been in school for several weeks now, Labor Day weekend just seems to signal the end of summer. Officially, we terminate the summer list and we always watch Newsies. That’s our effort to teach the kids about labor unions and why we even have this holiday.

My sweetie and I have experienced a strike first hand. When we had been married for about 9 months, we moved back to my hometown. I was 19-years-old and pregnant with our first child and rather ornery…does this story sound vaguely familiar? It was summer (I think, my sweetie might remember it differently) and like any little family, we were struggling with our roles and trying to decide how to divide up tasks. My least favorite task was taking out the trash. The complex had a large dumpster about 100 feet from our front door, and we lived in the basement apartment. It wasn’t that hard, not really, that’s why I couldn’t figure out why my sweetie couldn’t just take out the trash. The crazy thing is that he was feeling just the same way! Before we knew it, the trash bin in our tiny apartment was over-flowing. So being the dutiful wife, I demanded that my sweetie take out the trash. I’m not sure of my choice of words, but they must not have been good… At least they weren’t very effective, because he refused to take out the trash.  Ever. Again. Well, I couldn’t have that, so I refused to take out the trash. Ever. Again. There would be no negotiation. We had a full-fledged garbage strike!

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It took several days for the bags to really begin stacking up, not to mention the smell. But we each stubbornly refused to budge. By the fourth or fifth day we had at least that many bags stacked against the wall and spilling onto the floor. I appealed to his better nature, by asking (not demanding this time) him to take it out. But the response was still the same, “Why don’t you take it out?” The pile grew.

A couple of days later my sweet grandma stopped by for a visit. The trash pile had become a bit of an eyesore by then, so naturally she was curious. I spilled the entire story, hoping to get her to side with me. She listened, shook her head, and said nothing. We chatted for a while longer and made our plans for a future shopping trip. When she was ready to leave, she reached over, picked up a couple of those heavy, stinky bags and made her way to the front door.

I begged her not to take them, insisting that it was a man’s job to take out the trash and she was messing up my strike, but she didn’t listen. She made her way up the stairs and out to the parking lot. I watched her from the door as my less than five-foot grandma heaved those heavy bags up and into the huge dumpster. Then she climbed in her car and drove away. Later, when my sweetie came home, I told him the story. Then, together we silently hauled all the trash to the dumpster. It’s a lesson I’ve never forgotten…a nag is a horse, not a wife. And sometimes when there is a strike, nobody wins...or everybody wins, depending on how you look at it. Happy Labor Day!

Strongest Man Alive

 A long time ago I promised you more stories about my amazing father-in-law. He passed away in 1989, but since my sweetie and I were married in 1983, I got to know him pretty well. For some strange reason he liked to talk to me. He was a wonderful man, kind and generous with his time and talents. He was a plumber by trade, but before that he was a Master Sergeant during World War II. He was strong and fit even in his later years when I knew him.

He often worked out of town as a contractor in Wendover, Nevada, helping to build some of the large hotels with casino money. This was a long drive for him since he lived in central Utah, so he usually stayed in Wendover all week and only came home on the weekends. One evening he was doing some work down in a manhole. His truck was parked nearby, loaded with supplies and tools. As he was working, he heard someone rustling through his things, so he climbed up out of the manhole and hollered, “Get away from there!” The thief sized him up, put down the tools he was about to pilfer, and picked up a hammer. He smacked my father-in-law with it, knocking him off the ladder and back into the manhole. Then he calmly proceeded to gather goodies from the truck. Imagine his surprise when a minute or so later my FIL poked his head out again and shouted, “I told you to get away from there!” The exact same scenario happened, and my FIL again ascended the ladder. The third time the thief was taking no chances. Instead of a hammer, he grabbed a 2” x 4” and slammed it right on my FIL’s head. It must have been incredibly difficult for him to drag himself back out of that hole, bruised and bleeding, but I think he knew that his livelihood depended on those tools and equipment. He had a family to think about. For a third time he crawled back up the ladder, broken but ready to fight for what was his. The thief eyed him incredulously. “You should be in the hospital!” he blurted. “You must be the strongest man alive. I’m leaving.” He dropped the tools and hustled off to find his next victim. And my FIL was…one of the strongest most stubborn men alive.

Sorry, crooked in the scrapbook.

When we were starving students, sometimes we would come down for the weekend and help with the garden in exchange for some vegetables. (Gas was cheap then.) Often my sweetie would help clean a few drains to give us enough to get by. Even when my FIL didn’t have extra work for my sweetie to do, he would insist on giving us a little. When I refused, he had a way of grabbing my wrist and putting me on my knees until I would agree. Yeah, it was a little humiliating…he could have just asked. I would have done anything for him.

My sweetie’s half-sister tells a story that was passed through her side of the family. During a training period while my FIL was in the war, someone said he could run faster than a deer. Others laughed at this speculation and it became a huge discussion point that couldn’t go unanswered. Hundreds of dollars were waged and a deer was brought in. My FIL was always willing to be a good sport. The distance was 50 yards, man against beast in a foot-race. The men crowded around, eager to watch this unlikely pair. The race was close and I guess it could be argued that fear was a factor, but my FIL crossed the finish line first. Not only the strongest man alive, but the fastest one too.

Road Trip

Today was our last mostly free Saturday until after pee-wee football season ends. Sport went in early this morning for weigh-ins, although why they didn’t just X him (make him a lineman) I have no idea. He would have had to lose at least 20 pounds to keep him off the line. So my sweetie dropped him off at the park and then headed over to work for a few hours of overtime while I tried to make up for some of the sleep I lost earlier this week. Baby Doll is teething again…need I say more?

I finally dragged myself out of bed about 10:30 because I thought I heard someone knocking on the door (it turned out to be the neighbors hammering something, I guess they didn’t know some of us were still trying to sleep). I checked the blog and read all of your nice comments (Thanks, I love the input!), and then texted my sweetie. After we traded a few texts, we determined that this was the perfect day for a road trip!

I packed a lunch, diaper bag, stroller, and the kids and then drove down to my sweetie’s company and picked him up. Then he took the wheel and I settled down for the 2-hour drive to Logan. We try to get up there every couple of years so we can show the kids where we lived and went to school when we were first starting out. We always stop for Aggie Ice Cream and we love a little zoo they have called Willow Park.

The Dog Walker - Peacocking!

We arrived just after 2:00 and headed directly for the park. Except that we got lost and drove all the way around it before we finally hit the entrance. The kids loved watching the monkeys and the turtles. Some kids were feeding the ducks but we dug through all our pockets and didn’t have a dime for the machine so we just watched them fight over the kernels tossed by the other kids.

The Old Coot

Princess remarked that the bald eagle looked a bit psychotic (exactly what I’d been thinking!). We giggled at some of the names, but my favorite was the American Coot. I made my sweetie pose with the sign since he’ll be 48 next week and I’m thinking that probably qualifies as an “Old Coot.”

The Dog Walker was fascinated by the peacock, but it didn’t matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get him to spread his feathers for us. The trees are amazingly tall and beautiful at Willow Park and they made the day pleasant in spite of the heat.

Pet Rocks!

After looking at all the animals (even the pet rocks), we headed to the playground. Then we loaded all the kids and took our campus tour of Utah State and ate ice cream. Things have changed quite a bit in the last 25 years, but we still recognized most things, except the right road to Willow Park. I hear some people get Alzheimer's as they get older...

Laundry...Again

The dirty laundry -7/31/2011

I think I told you a couple of days ago that I’m still inundated with laundry from our month of camping/vacation/playing before school starts. It’s SOO frustrating! I can’t seem to make any real progress on the unending pile. It didn’t help that Prima Donna and Sport both cleaned their rooms last Thursday.

The clean laundry-7/31/2011

I’ve been complaining about the lack of bath towels in my bathroom for a couple of weeks. After she hauled two baskets of laundry to the mudroom, the Prima Donna stopped by to chat. “You know how we haven’t been able to find any towels lately?” she suggested. I sprinkled the soap and closed the lid to the washer for the sixth time that day. “Yeah,” I sighed. “Well, I found 23 of them in my room!” She dumped them in my to-do pile. “I hope you took all of your clothes down to the kids’ laundry room!” I responded. I tried pushing the pile of towels into a smaller pile, one that didn’t cover half the mudroom floor. “I did!” she answered cheerfully as she headed back to her room.


Sometimes I think laundry is the story of my life. It doesn’t matter how much I do, it ALWAYS comes back again. Even if by some miracle I did get to the bottom of the pile, as soon as the kids undressed for the night I would have a couple of loads to do all over again. It hasn’t always been that way…I could have avoided laundry for most of my life except… Wait, let me back up a bit and I will tell you the whole story.

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I’ve told you before that my mom was very frugal. Raising 8 kids on a teacher’s salary couldn’t have been easy. She pinched pennies everywhere she could, including laundry. I watched her perform this ritual many times. The washing machine was in our kitchen and the dryer was in the basement, but Mom rarely used the dryer. She put the clothes and the soap in the washer. When they were finished sloshing around, she stopped the washer and pulled the wet items out one by one, hand-wringing each piece and placing it in a bucket.

Me and Sweetie- Engagement picture

Then she added more clothes and turned the washer back to begin the cycle again. Since there was still water in the machine, she simply added more soap and it was off and running. She completed three washings in the same water, then transferred the clothes back in to spin. Then she took all the wet clothes and usually hung them outside on the clothesline if we had nice weather. If the weather was bad, she hung some things in the bathroom and some downstairs on the clothesline in the furnace room. She did laundry pretty much every day, and it forced her to stay near the washing machine all the time.

Needless to say, when I got married, I was terrified of doing laundry! I was in college at the time, so of course I had to go to class. I couldn’t be sitting around all day watching the washer. Besides, the laundry room was several buildings away… It was a dilemma. But my sweetie jumped in and offered to be in charge of the laundry. He had been away to college on his own, so he knew how to wash his own clothes. I was so grateful!

In front of our first apartment

For almost a year, he faithfully executed his duties by taking care of all the laundry (at least the washing and drying part, I still got to fold it). I spent some time with him, just watching, because it didn’t seem like he was doing it the same way that Mom had. We didn’t even own a bucket! After a while I realized that there was definitely an easier way. Then one night when he had a late lab, I decided I could finally run a load on my own. I wanted to wear something that he hadn’t gotten around to washing yet. That was one of the dumbest mistakes I ever made. The chore that I had avoided for nearly a year suddenly became mostly my responsibility. Over the years I’ve done thousands of loads of laundry…but I still let him scrub the shower.

My Tupperware Obsession - part 1

 I’ll be the first to admit that I was a rather weird child. Maybe it’s because I had a bunch of brothers and sisters, or maybe because I worked many long hours as a babysitter (again, another story for another time), whatever the reason, I was rather obsessed with getting married, having my own home, and becoming a mom. When I was eight or nine, I learned to embroider and that’s when I started making/collecting things for my future home. Grandma taught me to quilt and crochet so that helped me add even more handmade items to my “hope chest.”

Not my set, but the exact same one!

When I was around 14, I attended my first Tupperware party. I was absolutely astounded that I could just pester people until they purchased something and then I could get whatever I wanted from Tupperware for free. I signed up to host my first Tupperware party and I earned the “Hostess Gift Special” which happened to be a picnic basket filled with you guessed it…Tupperware! I was hooked. I hosted about a dozen parties through my high school years and the super-overachiever part of me helped me earn tons of free stuff. One of my first real interactions with my sweetie was convincing him to buy a Shape-O ball for his niece. I know it was way more than he wanted to spend, but I could be pretty persuasive…

So after we were married, we were dirt poor. Besides workstudy and being a full-time student at Snow College, my first job as a married person was to be a Tupperware lady. I was pregnant with Bossy and my sweetie and I were living once again in my hometown. That made it pretty easy to find people to host parties and buy products. If you remember, the day Bossy was born I had two Tupperware parties scheduled. You can read a little about that here. Those Tupperware days lasted for about 2 years and then we moved and my contacts fizzled until I eventually quit altogether.

Until I was pregnant with the Drama Queen…I attended a party and it wasn’t long before I was signing the paperwork to be a consultant again (we called them “dealers” then, but I guess they didn’t like the negative connotations). It was 1989 and yes, I still had big hair. Our business took off rapidly and it wasn’t long before we had a couple of recruits and formed our own unit. We won all kinds of awards (once my super-overachiever genes kicked in) Top New Unit in Sales, Top New Unit in Recruits, and occasionally we even won Top Sales. We were rapidly moving up the ladder and consistently placed in the top five units in our distributorship. We were given a van to drive and it wasn’t long before we had upwards of 50 consultants working as part of our team. Tupperware was fun and I was good at it!

The Drama Queen turned one during a trip we took to Long Island for our first Tupperware Convention. Teach actually found some pics for you. I am not the one with the cute legs (she is wearing a swimming suit, btw), but if you look for the one with the big hair… That’s the Gym Rat sitting on my lap. Once again, we received top recruiting and sales honors in our region. It was a crazy time, but I was working a full time job as a technical writer, a full time job as a Tupperware manager, and a part-time job teaching two nights a week. That didn’t count the fact that I had three little ones still at home…something had to break.

Bringing Them Together

Memorial Day weekend was rather crazy and busy for us, but then so is every other day…We spent most of Friday getting ready for the Drama Queen to move home. Except for my sweetie, who was busy planting the garden since we actually got a day that wasn’t totally wet and soggy. The Drama Queen has finally finished her TRIPLE major (English, Theater, and Education) and other than her student teaching, she is ready to graduate.

We are excited to have her closer to home. She has been about 4 hours away, so that means she can only come home for major holidays (Mothers’ Day is NOT a major holiday…). So on Monday I sent my sweetie and Teach in our huge van without most of the seats, and the Gym Rat and Princess in Grandpa’s truck across the state to pick up the Drama Queen. She finished her classes on Friday, so she had two days to get all her crap packed and ready to go. We knew she wouldn’t be able to leave until Tuesday because of the holiday since she had to turn in her keys to an insurance office. But at least they could pack everything up and bring it home and she could follow the next day.

At home we were moving kids around, cleaning closets, and preparing a room for her. I wanted her to be right in the thick of things. Sport is nearly 8 years old and he doesn’t remember when the Drama Queen lived at home. Needless to say, neither do any of the younger kids. I recognized this problem with my kids about 2 weeks ago when the guys were preparing for fathers and sons camp.

Curly was helping me pack the cooler and I was wondering out loud what drinks to put in for the Gym Rat. "Why is the Gym Rat coming with us?" he questioned.
"Why wouldn’t he come?" I slipped some diet Cherry Pepsi from the box into the cooler for my sweetie.
Curly looked at me sideways, "He’s not part of our family," he said.
"Of course he’s part of our family!" I was taken completely by surprise.
The confusion was obvious in his little face. "Why don’t you think he’s part of our family?" I sat in the nearest chair and pulled him onto my lap so we could have a real conversation.
"Well, he doesn’t live here," he said matter-of-factly.
"He’s your brother!" I exclaimed.
"He’s not my brother," he said promptly.
"Yes, he is!"

Like there is any doubt. Curly (left) Gym Rat (right)

This conversation lasted the better part of a week before I finally convinced him that the Gym Rat really was his brother. But mostly it got me thinking about the fact that I sort of have two families. The younger kids don’t really know the older kids. That’s why when the opportunity came to have the Drama Queen move back in for the summer, I decided that she would have to live upstairs with the little kids so there wouldn’t be any question that she was their sister.

We waited anxiously for the vehicles to arrive Monday night. They had been stuck on the freeway near Fillmore for over an hour because of a huge accident. We were so surprised when we opened the door and saw the Drama Queen here a day early and safe and sound with the rest of our crew. It took our little army about 20 minutes to unload all three vehicles. Even Curly ran back and forth carrying small boxes and pillows. But then it started all over again today…he asked me about half a dozen times when the Drama Queen was leaving to go back to her house. Then I had to explain that she wasn’t leaving. And yes, she was his sister.

Has anybody else faced a problem like this? How did you solve it? We will send a pair of Grandma’s homemade hot-pads to three great suggestions (selected in a random drawing to be held on Fathers’ Day – June 19, 2011).

Graduation

Bossy graduated with her BS from UVU in August, but she is participating in commencement this week. She is the first of our children to receive a Bachelors Degree, and we are very proud of her efforts! I know from personal experience how hard it is to go to college and concentrate on home and family at the same time. My sweetie received his BS in 1988 and that’s the same year I earned my MA. Bossy was three and the Gym Rat was just past one. 

Utah State had a fun program with a little degree called "Putting Him/Her Through" or a PHT. It could be awarded to kids and spouses of students. We got certificates for both of them. Then I made little caps and gowns and we put them through a mock ceremony at the house before the grownups headed off for commencement. Bossy insisted on being first and she threw back her little shoulders and thrust up her chin. She was so proud of her accomplishment that I knew then that school would be an important part of our lives always. 

Bossy was the cutest little girl! She had a double crown so her hair was incredibly thick and grown up from the time she was tiny. When she was three I took her to the salon for a perm. (Give me a break, it was the 80s!) The lady said she wouldn’t give one to a girl so small because their hair was too fine and it might be damaged in the processing. She took one look at Bossy and told her to climb into the chair. She still has long brown beautifully thick hair, but now she likes to wear it straight or pulled back. 

 

She was so bossy and mouthy when she was little. We thought it was cute so we let it slide. There were many times I looked into her dark blue eyes and whispered, "I can’t imagine what you will be like when you are all grown up." She would just give me a mischievous grin that seemed to say, "Just you wait…" 

We sailed through the elementary and middle school years playing basketball, softball, and throwing in just a little dance for good measure. She picked up a clarinet for the first time in 4th grade and that began a wild ride that finally ended with a college scholarship that paid all of her housing and fees at a junior college (her tuition was already covered with an academic scholarship). 

 High school was hard! We had many moments when I was tearing my hair out, wondering why I had given my own mom such a bad time. But there were some amazing moments too! She was a runner-up Sterling Scholar. Her Academic Decathlon team won the state competition and headed off for Nationals for the first time in the school’s history. She was a band officer and colorguard member. She got excellent marks and many scholarship opportunities. Before I knew it high school graduation came and went. She was only 17 and headed off to college. 

After she graduated from the junior college it was only a short time before she met Gamer and the two were married in a backyard ceremony by our Stake President. Taco came first and a couple of years later, Burrito. Gamer’s son, Bean Dip, also became a regular part of our family. And now, here she is…my own little Bossy (not so little anymore) graduating from the university.

I don’t have to imagine any more what you will be like when you grow up. Here you are, standing tall and proud (as you should be) facing the world once more in your cap and gown, diploma in hand. Go get ‘em Girl! ‘Grats…love you.

Overextended (part 1)

When we first got out of school we thought we were pretty smart. At least we would have an income. I got a job working as a technical writer for an impressive salary of $26,000/year. That seemed like a ton of money in 1988! Then my sweetie got a regular paying job and our combined incomes hovered near $50,000/year. We were so excited!

But we weren’t smart. We bought a new car because we only had one and now we needed two. Then we bought a piano because my sweetie always promised me one for graduation. Then he needed a stereo, I needed a new washer and dryer…you get the idea. Soon we were up to our eyeballs and then some in debt. Those little payments didn’t seem like much, but they just kept stacking up and they never went away when we only paid the minimum payments.

After a while we got tired of our extremely long commutes so we moved to the Wasatch Front. But were we careful? Did we look for a cheap little place while we got our finances under control? Of course not. We went for a nice townhouse on the east side. It had a beautiful stone fireplace that stretched for two floors. It had a large garage and a deck. It was also right up against the mountains so we had beautiful views, that is if we ever got a chance to enjoy them, we had beautiful views. No, we were too busy working like dogs just to pay the rent. I took a second job teaching nights, then a third. Somewhere in there the Drama Queen was born.

I remember feeling like I was drowning in a sea of debt and stupidity all the time. We managed to pay all of our creditors, but barely. Thank goodness for food storage or we wouldn’t have been able to feed the kids! Then finally one day we decided enough was enough. We got down on our knees, humbled ourselves before our Heavenly Father and told Him that we didn’t need a fancy house, we just needed a place to keep our little family safe and dry. We had a warm peaceful feeling that all would be well. With new resolve to get our financial house in order, we started looking for a small apartment on the west side. If we could manage to cut our rent nearly in half, all of our utilities would drop as well. That would give us the extra cash we needed to start really paying off some of our debt.
 

The first place we looked at was in the armpit of the valley. It was a tiny brick house with a bathroom that had a shower curtain that simply divided the room. The water was expected to run down the walls of the room itself and out through a drain in the floor. It had an ancient pot-bellied stove for heat and the walls were coated in smoke and dust. It was old and awful and just what we were looking for to sufficiently humble ourselves. We put in a call to the landlord but he was out of town for the next few days. As we drove back to our babysitter’s house, we were quiet and subdued. I don’t think either one of us were looking forward to THIS much humility, but we were determined.

Our babysitter had recently moved into a new house in a brand new neighborhood. The homes were small but beautiful and well made. Once again we drove past the house with the "For Sale" sign on the lawn. Maybe someday we would be able to afford a house too. We picked up the Drama Queen and headed for the Montessori School to get the other kids. They would not be happy about giving up their large bedroom for what we were going to give them. But our sea of debt was threatening to pull us under.

Birth Story: Gym Rat

Winter on Old Main Hill at USU

It was winter, 1987. I was a graduate student in the English Lit program at Utah State University. My sweetie was finishing his bachelor’s degree in Engineering. I had a research fellowship that helped to pay my tuition. It also required me to work in the Writing Center a couple of nights a week. The Writing Center was initially set up to help freshman learn to write a decent paper, but lately all I had done was work with several doctoral candidates who couldn’t even write a coherent sentence. It was tedious work broken up only by my friends who were also forced to put in their time. 
 
 I was immensely pregnant with number two and I still had two weeks to go. It was cold and snowing and the Writing Center was slow for a Friday night. I was working with two friends, Catherine and Dale. Catherine was a girl I knew in high school and we had just happened upon each other at the University. She was a senior completing her degree in English. Dale was in my master’s program. He was a nice guy with brown uncontrollable curls and an infectious laugh. He’d been dating the same girl for over a year and they were finally engaged but had not set a date. 

Gym Rat

We were talking and laughing and wasting time, watching the clock tick down the minutes until we could all go home. I jokingly said to Dale, "Why don’t you just get married this weekend?" He laughed and said, "Why don’t you just have that baby this weekend?" I wasn’t about to let him get the better of me. "Maybe I will!" I said. "How about we make a deal? I’ll have the baby and you get married. We can report back on Monday and see how it went." We shared a silly laugh, a few more jokes and we all bundled up against the cold and went our separate ways. 

I spent my usual restless night. (Who isn’t restless when they are 8 ½ months pregnant?) At 6:00 am I pushed myself up to make yet another trip to the bathroom. That’s when my water broke. At least I’d be able to keep my end of the bargain. I called my doctor and he told me to take a shower, eat some breakfast, and come to the hospital when the contractions were about 3 minutes apart. That took about 5 hours. (I’ve never been known to have a baby quickly.) 

We finally dropped 2-year-old Bossy with a friend and headed to the hospital. Even though this is a college town, the hospital facilities are (at least in 1987) small and antiquated. They only had one anesthesiologist in the whole place. By the time he finally got to my room to place the epidural, I was in a lot of pain. This was long before the days of having a continuous feed with a button to give you an extra spike if you needed more. He filled the tube with liquid and told me he would be back to refill it in a couple of hours. I was so grateful to finally have the pain melt away I hardly heard what he was saying. 

My sweetie and I tried to do homework but when that didn’t work we just spent the time talking and dreaming about our new little one. Those couple of hours came and went and we still didn’t see the anesthesiologist. The pains started coming right on top of each other. I could feel everything and I was ever so grateful when my doctor finally walked through the door. "Let’s have a baby!" he said. "Are you ready to push?" The nurse answered for me, "She’s had an epidural. She won’t be any help." I shifted uncomfortably, "But I can feel everything," I said. "The meds have worn off!" 

Bear Lake Summer 1987

 
My doctor called for the anesthesiologist and within a couple of minutes he hustled in and filled the tube with good drugs…but it was too late. The baby was here. My beautiful little son screamed his way into the world. His was the only birth I watched. After that I always asked them to put away the mirrors (been there, done that). As it turned out, my friend Dale didn’t show up for school on Monday either. Apparently he got married over the weekend.

Eloping Announcement from zazzle.com

Friday Freebies: Video Games

When my sweetie and I were first married we were dirt poor. We had nothing, no car, no phone, and no money. We were enrolled at the university and we couldn’t even afford to buy our books. After two weeks of classes and still no financial aid check, I called my grandma and begged her to borrow me $200.00 so I could buy the books we needed before we flunked out of school. Grandma knew we were struggling, but I think that’s the first time she understood how much. So she helped us any way she could. Her favorite way was to give us coupons and rebate offers. 

These rebate offers usually had all the proofs of purchase attached with a paperclip and sometimes a stamped envelope. I know, she could have simply purchased the required items and then sent them in for us, but she wanted us to learn how to help ourselves. During those first years of our marriage nearly every store on the Wasatch Front doubled coupons at least one day a week. Grandma would often leave her home and travel a couple of hours to visit and help us learn how to be good shoppers. She was a product of the Great Depression and she knew the value of a dollar. For a time we became like those extreme coupon shoppers, but out of necessity, not just for the adrenaline rush. 

She helped us so much during those starving-student days and they were skills that stayed with me. I still use coupons as often as I can and I love a good rebate. So when Bossy found out about the ones on Langers juice, I just had to share. Now finish reading my blog first, then head on over to their website at www.langers.com . They always have offers on their home page. You don’t need cash register tapes, just the UPCs. They currently have ten active offers listed (the GI Joe link leads no where). We sent for our first Wii game a couple of months ago. I was surprised when it was shipped to us in less than a week. With 12 UPCs and $2.99 in shipping we received Raving Rabbids Travel in Time Wii game ($50.00 in the stores!). 

 That got me excited so we sent for two more, the Astro Boy Wii game (12 UPCs and $4.99 s&h) and the Megamind Wii game for 10 UPCs and totally free! For that one you can choose Nintendo DS if you’d rather. Teach is on a Biggest Loser program that just started for her work so I ordered a Yoga DVD for her (3 UPCs and $3.99 s&h). She has used it a couple of times (ok, she only got through the first 20 minutes before she was complaining about how sore she was…) but she says it is lots of fun. Now I’m saving up to get the Top Spin 4 game (12 UPCs and $2.99 s&h). It’s available for the Wii, the PS3, and the XBOX 360. We need to buy a lot more apple juice!