Baby's Got Sauce

Elijah has more refined taste in music than I. He enjoys listening to actual musicians, while I'll take almost anything a big label throws at me. Because of this, we don't always agree on what we should listen to together.

However, almost thirteen years ago, we found some common ground when Elijah introduced me to the music of G. Love & Special Sauce. We have a lot of sweet dating memories associated with this band. Many tied to one of their first singles, Baby's Got Sauce.




Neither of us had ever seen Mr. Love in concert though, so when Elijah told me about the show at La Zona Rosa a few weeks back I knew we had to go.

We got a sitter.

Called some friends.

And even lucked out with a meet and greet.

We were young again, and nostalgically in love, for one fantastic night.

 *Note: After posting the above picture to Instagram and Facebook, I got several comments on how great Elijah and I looked together (even from my parents). I then felt obligated to post the following picture so people who knew better didn't think I was trying to pass off G. Love as my husband.

My Love

Photo taken by Jansson Photography

This week's Monday Listicles theme is love. Appropriate, apt, fun, and easy. I decided to use this as an opportunity to make a list of all the reasons why, after twelve years of marriage, I am still ridiculously in love with Elijah.

1. He still makes me laugh. A lot. Mostly at him, which he never seems to mind, but not just that. No matter how much I have mocked his sense of humor, he has never stopped trying to make me laugh or smile. I find this adorable.

2. He may not excel at anticipating what I want or need, he's a terrible mind reader, but he will complete a honey-do list without complaint. Even if it means staying up late to do a mess of work after putting the kids to bed on a weeknight. If I write it down, it will always get done.

3. He never fails to have a card and gift laying out for me when I get up on special days. And he doesn't mind that I suck at doing stuff like that. Seriously, the man is better at Valentine's and anniversaries than I am. (I would feel bad, but I'm better at making babies so I think we're even.)

4. Speaking of our babies, Elijah is a wonderful father. I think he actually enjoys playing with his kids. He's the outdoor parent, the indoor jungle gym, the parent who wants to go and do. I'm the one who doesn't want to get out of my pajamas.

5. He pulls his own weight. It's a struggle to keep things up with both of us working and my odd hours. Elijah is more than willing to do what needs to be done, which is better than me because taking out the trash is man's work!

6. He encourages me to do things that I love. Whether it's getting away with friends, going back to school, or making time for long runs, he has always been supportive of the things I need to do in order to keep sane.

7. He never complains about how much I spend. Ever. He may not understand why cutting and/or dyeing two inches of hair can cost up to $200, but he doesn't complain. He might think that the kids have enough outfits for the next six years, but he'd never suggest I stop going to Gymboree. He has never made me feel like I don't have the right to spend our money in whatever way I see fit.

8. He cooks. I mean, really cooks. Not in the way that I cook, which is just to keep us from starving. This man makes meals, and desserts, and he enjoys it. One Valentine's Day he made me a rack of lamb! He learned how to make baked fudge since I love it so much. He feeds me delicious food and enjoys making it almost as much as I enjoy eating it. Almost.

9. He encourages me to sleep. This may sound bizarre, but there are a lot of days that I don't want to sleep. I hate spending an entire weekend day in bed because I worked the night before. But he realizes how important sleep is to my mental and physical health and he nags me if I get up too early. He'll take the kids out so I have nothing to stay up for. He sends me to bed early and lets me sleep in, even if it means he never gets to. And as far as I'm concerned sleep = love.

10. He reads my blog. He doesn't comment, or question what I've written. He is supportive and encouraging in his silence. He'll tell me if he enjoyed something, but I never worry about him passing judgement on anything I've put here. He respects this space and has never made me feel like I should censor myself. Plus, he's saved me a ton of work this Valentine's Day by stopping by to read this for himself! Happy Valentine's Day, hon!

So there you have it. Ten, long winded reasons for why I'm still with the man I married all those years ago. 

Photo Op

Elijah's birthday was this past Sunday.

Instead of a family celebration I dropped the kids with friends so we could spend the day together, without all the screaming and stress, in and around Austin taking pictures.

Other than some early morning grumbles (mine, not his) we had a lovely day. We spent the gloomy morning in Austin, with brunch at Max's Wine Dive (so delicious) and then drove a bit outside the city to Hamilton Pool.

As you can see, we got some great shots, had some laughs and really enjoyed getting away for a little while together.

In his element.

By Perdernales River

Look at me, enjoying the hike!

Hamilton Pool

It's Wednesday, so you know I'm linking up with iPPP!

The Best Kind of Dozen

Elijah and I celebrated 12 years of happily ever after, December 30, 2011.

We don't usually make a big deal of our anniversary. We rarely go out to celebrate, opting instead to grill out, open a bottle of wine and snuggle in front of a movie after putting the kids to bed.

Often we don't even exchange gifts, or we simply buy ourselves something from the other person.

Like every other aspect of our marriage, we do what works for us.

This year we took a night out. Left our kids with random visiting members of our family and escaped for an evening that included a quiet dinner, adult conversation and a late movie in downtown Austin.

It was perfect.

Low-key, yet delicious dinner at Cover 3.

Good clean fun.

Brownie for him, key lime pie for me.

Late movie at the Alamo Drafthouse Ritz on 6th Street, Downtown Austin

Movies are always better with beer!

Extra Special "cool" points for any one who can guess what movie we watched.

Linking up with #iPPP 

I'm also going to link up to my FIRST EVER Lovelinks 

because this post is all about love.

Best. Posts. Ever.

I am thrilled to link up some of my favorite posts from this past year for Mama Kat's!

I'm not going to do twelve though. Partly because I don't have twelve favorite posts, and partly because the ones I'm linking to, I really want people to read. With so many amazing bloggers linking up, I couldn't possibly expect you to read twelve posts from me.

So here they are, some of my favorites from 2011. Enjoy!

A Mother's Day Gift to Myself

If It's Love

I And Love And You

Where I'm From

I hope you find something to relate to so you want to come back and visit again!

Because You're Mine, I Walk The Line

Many of you know about my failed attempts to quit smoking this year. For those of you who don't...I've failed to quit smoking this year!

Sad, but true. Especially since I was completely smoke free up until this past August. Oh well, we all have our vices. Some are just way more enjoyable and devastating to quit even though it's so bad for you stinkier than others.

Given my struggles lately, my darling man made me a trade.

This...

For these.

See, I married a clean shaven boy of 19 and have been devastated by his insistence to wear facial hair. I just can't get on board with the handlebar mustache, nor any of the other freakish ways he's been trimming it. I hate it...lots. More than he hates my smoking, I imagine, so we made a trade.

And even though I'm grumpy and totally fiening for a cigarette, I think I got the better end of the deal.

Linking this up with those wild and crazy 

iPhone Photo Phun gals:

 

Touching Base

I've dubbed the next four weeks my "Month of Pain." With Asher's, birthday and my inevitable overspending at Christmas looming ahead, I've decided to buckle down and take any (and mostly all) shifts offered to me - within reason, I'm not a machine.

I think I have about four shifts scheduled per week, which may not seem like much but they take a lot out of me. Most days I don't even sit down to pee until eight hours into a shift. Don't mistake this as a complaint, being busy really helps the shift go by and I'm loving the work. I am constantly learning and it's nice to feel myself growing again as a nurse. I look forward to going to work instead of dreading it, like before. I am happier both at home and at work and I feel like being in this new department is a big part of that.

Working more has given Elijah and I an opportunity to fine tune our homemaking skills as well. He is pulling more than his fair share of the weight in that department, coming home in the evenings and finishing laundry, straightening the house and completing any other tasks I've left on his "honey do" list. I am so grateful for his willingness to take on more to ensure that things still go smoothly for me and the kids. Working together, often on opposite schedules, can be difficult, and I miss our evening routine and conversations, but this is a short term absence and I think we're handling it beautifully.

So don't worry if I don't check in as often.

Things are good.

I am happy.

If It's Love

I am so happy about this week's prompts! I've been wanting to put this song 'out there' as OUR SONG, but was unsure how to do it.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you see it) I'm not "telling" so much as "showing" this week. Enjoy!



If It's Love from Miss Marina Star on Vimeo.

Written in response to a prompt from Mama Kat's.
#2. Tell us about your song.

Here Comes The Rain Again

Some of you may have heard that Texas is in a drought. The Austin area, where I live, is well on it's way to scoring the newest drought on record since the 1960's. Many of the surrounding areas have already instituted water restrictions and we are all doing what we can to conserve. This means, that while our front lawn is small enough to be watered twice a week, our back yard is completely dead. We also had to pull all our flowers from the front since they burned up in July and were unsalvageable. If today hits 100 degrees, which it's expected to do, that will make a record breaking 89 days of triple-digit-heat this year.

Naturally, this means that we haven't been getting our cars washed. It's wasteful, and against the restrictions, to wash them ourselves, plus we felt that it wasn't right to take them in so someone else can waste water on something so unnecessary. As a result, our cars looked dusty and sad. Which explains why Elijah was so excited about the small rain shower we had last night.

This is how our cars get washed - drought style:

See how creative and conservationally minded we Okies are?

Linking this up with those wild and crazy 

iPhone Photo Phun gals:

 

I and Love and You

Love notes come in all sorts of shapes and sizes some come attached to gifts of flowers, candy, CARS!, trips, tickets, or homemade gift certificates. Some are extravagant and expensive while others are seemingly simple and plain.

I get a love note from Elijah at least every week. It comes in the form of two children. One has been fed, readied and taken to school, while the other has been chauffeured to my hospital and sits waiting for my shift to end with glass her of milk, cup of cereal and a smile.

After our post/pre-work child exchange I head home, exhausted but relieved to have another twelve hours behind me. Upon arrival, I am always greeted with a clean kitchen and the most beautiful sight ever...the red light of the coffee maker indicating a warm cup is only a few seconds away.

These little things, happy, well fed, well rested children, a clean house and a hot cup of coffee are the little love notes Elijah leaves me every week. The thing is, I don't expect these expressions of love. I know how easy it is for the evening to get out of hand. I know after a ten hour day, he's exhausted and is well within his rights to want to go to bed as soon as Asher is down. Which is why I'm always so grateful when I see the house in this condition.

I always call after I've showered and have started breakfast. I want to be sure that he knows how much I appreciate his thoughtfulness, how much I love him, and how lucky I feel that he is willing to put forth this extra effort for me.

He often shrugs off my thanks. Maybe he truly doesn't know how much these little acts of kindness touch me. As a rule, he's never been overly demonstrative. He's okay with PDA but isn't too forthcoming with praise and compliments. After 11 years, I've come to realize that his love is shown through things like this. Daily, weekly, even yearly thoughtful acts. That's how I know he loves me. It's how I know he's thinking of me while I'm away. It's how I know that I'm not dragging him, unwillingly, through our life, we're making this crazy journey together.

(You Drive Me) Crazy

"...I just can't sleep. 

I'm so excited, I'm in too deep.

Whoa, crazy, but it feels alright.

Baby thinking of you keeps me UP ALL NIGHT!"

I'm not sure if that's exactly how Elijah would describe his lovely wife, but that's how I picture him. Singing along to the CD I bought him for his 20th birthday (dead true) at the top of his lungs. I've even convinced myself that he keeps the CD hidden in his glove compartment for those days when he's feeling especially nostalgic.

Given that glimpse into our relationship, can you really blame him for sticking with me these past 11 years? Could you even begin to imagine everything anything about me that drives him nuts? I'd love to make a list of all the reasons he's grateful I work two 12 hour night shifts a week, but unfortunately, one of my flaws is my complete and utter denial of having any. I'll have a go at it anyway though, for the sake of my readers.

I know, for a fact that Elijah hates that I have, what he perceives as, no sense of adventure. To me planning for fun goes hand in hand with actually having fun. I don't see this as a flaw (how could I? I actually believe my personality is the definition of perfection) but Elijah would prefer that I let life happen organically a little more often rather than planning everything down to bathroom breaks and snack stops.

Although we've had wonderfully planned trips to Mexico, Amsterdam, Brussels, and Ireland, I'd bet that his favorite vacation with me was the road trip we took to Myrtle Beach in February of 2001. We had a four day weekend and he wanted to just jump in the car and start driving. It didn't matter to him that we didn't know where we'd stay or what we'd end up doing, he was so excited by the fact that we hadn't planning anything. We just pointed to a place on the map and started driving south.

We ended up at this motorcycle dive bar in Myrtle Beach because honestly in February, that's the only bar open. We got a great room with an ocean view (for a steal), took a lovely, but chilly, walk along the beach and then drove around the state until we had to go home. I don't remember much about what we did (other than visiting Wilmington the home of DAWSON'S CREEK!!!) and doing a bit of shopping. But I do remember that we enjoyed each other's company, we laughed a lot, and it didn't matter that the bar had to make us a pitcher of Sex On The Beach because they didn't know the recipe by the glass. It was a great trip and Elijah was right...the fact that we didn't plan a thing only made it better.

So I suppose there is one flaw to my stellar personality. But I must argue that being spontaneous sort of loses it's charm when there are little ones who need to potty every 40 miles and only want to eat PB&J. Maybe once the kids are older we can find a happy medium between my insatiable need to plan and Elijah's yearning to set out without anything other than a map and a full tank of gas.

We Both Go Down Together

It's a little past 7:30 on Sunday evening. The house is unusually quiet, the kids and husband in bed; eerie, yet strangely comforting. This is one of those happenings that can only be explained by a frozen picture of me on the couch laptop in hand and the words "48 HOURS EARLIER" scrawled across the bottom.

I worked this past Friday night. I felt okay heading into work, minus the ever present dread of actually having to be up all night taking care of sick, needy people. Anyway, as the evening wore on I felt worse and worse. Clammy and nauseated, just plain icky. I was determined to stick out the shift though because if not, my patients would have had to be divided between the other nurses on staff and I didn't really think my "illness" warranted that. Well, until I had to run out of a patient's room to throw up. Then I was all for it. By 0430 I was home showered and moaning in bed where Elijah informed me that Asher had been up doing the same thing around 0130. Awesome.

I can't even explain how rotten I felt Saturday. I felt this constant desire, yet inability, to sleep, accompanied by an excruciating stomach pain, combined with the realization that my lovely master bathroom is just too damn far away from my bed.

(Asher was totally fine and jumping on the trampoline by mid-afternoon for those of you more concerned about him than me...you know who you are!)

Anyway, I finally passed out around ten last night and woke up STARVING. Worst 24-ish hours of my life, seriously. And just like that....gone. Replaced by an overwhelming desire for pumpkin pancakes. Everyone else seemed fine so we went ahead with our weekend plans which actually included a trip to get some pumpkin pancakes!

Fast forward through our wonderful Sunday family outing (which I swear to write about later this week). We get home, Elijah looks at me and says "I think I have what you had."

Bummer.

I send him for a shower and off to bed. Got the kids fed and asleep by 7:30 and now have the rest of the evening to enjoy the peace and quiet of a rarely silent house. I am sorry that Elijah is sick, but I am definitely going to make the most of this once in a blue moon experience. After all, I still have a few seasons left of Buffy to watch!

Tree Hugger

My husband likes hobbies. He doesn't have just one or two, he'll start any new hobby so long as it's interesting (and costly). He's been through countless different interests during our years together, and while some (like photography) have stuck, other's (RC cars) haven't been able to hold his interest longer than the first $500. He has however always been interested in gardening. He loves to plan and build gardens, plant outside and in pots, and basically try against all odds to keep me from killing living things. I suppose it consistently presents a new, ever evolving challenge to him.

This weekend he decided to plant trees. Considering that last Tuesday he was trying to convince me that we needed to invest 7k in a new "project car," I was thrilled to be headed to a nursery instead of some shady car lot. After dragging Asher on Saturday to various local nurseries and chatting with people in the know, he decided to plant a Chocolate Persimmon and a Pomegranate tree.

I didn't get any pictures of the boys digging and planting because, once Amelia went down for a nap on Sunday, I headed to my room to catch up on Season Three of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (Don't judge me!) I do have some "after" shots of Elijah posing next to our new, not too pricey, sticks in the ground.

Dirty Laundry

It's been great fun at our place this week! Can you guess which
appliance went bad last Thursday?

Can you imagine how my closet looked by this Wednesday?

Do you know what creative way I used to dry my children's
laundry during our coldest snap so far?

Yep, that's a space heater, placed in BOTH closets while the clothes hung to dry.

Do you know who my hero is??

Dryer was fixed last night and we've already gotten four loads through. It was, of course, a fuse that blew. Thank goodness Elijah is able to take things apart AND put them back together. I was all set to just buy a new one.

Anniversary

I never did post anything about our anniversary dinner. We finally found an actual, real live babysitter (courtesy of a dear friend), so we decided to try a new restaurant. We've only been out a handful of times since we moved to the area and so we're anxious to find our new "go-to" dinner date places. Elijah asked around at work and got a recommendation for Truluck's. It's more of a seafood place, but since Elijah loves seafood and I NEVER cook fish; I decided I'd give it a shot for his sake. I'm nice like that.

We had a such a good time. Aside from having three full kid free hours alone, the food was excellent. We started out with the chevre plate (try not to throw up in your mouth, Kathryn) and I'm telling you, I could have eaten only that and been completely satisfied with the meal. It really was that good. Our meals were delicious, the service was excellent, they even served us an special anniversary cupcake dessert.

I'm running out of ways to describe the superb-y-ness of the evening so I'll just stop here.

God Only Knows

Eleven years ago I was 22 years old. I had spent some time, not nearly enough most adults would say, exploring a few corners of this world. I was young, skinny and insecure. I knew I hated seafood and I loved the East Coast. My hair was short and I wore a uniform every day to work.

Sometimes it doesn't feel like much has changed since then. Except of course, I'm older, rounder and more sure of myself. I have actually been to more corners of the world but I still hate seafood and would happily move back to the East Coast if given the opportunity. My hair, after going through it's own identity crisis, is short again and I've found a different uniform to wear to work every day.

Throughout the years one thing has remained constant, in fact, the greatest thing about the past eleven years is that I've gotten to take every trip, reshape my figure (courtesy of my two darling children), and find my latest uniform, with Elijah by my side. None of this would mean nearly as much to me, hell none of this would have happened without the love and support of my dearest friend.

Happy Anniversary, my love. To me we're the same crazy kids we were ALL those years ago!.

(image courtesy of James Dear)

Picture Perfect

Elijah is an extremely talented photographer.

For example:







So why is it impossible for him to take a good picture of me? Ever?

For example:












Sure, as I was looking through our photo library I found a few good shots of me. But mostly, my photos look similar to the ones shown above. I can't help but wonder how I look in real life to people if this is how I'm captured on film. My poor friends and family seem to endure a terrible affront to their visual senses on a daily basis. And I don't even have a nice personality to counteract the unfortunate looks.

Today, I'm grateful for the people who are willing to spend time with me in spite of what the above pictures show!