After I graduated from college and long before I was married I had one specific girl friend that I hung out with all the time. Andi was a lot of fun and we both liked to be around each other. We spent a few years spending all of our spare time together. We both liked going to Salt Lake City to the clubs. We both loved to go to concerts. We both loved the sun and fun. And, of course, we both loved the boys.

I’m not sure how it happened but Andi and I always seemed to have boyfriends at the same time. Thus making us also single at the same time. This system worked out great for us as we never had the guilt from ditching your friend for your new boyfriend. At the start of one particular summer we were both dating new guys that the other had yet to meet. Andi had been talking up her new guy something fierce. Apparently this new guy was smart and hott and came from a good family and had a good job. Andi was smitten.

(My current boyfriend wasn’t smart or hott or from a good family. And he didn’t have a job. But that’s a story for another day.)

Andi was super anxious for me to meet her new boyfriend. So anxious that she brought him into my work so I could meet him on my lunch break.

Andi was right, Tony was hott. He had dark black hair and light eyes. He smiled and his perfectly formed teeth shimmered from their sheer brightness. Andi introduced me to Tony. We both said “hi” and then Tony started to say something. I have no idea what Tony said but I know it was lame. The minute, no, the second Tony opened his mouth he instantly became less hott.

This guy was a complete tool. He wasn’t smart. He wasn’t funny. He wasn’t anything except a compete and utter tool. I instantly forgot about his perfect hair and his perfect teeth. All I wanted to do was get as far away from Tony as I could.

I spent the rest of the summer trying to avoid double dates with Andi and Tony. Thankfully, eventually, she broke up with him.

Phew. I thought I was going to have to stop being Andi’s friend simply because she might marry this guy.

Tony, who was pretty on the outside, became ugly once I saw his insides.

Wesley was five years older then me, and yet somehow we became friends my senior year of high school. He was over a foot taller then me and double my width. Due to a childhood accident Wesley had damage to his vocal chords that caused his voice to be low and raspy. His quiet voice didn’t match his huge stature, which made him stick out even more in a crowd. Wesley didn’t look like Brad Pitt or Rhett Miller. But he had a heart of gold. When I was around him I instantly felt better about myself and my teenage-angst-filled life.

His insides were pretty so Wesley became pretty to me.

And this surprised me, although I’m not sure why. It’s just like my mom always told me and like all the lessons at church. What you are like on the inside really does affect how you look on the outside.

And I guess as I got older I really did realize this more. I found myself initially drawn to the hott boys, but soon realized that maybe they weren’t so hott once I got to know them a little better. I quickly learned it was super rare to find someone I liked on the outside and the inside. It made sense to me then, when I first laid eyes on The King, that I was floored that someone so freakin’ attractive on the outside could be so striking on the inside too. I guess it’s when you find the person that is just so compelling that have to stop everything and marry them. Right?

It’s what I did.

Here’s hoping I’ll still find him just as attractive on the inside after the next two days of being stuck in a car with him and Babboo.

And here’s hoping he’ll still find me attractive on the outside after his requested alone-adult-time in my parent’s barn this weekend.

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Want to hear my thoughts on yesterday’s police shooting in downtown Seattle?  Head over to SeattleMomBlogs to read all about it.

My first husband and I never spoke of pooping. Ever. Not only did we never discuss this topic, we never actually pooped while they other person was in a 10 mile radius. Give or take a few miles. This tended to make things uncomfortable.

Especially vacations spent in cramped hotel rooms over an extended amount of time.

I’m not really sure the reasoning behind our No Pooping edict. Was it his fault? My fault? All I know is that we weren’t comfortable with pooping around each other.

Long before I was married I worked with a woman named Debbie. She and her husband had been married for ten years and had four children together. And yet Debbie never hid the fact that her husband had never seen her naked. Ever. Not when their four children were conceived and not when those same children were birthed from her (assumingly) naked body.

Debbie just wasn’t comfortable with her husband seeing her naked.

My ex-sister-in-law went through some fertility issues during my marriage to her younger brother. During this time she had quite a few medical procedures done on her body. One of which caused her some alarm. She was so upset by something that was happening to her girly parts that she made her mom come over and check it out.

I was all, “why doesn’t her husband just take a look?” and everyone in the family was all “her husband!? Oh no, her mom needs to check it out?”

I guess she was just more comfortable with her mom (who is not a doctor) seeing her special place up close and personal then her own husband.

Last summer one of my close girl friends asked a group of us if we want to go with her to this “woman’s only” sauna outside of Seattle. Apparently, since it’s just women, you can go naked in any of the saunas. Everyone thought this sounded like something fun for us ladies to do. Everyone that is, except me. I was quite confident that I wasn’t comfortable with my girlfriends seeing me sans clothing.

I know this is odd since I’ve admitted that I’m comfortable going to a nude beach.

I think the difference, for me, is that nobody at the nude beach knew me. I didn’t have to sit next to them at church on Sunday. I didn’t have to look at them over the dinner table on a Sunday night. I didn’t know their kid’s or their husbands. They were strangers.

I guess I’m saying I’m comfortable with strangers seeing me naked?

That doesn’t make sense.

Oh well.

I know I’m really, really not comfortable with my mom seeing me naked.

One of my very best friends had her first baby last week. While talking to her on the phone last night she told me she finally had to tell her mom and dad to leave her house so she could nurse her newborn in private. She just isn’t comfortable with them there while she whips her boobs out and feeds her kid.

I totally understand. I nursed Babboo for fourteen months and I never got super comfortable with doing it in public. I understand that it’s natural and all of that. It wasn’t that I was ashamed of nursing my child. I was mostly just ashamed of my fat rolls and my pasty skin. I wasn’t comfortable sharing it with the world.

It’s been hot around these parts the last couple of days. I keep asking Babboo if he wants to take his shoes off and run around in his sandals. He refuses. I don’t think he likes his toes being exposed. He’s just more comfortable with socks on.

The King is comfortable with almost everything. You want to see the mole on his inner thigh? He’ll show you. You want to hear about the topless shows we saw in Vegas a few years back? He’ll tell you. The only thing he really isn’t comfortable with is talking about my miscarriages. Or having my parents stay at our house.

Everything else, he’s totally game.

So tell me, what are some things that make you uncomfortable? And what are you totally comfortable with that might surprise the rest of us?

———————

You know I’m totally 100% comfortable talking about Brazilian waxing with you all. So much so that it’s my latest New Thing.

Anyone watching The Two Coreys? I am. And I blogged about it over at WeHeartTV.

Every summer, when I was little, my parents would pack up our car (or our truck, depending) and we’d drive down to Utah to visit my mom’s family for the 4th of July. We lived in Oregon when I was in elementary school so the trek to Utah was a long one. Having us all stuffed inside our little car (of worse, in the back of the truck) was painful and only made the trip that less desirable. Sure we loved spending time with our extended family in Utah, but we hated the drive to grandma’s house.

In an attempt to make the long car trip more manageable my mom would do everything in her power to keep us entertained. She would pack bags full of library books and puzzles. She’s also pack a cooler full of water and sandwiches so we wouldn’t have to stop to eat. My mom always made two pans of treats and loaded them into the car still in their pans. One pan was her famous fudge (half with nuts, half without) and one pan was Jello jigglers. I was mostly only interested in the jigglers.

The rest of them fought over the fudge.

I have a few very distinct memories from these trips. One involves an intense bout of car sickness and a leftover sandwich baggie my mom wanted me to vomit into. Another memory is sort of the same. Except there was no baggie that time.

Only an open window and the wind in my face.

One story, that I don’t remember, gets retold time and time again. Apparently my family and I were driving through the night while my older brother and I were asleep in the back seat. I woke up and decided to play a trick on my dad, who was driving at the time.

“Guess who,” I asked my dad as I put my hands over his eyes.

And then he freaked out, swerving on the empty street. My mom and brother instantly woke up and my mom quickly pulled my hands away from my dad’s eyes.

Oopsie.

I remember playing silly road trip games like Bingo and Slugbug. I remember my mom prompting us to look for specific farm animals or car. Or even license plates. I remember tying to sleep with my head propped between my pillow and the window. And I remember freaking out when my younger sister had gas and we constantly had to open the car windows to let in some fresh air.

Good times.

Since moving to Seattle to marry The King almost eight years ago, he and I had driven to Utah once or twice. Maybe three times. Usually we just fly. It’s so much faster and relatively cheap to get plane tickets. But now that Babboo’s over two, we have to buy him his own ticket. And we all know that tickets aren’t as cheap as they once were. (Dude, what happened to flying to Utah for $99 roundtrip?)

And yet, I’m still itching to be in Utah for the 4th of July. I want Babboo to have some of the same experiences I had a child visiting family in Utah. I want him to go to the parade on the morning of the 4th. I want him to sit in the same spot my family’s been sitting in since my mom was born. (In front of the bank, in the shade.)

(My family and I, in our spot, for the 4th of July parade in 1986.)

I want Babboo to wear his new 4th outfit and try to catch the candy as the floats go by. I want him to walk up to the park, after the parade is over, and eat cotton candy and punch bags. I want him to sit under the big tree in the corner of the park and watch the people go by. I want him to eat turkey sandwiches on homemade rolls at my grandma’s house and drink as many punch bags as he can sneak with the rest of the kids. I want him to watch the fireworks and try to catch fish in the pond.

And that is why we’re packing up our car next week and driving down to Utah. It seems a little ridiculous to spend three days in the car when we’ll only be in Utah for two days. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for most of my adult life.

I’m taking my son to the 4th of July.

Now we just need to make it through the drive to get there. We’ve never gone more then a few hours in the car with Babboo. And I’m pretty sure a pan of fudge and Jell-o jigglers isn’t going to hold his attention like it did for my family. And I’m not sure he’ll sleep in his car seat if we decide to drive all night. And we don’t have a portable DVD player.

So tell me, how do I make this road trip the best start to an even better mini vacation?

One of the many places my ex-husband I lived in was a house that his great uncle owned. It was a very, very old house. Old enough that it was the house his great uncle has been raised in. The house was just a little farm house with only two little bedrooms and a bathroom that always seemed like more of an after thought.

My ex’s family wanted to keep the old farm house in the family. I liked the fact that his uncle only charged us a few hundred dollars a month in rent and they were just happy that we were willing to live in the house.

Unfortunately his uncle lived next door to our little farm house and my in-laws lived across the street.

Suede (which is what I like to call my ex, mostly because he hated that nickname) worked evenings and I worked days. I would get home from work every afternoon and have about five hours to kill until he would get home. This was perfect on the sunny days where my girlfriends and I would head out right after work to do something fun. But on the boring days where I had no plans between quitting-time and husband-getting-home time, I had to try to kill the time.

When we first moved into the house, I was excited to spend my free afternoons working out in the yard. I had never had my own yard before and the thought of planting flowers I bought and watering them with my very own garden hose was thrilling. One of my first free afternoons was spent at the nursery picking out the perfect plants for the yard. I came home with a crate full of pretty flowers and a new shovel. I turned on some music and started planting away.

Almost as soon as I starting planting the flowers, Suede’s great aunt appeared from inside her house. She didn’t say anything to me, she just messed about in her own yard. I couldn’t be sure, but I felt like she was there to watch me. To make sure I didn’t do anything she didn’t approve of. Since I wasn’t planting marijuana or burying dead babies, I was pretty sure I wasn’t doing anything that she wouldn’t approve of.

I shook of my feelings of being watched and just kept planting.

The next afternoon after work, I went back out in my yard to check on my new plants and to give them some water. Almost immediately after I turned on the hose, Suede’s aunt appeared in her yard. She wasn’t doing anything really, just puttering around her yard. But again, I felt like I was being watched. This time it wasn’t as easy to shake off this feeling. I quickly finished my tasks and went back inside my house.

The next day, Suede’s aunt was already out in her yard when I pulled in the driveway after work. It was as if she was waiting for me. I nodded to her as I unloaded my car and walked inside my house. I closed the front curtains as soon as I put my things down and decided to stay inside the rest of the afternoon.

I was a married adult and I didn’t like feeling like a child who needed supervision. Especially when I wasn’t doing anything wrong.

Okay, so I admit that this all might have been in my head. Suede’s aunt was a pleasant lady-even if she was a million years old. She had lived next door to the little farm house since she had been a new bride. She was probably just used to keeping tabs on the old farm house, no matter who lived there. And really, it was technically her house. Suede and I were just (paying) tenants.

The rest of the time Suede and I spent in the old farm house had me shut inside with the curtain closed. The yard work was only done when it had to be done. I gave up on having bright flowers and spending time out in the sun in my yard.

As you’ve all heard, The King and I moved into our new house this weekend.  It’s still technically under construction, so yard work is the last thing on my mind.  I’d like to first hang up some window coverings and maybe figure out where the toothpaste is.  Then I’ll think about tacking the yard.
Maybe.

And since work is still being done on the house, it means that when Babboo and I get home in the afternoon, we aren’t alone in the house.  The King’s dad, who is semi-retired and awesome enough to help us, is there working on the last few odds and ends.  It really has been a blessing for us to have him available to help us with the new house, but still, it feels a little odd to come home to a house where someone else, someone that doesn’t live there, is working away.

I know my father in law isn’t watching me.  I know he isn’t keeping tabs on me.  I know this.
And yet, I can’t stop feeling like I did with Suede’s aunt.  I immediately want to put down my things and hide from my father in law on the top floor with Babboo.

But yeah, I’m a married adult and mother and I just can’t do that.

Last night Babboo and I made dinner while my father in law was in the basement working on my new house.

So tell me, am I the only one that feels super weird knowing that someone is watching me in my own house?

——————-

Head over to read all about my latest New Thing.  (And dude, I wrote that post before last night’s ride home on the bus where the bus driver decided to take his own route headed in the completely wrong direction and I feared that we were being hijacked by a terrorist.  Seriously.)

Want to hear what the latest “How I Met Your Mother” news is? (hint: someone knows who The Mother is!) Read all about it over at WeHeartTV.

When I was in the fifth grade there was this girl, Ginny Baker, who was so mean to me. I was poor, and dressed accordingly. She wasn’t poor and thus also dressed accordingly. I had long scraggly brown hair that was never cut properly while Ginny Baker had long curly blond hair that was always done up with big bows that matched her outfits perfectly. Ginny Baker was everything that 10 year old Isabel wanted to be.

And yet Ginny Baker was so cruel to me.

Ginny Baker (for some reason she will forever be remembered by her full name), and her crew of other Beautiful Girls, would walk around the play ground at recess and make fun of me. They would call me names and point out my holey pants and bargain-basement tops to the other kids in our class. To everyone else Ginny Baker was my nemesis. I talked loudly about how I hated Ginny Baker and her pig nose and a fat belly.

But, of course, I secretly wanted to be her.

Every so often I think back on Ginny Baker and wonder where she’s at. I moved after the fifth grade, so I truly have no idea what teenage Ginny Baker was like, let alone adult Ginny Baker. She is forever etched in my memory as this mean little girl.

Wouldn’t it be great if I happened to run into Ginny Baker and could talk to her, honestly, about why she was so mean to me? I wonder how her side of the story would go. Would she even remember that she picked on me? Would she remember the mean things she said about my clothes? Would she even remember me? Sometimes I fantasize think that maybe Ginny Baker was so mean to me because she had an unhappy home life. That maybe her acting this way towards me was because her mom was dying of cancer and Ginny Baker didn’t know any other way to deal with her suffering then to torment the poor girl in her class.

I sometimes forget that there is another side to every story.

Last year I found a newspaper message board that my ex-husband liked to frequent. While he commented anonymously, I was positive it was him based on his e-mail address. Every week, or so, I would log on and read what he had to say about current events. (Dude, it was so interesting to read. Somewhere between our divorce and the present time he had become very active, politically. This was a huge surprise to me as I remember him as someone who could have cared less about the goings-on in the world.)

Typically his comments would be about the presidential election, global warming, or the religious happenings in Utah (he also sort of became anti-Mormon after our divorce. Go figure.) While his comments really didn’t have anything to do with me, they were fun to read. I hate to say it, but I was happy that he had become a person that I could have been proud of and not just some dead-beat douche bag with a drug habit.

One day I found a comment he made that was particularly interesting and relevant to me. (Me!) He was commenting on a news article about the possibility of state mandated divorce counseling:

I definitely think they should strong encourage (not mandate) pre-marital counseling, instead of making a law mandating divorce classes before you can sever ties. I got married pretty young (the first time)—21, almost 22 years old. Long story short—we didn’t know each other and didn’t know what the hell we were doing. Got divorced after 1 1/2 years. Even did a month of counseling before we finally filed. It took me years to get over this whole experience. (Emphasis added.) I just cringe whenever I hear of really young people getting married, especially to someone they don’t know very well. Finally, I’m married again at age 31–and happily. Wow. I just unloaded my whole life story. My point—some education beforehand would be of more consequence than a class to tell someone they’ve learned a lesson the hard way after the fact.

Reading him sum up our marriage and divorce in a single paragraph was like reading his journal. I admit to being floored to hear that it took him “years” to get over our divorce. Floored, I tell you. First off, I was happy to hear that he was happy. (Whatever. But I’m going to say that so that I look like the better person here.) And, secondly, I was happy to hear that he struggled with our divorce. Ultimately, he was the one that had wanted it and initiated the divorce, so I liked hearing that he struggled with the divorce. Good on him.

But this is it; this is my chance to hear the other side of the story. And I didn’t just hear from a friend of a friend that my ex-husband had struggled with our divorce, or what his thoughts had been on the whole thing. This is right from his own mouth (or hands, really).

Guess what else?

His side of the story isn’t like my side of the story. In fact, according the way I remember it, his side of the story is wrong.

Dead-ass-wrong.

Sure, he got our ages right. Sure he got the time frame right. But um yeah, we didn’t do counseling. I did counseling. And I did it for most of our marriage and for quite a while after the divorce. Not just for a “month”. (I must add here that I love that he thinks that ONE MONTH of counseling is all our marriage would have been worth to him. Dude, that ain’t saying much.)

When people ask (and they ask) why we got divorced, I never know what to say. I struggled for years to find the perfect response. It would have been easy to just say “he hit me”, or “he decided he’s gay”, but it wasn’t like that at all. I’ve said things like “his family was batt-shiz crazy” or “we liked each other, just not being marriage”. Mostly I just say “he didn’t really like me anymore,” as I shrug my head and walk away. But basically, just like his comment stated, we were young and didn’t know what we were doing.

According to his comment, this is the story he tells. He tells of being young and giving it our best. He talks of marriage counseling and heart ache after the divorce. This isn’t part of my side of the story.

There are always two sides to every story. And, sometimes, the other story can be surprising.

So tell me, is there something that happened in your life that you’d like to hear the other side of the story to?

The spring of my senior year of high school was a crazy time. I was counting down the days to graduation and moving out to my own apartment. I was looking forward to becoming an adult, a college student, and having a job. (Maybe not in that order, but you know, whatever.)

I was also excited about getting away from my parents. We were at that stage where they weren’t sure if they could still tell me what to do and I wasn’t sure I would do what they told me to do. It’s was a very slippery slope and none of us were handling it very well.

It was an emotional (read: stressed) time for teenage Isabel.

What made things even more emotional was the fact that winter was sticking around that year. There was snow on the ground when there shouldn’t have been any freakin’ snow. My heart was black and the black sky wasn’t helping.

At some point I had a dream. I don’t remember the specifics of this particular dream. I just remember I woke up and knew that if I killed someone the snow would stop and the sun would shine again.

Dude, I told you I was pretty stressed.

Of course I didn’t kill anyone (that you know of!). But you get what I’m saying; I hate the snow. I hate lack of sun. I crave nice sunny weather.

And yet, again, we wonder why adult Isabel lives in Seattle.

I’ve been wearing my winter coat every morning on my way into the office. It’s the middle of May, and yet, still wearing the winter coat. While my coat is pretty cute and cozy, it’s a little too late in the year to still have to wear my winter coat.

My alarm went off this morning at 5:30, like always. But unlike always, I awoke to the sun peeking in through our bedroom window. At first I thought I had over slept. But then I realized, I hadn’t over slept.

The sun was actually shining in Seattle.

I walked into work today, sans my winter coat, with a smile on my face. (See, that’s me in the picture…with a smile.) (And that’s the actual reflection of the sun on the building!) (The sun!!)

It’s supposed to get up to ninety degrees today. Which is awesome considering it hasn’t gotten over forty degrees yet this year. (That may be a slight exaggeration, but you get what I’m saying.)

It’s the perfect way to start a weekend. A weekend where my bestest friend, May, will be in town visiting from Reno.

Bring on the sun, the crafting, and the outlet mall shopping.

I’m ready for it.

So tell me, have you ever thought about killing anyone? 

So tell me, do you like waking up to the sun shining in your room like I do? Or are you one of those freaks people that hangs black curtains in your bedroom so that you never see the sun?

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Holy crap, I don’t know why I had never seen this video before. It’s the music video for the song Rhett Miller did with Rachael Yamagata for their song “Fireflies”. And it’s awesome. Dude, you should really watch the video.