The LBDDiaries.com Blog

I have so many things to be grateful for this year.  Amazing friends, family and new blogger friends.  I’ve met some incredible women while blogging over the past 5 years and know some incredible women I am proud to call friend.  I am grateful for all my friends!

While it saddened me, in March at the age of 85, my mom moved on to heaven to join Dad.  Dad moved there in 2004 and she’d been trying to join him ever since.  We fought her tooth and nail on that and were able to enjoy having her around for 4 more years.  They were good years, too, full of her recipes at holiday dinners, her keen wit and sarcasm, and much laughter since she was a major jokester.  Last Thanksgiving she was the healthiest she’d been since dad died, and it was a good year with her. I’m grateful.

                            
And this is my favorite picture of my mom, Eddie, and her sister, Ruth (on right), in 1944 - they’d seen their brother in a newsreel at the movie theatre, yelled out, “That’s Roy!” and ended up in all sorts of newspapers!  I’m grateful for those last four years with her.

Then there is Alpha Son.  He is a hoot and I’m so glad he’s in my life.  Being his mother has been an amazing adventure I am so grateful I didn’t miss!  We had and have great fun together. Warped minds.

This year, last weekend, he asked his girlfriend of almost 5 years to marry him.  We all agreed.  It is a miracle and we are grateful.  That is NOT his girlfriend above.  LeighAnn is much prettier than Sandals although Sandals thinks she is an Alpha Dog, for sure!

LeighAnn is a doll, sweet and a young woman I am proud to call my future daughter-in-law.  May the force be with them.

And then… then there is the person I am most grateful for on all the earth, Alpha Hubby.  He came into my life 15 years ago, January 1994, one week before my birthday.  God gave him to me as a birthday present.  Truly!  He was the first man to send me flowers and boy, was that a huge vase of flowers.  He was the first man who saw through all the walls I’d built up around me over the years, protecting my heart and myself.  He was the first man to protect me, cherish me, make me feel valuable and precious.

He was the first man who fell on his knees and asked me to marry him – and when I said yes – was astonished and stunned.  He swears it is because of two reasons – one was that he had NO idea he was going to ask me to marry him that night, and two was that he did not believe me when I said I would marry him.  His being blown away that I would was a salve to my wounded heart.  He truly loves me, unconditionally.  This is his whiny gripey Alpha BIG voice, “Puuuulease, must you take my picture again” face.  He’s trying not to smile while I’m trying to get him to smile.  This is him, to a T.

Lastly, my heart is full of gratitude to God Almighty.   Without His Hand on my life these past ** years (what? You thought I was going to tell you???) *ahem*  without His Hand on my life these many long fabulous years of my life, I would not even be alive, much less so happy and thriving.  He has been very, very good to me.  And I am sure I’ve been on His naughty list many times… if He had one… which I’m gtrateful to report, HE DOESN’T.  Phew.  God loves me.  I am grateful.

A VERY HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO YOU AND MAY THIS COMING YEAR BE EVER BETTER!

(SIDE NOTE:  My annual holiday recipes from friends and family are posted on The Joy-Cafe – head on over and check them out!  Send me some of your faves and I’ll post them there, too.)

I have no idea where I’m spending Thanksgiving this year. The closing on the new house came to a screeching halt when the title company discovered the land is listed in the 6 kids names. They had to overnight papers for signature to California and places in Arkansas. OK.  They *could* all be back before Thanksgiving but I’m preparing for either house!

I discovered some amazing NEW recipes I’m going to try this year – very exciting.  I love trying new recipes as long as the old standards are still included.  But I ask you:  if you hear the words “Whiskey-Glazed Carrots” wouldn’t you try them too??  Here is The Pioneer Woman’s picture of her recipe.  It will also be on my table this year!

Then we will be having our family favorite which we discovered a few years back – TURDUCKEN.  We order ours from Louisiana from the online store, Cajun Grocer.  If you’ve never tried truducken, you owe it to yourself to order one.   You might want to wait until after Thanksgiving since you’d pay a premium for shipping right now – but oh my.   A turducken is turkey, duck and hen – a semi-boneless turkey stuffed with a deboned chicken and deboned duck breast.  Our stuffing this year is Seafood Jambalaya (crawfish, shrimp & rice) stuffing between each bird.  There are several stuffing choices (or none).

This is my first year without my mom (she moved on to heaven to join Dad in March).   She loved the holidays and had some great recipes she’d collected over the years as an Army wife.   The very best is her cornbread dressing.   I’ll post that recipe at Joy-Cafe later today.

And don’t forget sweet potatoes!   This year I’m incorporating a side dish that isn’t sweet – sweet potatoes with sauteed onions, garlic and red peppers (salt & pepper).   Oh major yum.   Then mashed potatoes and baby peas.  We will also have the traditional sweet potato casserole – Alpha Hubby’s recipe is yowzers.  I’ll post it on the Joy-Cafe website later today or tomorrow.  It is very rich in butter and flavor.

I’ll have some delish rolls from Pouparts in Lafayette LA and ice tea.  So that’s it for now unless I get newer recipes to try before Thursday.  I am thankful for so many things, most especially for how good God has been to us this past year.   I am thankful for health, family, friends, and more than enough in my life!  I am thankful for an amazing son and his beautiful girlfriend.

Most of all, I am thankful for Alpha Hubby for 15 (almost 16) amazing, unbelievable, stupendous, miraculous, happy, passionate, thrilling, and FUN years.  BayBay, it’s just going to get better and better.  You make it all so much wonder.

I’m hooked on you and so grateful you’re in my life to help me experience days of heaven upon the earth!

Today is one of the last weekends I’ll spend in my old home. I took pictures of all the special things Alpha Hubby did to make this an amazing home and to remember all the things he did here, just for me (raise ceilings anyone?). I’ll post them later. It’s been a wonderful home but now we’re moving on up!

So in honor of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday and to poke fun at Alpha Hubby for all the things he’s suffered at my hand, today I will celebrate something I am thankful for…

SNOWMEN!

I just love snowmen. I love them most of all because they drive Alpha Hubby bonkers. He constantly threatens to exterminate them but never really has… that I know of. I try to only buy special ones – ones that are unusual and not common. Nothing is worse than a common snowman (heh heh). It takes something really special to drive Alpha Hubby up a wall. I work hard at my job. I am good at it.

Enjoy PART of my snowman collection with me.

The other day I was thinking about smoking hot sex.  Why, you ask?  Well – if you have to ask….

Just kidding.  And if you’re wondering what it has to do with my LBD Journey – everything.  It is one major reason why I stick to it and will not quit this time.  I want to be able to breath during  look good for him.

Alpha Hubby and I have been married 15+ years and our sex life is smoking hot.  Oh quit acting like I’m talking like a porno queen.  Married couples have smoking hot sex lives.  I know single people want to believe that the only way to have smoking hot sex is as a single.  I have a news flash for you – married people have hotter sex and more of it according to all the research I’ve read.  Committed sex is way better.

What I want to talk about is WHY we have smoking hot sex.  Oh stop that – you guuuys!  Such dirty minds!!  I’m not talking private details.  I’m talking respect, honor, zipped lips, and remembering how it felt when you first dated and what was so wonderful about him.

When I was single, I remember being at work during lunch breaks.  I used to listen to the married women talk about their husbands.  The things they said should have been left unsaid because they were private things.  Women often speak disparagingly about their male counterparts, co-workers, and significant others – and cover it up with joking and laughter.  But it is still damaging.

For some reason, women believe that when they get together with their girlfriends or female co-workers, it’s OK to bash their husbands or boyfriends.  It’s this “us” against “them” thing and I, for one, HATE IT WITH A PASSION.  No woman is more important than my husband.

I learned a good lesson listening to these women – and watching some of them develop such disrespect for their husbands that they ended up divorced later down the line.  It is not OK to bash, disrespect or otherwise ‘dis our significant other when we’re with our girlfriends.  When we bash the man in our life, we cut off the smoking hot sex life (among other things like respect, trust, and communication).

We can’t have smoking hot sex with someone we disrespect.  The more we talk against our significant other, the less we really respect him.  Keep it up long enough and the next thing you know, we’re treating him like a roommate instead of our lover and best friend.

Alpha Hubby and I married in our early XX’s – what?  You thought I was going to tell you?  Nah.  Just suffice it that we married later than some other people.   It was very important to me that I didn’t end up with a boring, couch-potato, honey-do listing marriage after waiting for this Knight in Shining Armor for so long!  During our first few months of marriage, we had many conversations about romance, passion and smoking hot sex.  We made a promise to one another that we would never fall into the bad habit of being “just roommates.”  We vowed to keep the honeymoon going for all our lives.  Most married couples think they will do this in the throes of newly-wedness– but few actually do.  It takes hard work and most people get very lazy about protecting their marriages and mates.

Alpha Hubby and I had to learn the ways to keep the focus on one another and not everyone or everything else.  We have to honor and respect one another.  I can tell you that in 15+ years of marriage – 5,689 days – I have not one time spoken badly of Alpha Hubby to another person on this earth, ever.  I have never bad mouthed him or belittled him to anyone.  I have never exposed his secrets or what may be considered weaknesses.  He has done the same thing for me.  He has never bad mouthed me to other people.  Ever.

I know if I focus on something that irritates me and tell other people, pretty soon that is all I see about him and all I talk about.  I would soon forget any of his good points and all the wonderful things he does for me (like support me in my Little Black Dress Journey in ways over and beyond).  I would begin to focus on what I perceive that he isn’t doing for me instead of being grateful for what he is doing, and how wonderful he really is.  That’s why I don’t disrespect him in public (now, in private… just kidding).  He’s too valuable and precious to me – and I want to keep it that way.

And… the smoking hot sex ain’t so bad, either!!!

They say that getting enough sleep is necessary for being healthy and for losing weight.  I guess that could be true since, if you stay up late at night, you’re going to hit the munchies at some point.  And those munchies are never going to be for things like, say, apples or red peppers.  It will be more like BROWNIES and a heaping helping of lasagna!!!

So my question is, how can anyone get good sleep if they can’t find a perfect pillow??

Years ago – long before the dawn of time – my dad threw out two pillows.  They were very old; only dad knows how old they were. I discovered them in the “to go outside” pile and confiscated them.  They were the PERFECT pillows. This was sometime in the 70’s and I loved those pillows. They were some form of foam that wasn’t too hard or too soft, unlike the ones today. Just like Goldilocks, they were JUST RIGHT.

As time went by, I had to recover them a few times but I made sure no matter where I moved to, I had my perfect pillows. They went to college with me. They went into the Air Force with me. They went everywhere! They were the ONLY two I ever needed.

Needless to say, my perfect pillows finally wore out – or should I say, crumbled and disintegrated. Shoot, I’d say they were probably 25-30 years old by this time. It was time for the ultimate new perfect pillow search.

Starting in the mid-1990’s, I began this search. I slept on some so-so ones while searching. I tried foam rectangles, foam balls, foam substitute, foam mock, faux foam, hard foam, soft foam, creepy foam – bleh. I tried stacking pillows on top of one another. I tried memory foam – too soft or too hard. I don’t know who’s memory they were trying to keep, but it sure wasn’t mine!

I tried down, down and feather, down alternative, double down, down and polyester combo, circle of down, and the down of doom. OK, maybe not that last one, but it began to seem that way. I would start out thinking, “This is a GREAT pillow” and within a month, the pillow would either be too hard or so soft it was like sleeping straight on the mattress.

It got so bad my husband began to notice there were pillows all over the place. Oh, it wasn’t as bad as he whined.  No, Alpha’s don’t whine.  Umm, as he huffed.  There were several trial and error pillows for awhile there. Every time a new pillow entered the house, I’d hear this groan and, “Just how many pillows are you going to buy?”  This is coming from a man who was still using one of the two pillows he brought into our marriage – and it was old and discolored way back then – 15 years ago.  He JUST gave it up for one of the many extras. What does he know about perfect pillows?

Then it happened! I wandered into a TJ Maxx store and saw this weird pillow, a gel fiber pillow. Gel fibers? Microdenier Gel Polyester Fiberfill. I poked it and it felt like down yet fluffed right back up. I looked around to see if anyone was looking then sort of tried to lay my head on it to test it – it felt pretty good. Of course after all the pillows I’ve been through in the past 10 years or so, I wasn’t that optimistic. I bought one and brought it home. After a week, I knew! THIS WAS IT. I had finally found the perfect combination of soft, fluffy, and cushiony. I was in hog heaven!! I was kicking myself for not buying the other two. It had been a long hunt – but by golly, I found the perfect pillow.

Until about a month later – oh my gosh – all those nice little gel fibers began to flatten. Then they began to congregate in one spot so you had to pound the heck out of the pillow. It began having flat spots so my head was straight on the mattress. Neck cricks.

I am heartbroken – and out of the bucks again. Is there to be NO perfect rest? I am unpillowed. Except for the 5,125 pillows stuffed in my extra bedroom.

OR mice or roaches.  That old Jim Stafford song about a clueless guy who says, “I got silly and found a frog in the water by a hollow log; And I shook it at her and I said, “This frog’s for you.”  She said, “I don’t like spiders and snakes; And that ain’t what it takes to love me, you fool, you fool!”

Oh yeah, sometimes guys are clueless.   When we packed up to move, the bubble wrap came with an added extra – a family of mice that got loose in the house.  This is a conversation I had with Alpha Hubby today:

Me: You got another mouse.
AH: Did you take it outside?
Me: NO!
AH: Why not?
Me: Eeww, it’s still alive! It might fall off the sticky trap and fall on my foot! And then where wouild we be be? I’ll tell you where we’d be – dealing with the screaming meamies.”
AH: On come on (laughing). What’s the big deal? You gonna wait ’til I get home?”
Me: (silence)
AH: OK, I’ll get him out then (snickering).

Now, truth be told, Alpha Hubby does understand and knows BEYOND A SHADOW OF DOUBT that I do not do spiders, snakes, roaches, frogs, mice, and any other sort of unnatural beastie or being on this earth.  He is not the kind of guy who would have tried to impress me with a frog when we were kids.  Nah, he was the guy who was always trying to steal a kiss.

He swears I would have fallen in love with him in the sandbox.  And who’s to say?  I didn’t meet him until we were in our early 40′s and oh, it has been an amazing, miraculous journey thus far.

I remember telling him when we first decided to marry that I didn’t want to be one of those women who was “joined at the hips” with their husbands.  I wanted to maintain some semblance of independence, take off and visit my friends in far-away states, sharing “girl time” if need be.  Boy, have I eaten those words many times since.  We finish one another sentences and thoughts now.  I can’t imagine being with anyone more fun, more understanding, more supportive, and more “there for me” than he is and has been.

What does that have to do with spiders and snakes?  Not a doggone thing.  I’m taking a break from packing, if you must now.  I’m also just killing time waiting for him to come home and become The Exterminator, once again, and deal with Mouse #4.  I’m thinking about how much I love this guy and still standing in awe and amazement that God loved me so much, He gave this man to me as a gift to share my life’s journey with here on earth.

Man, makes me want to break out in song, “You are so beautiful to meee….” accompanied by little squeaking voices  in the background.

I am dealing with appliance abuse. I’ve been dealing with it for years but was too ashamed to tell anyone. Now that we are moving, the abuse has escalated – especially when they discovered I wasn’t taking them with me to the new home. The weeping and wailing and gnashing of gears is getting on my nerves.

Appliance Abuse is when your dishwasher destroys your favorite stemware – even though you obeyed the rules and put the stemware in the top basket. The dishwasher then attempts to take over the kitchen because you dared to hand-wash a bowl on your own. Anarchy! You find yourself holding hostage negotiations with the appliance in an attempt to placate its hurt feelings.

How do you talk publicly about the heartache when the old VCR holds your favorite oldie movie hostage in an attention-getting coup? You try to negotiate a peace treaty. It refuses to believe you understand its programming needs. You talk to no avail; it promptly eats your video tape.

Then “IT” happens. The stove goes on strike in the middle of baking a cake, the night before hubby’s office party. Why? Because it is jealous of your previous relationship with the computer you had at work. It sulks, putting no heat out.

Some people believe the washing machine is the worst offender because it eats one sock and leaves you the other sock to console because its mate has disappeared. What do you say to a mate-less sock? I am here to tell you the truth. It isn’t the washing machine, it is the clothes dryer. Mine mocked me. It told me that God had taken my sock mates to heaven because they were so hole-y. I know, I know. Is that a cruelty beyond believing, or what?

The telephone began to join in the Abuse. It would ring and voices would come out the other end saying things like, “Yes, I know, but what do you do all day?” “Remember what it was like when you used to work?” And my favorite, “Well why can’t you do this or go to or help with __________ (fill in the blank) for me? You have time. It’s not like you have a real job or anything.”

Oh, and you haven’t lived until you’ve been ignored by your beloved microwave. I believe of all the types of Appliance Abuse, this one hurts the most. I thought we had a special relationship. The microwave knows I totally depended on it to reheat all those cups of tea that got cold while dealing with other chaos in the house.

And sure, the bread machine committed suicide in the middle of an electrical storm – how was I to know it needed unplugging? Now the juicer holds a grudge against me and never lets me forget that the suicide of the bread machine was my fault. Is there to be no forgiveness?

The hair dryer curses me every morning because I no longer have time to use it. I also no longer have that executive hair cut that requires early morning high maintenance. A hair dryer in withdrawal is an ugly sight. I begin to feel responsible for all the appliances – which is right where they want me – loaded down in guilt.

So here I am typing my woe, trying to ignore the printer telling me in that dominating male voice to please load paper in the paper feeder. While he does thank me – which is way more than I can say about the other appliances – I cannot believe I am reduced to talking to my printer.

Now they have discovered we are moving – and most of them aren’t coming with us. The crying is keeping me up at night. I need help. How can I explain to them that there are new and shiny appliances where I am going without destroying their self-esteem and hurting their feelings? I don’t want them to commit suicide before I move. I NEED them to keep working.

No. What I really need is a Special Support team to slip in and dispatch these whiny babies and their unholy control over my life. Then I need chocolate. Lots and lots of… stop! Get away from me. What are you doing? No!! You can’t do tha….

MICE! ARE! GONE!  Gone, gone, gone.  I am very happy to report Alpha Hubby saved the day – again.  I didn’t even know there were two (no, make that THREE) mice so while I don’t know what he did with them (classic “don’t ask and he won’t tell”), I know they are gone and I am once again free to roam our home without fear.

I got to thinking about how moving is really good for your diet.  You don’t want to buy too many groceries since you’ll have to pack them to move them.  You get so busy packing up and going through stuff to take to Salvation Army, you forget to eat.  That last is the best part of all!  My pants are actually getting so loose, I may have to retire them.  OH you have NO idea how happy that makes me.

It doesn’t even make me sad since I am the type of person that when I find some awesome item, I end up buying two.  This time, when I discovered the cool slacks at an outlet store (Liz Claiborne), I bought three pair – two in the size I was then and one in the size I planned to go back down to.  I am finally, finally heading quickly to that last pair – oh joyus day!  Of course, once I’m out of that pair, what am I going to do?   Hmmm, maybe I should have bought a pair in each size down to goal weight.  Nah! I can enjoy finding new slacks in SMALLER sizes.

So, this is what my hallway looks like right now:

 And this is what my lovely Alpha Hubby says he bought for “me” -

Which doesn’t look ANYTHING like this:

WHERE have I gone wrong??

Oh baby, I’m just kidding.  I love the new RED dolly – really.  And I really will use it and enjoy having it for moving boxes from the garage to the house.  I just had to poke at you for your really thoughtful gift you say you bought just for me.  Ummm, yep, sure.  Whatever helps you sleep at night (snicker).