Five on Friday…

ONE:
My main squeeze is coming home today!!!

It’s been two weeks since I’ve seen those gorgeous blue eyes! I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’m mostly excited about my long run tomorrow that I can take without dragging H along.

TWO:

MRI happened last week; I go back to the MD on Tuesday. Please pray it’s a quick fix. And by quick fix I’m talking cortisone shot. Yep I said it... if you hear the sound of a high pitch scream. That will be me. For the love of Pete I have a race in one month.

#getittogethergrandmaankle

THREE:

I have 8 more shifts to work until I become a SAHM.

FOUR:

Last night H and I went to Disney on Ice. I’m not sure who had more fun. Me or H. It makes me want to pull out all my Disney VHS (go to the goodwill and get a VCR) and watch them.

FIVE:

28 DAYS UNITL HH!!!! #girlstrip #wine #BSB

Weekend Recap

Friday, I had a total melt down and threw myself a pity party. I’m thinking I don’t handle stress very well. After I went to the garage and chugged a beer I took a few deep breaths, I got a grip and put my running shoes on and after a long run, everything was rainbows and butterflies #NOT. PS I’m changing that saying to “Everything is all pinot and people telling me I’m beautiful.

Saturday, some friends and I took the kiddos to Magic Springs. H LOVED it. That girl has no fear. She wanted to ride all the rides. I think her favorite by far was log flume. Which totally made the 1.5 hour wait for a 4 minute ride worth it. It’s beyond me why we weren’t served drinks in those lines.

Sunday, I cleaned/packed and unloaded half of our garage at the local goodwill. I’m pretty sure me and Paul Wayne (the donation helper) will have BFF tattoo’s before this move is over.

How was your weekend?

It’s like going to church camp…

I can remember it like it was yesterday. Setting in church and getting the church camp flyer, begging my parents to go. Then the closer it got to leaving for camp, the more I’d get anxious about leaving the comforts of my home. Every year I’d go and I would HATE this first few days with a passion. I’m sure there were some tears shed at night. I just couldn’t understand how people could just fall asleep in a random bed. Thoughts would run through my mind… Was this mattress sanitized after the last camper? Does this bed have bugs in it? #aniextyattheageoften.

The feeling of being homesick passed just as quickly as the days did. Before I knew it, it was the last day of camp. While I was going to my clean bed was appealing, I knew I’d miss camp.

I feel like Arkansas is my church camp. I will never forget the day M came home when he got promoted.

M: “hey babe” with his big Dorito smile
Me: why are you smiling like an idiot #wifeoftheyear
M: I got it! I got it! I got the promotion!!!
Me: YEAH! Congrats blah blah blah
Me: So what does this mean?
M: It means we are moving.
Me: Great, we can use a bigger house.
M: No, babe we are MOVING… to ARKANSAS
Me: Stop playing… people don’t MOVE to Arkansas
M: I’m serious, we are moving to Arkansas. I need to be there by Monday. (It was Thursday)

That began the whirlwind.

We moved 6 hours from everyone we knew. It was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. I remember being so angry that we were hear alone. Now looking back, I realize I was such a baby and I should have just made the best of it. You live and you learn. It took a good three years before I could leave STL without Kim Kardashian crying all the way home. We finally started calling Arkansas home. We finally met friends. We were settled. This was home.

Let’s stroll back to January 2014.

M: “babe can you keep a secret?”
Me: no
M: I really need you to keep this a secret.
Me: Fine but can I tell, Lauren, Marcia, Amy and my mom? They don’t count right...
M: NO, listen. There is a chance we may move back to STL. Would you be up to it?
Me: No, I’m fine here.

Fast forward to April 2014:

I get this email

With this announcement:

M, Area Manager-Construction and Engineering, *** Southwest, has accepted the position of Director-Construction and Engineering, ****Southwest. He will be responsible for outside plant construction in Missouri, Kansas and Arkansas, replacing *****, who retired. Mike will be located in St. Louis.

START THE TEARS. Do you know how awkward it is to start crying at your desk in front of your coworkers, especially when you can’t tell them why?

Then I get this email from M:

Hey babe please forward to you mom.

I appreciate both of you at what you do to help here.

Big team effort and a lot of hard work.

Love my life.

I mean god love the boy. I am so proud of him. He has worked his ass off to get this position and I couldn’t be more proud and sad.

Sad that his mom didn’t get to see this accomplishment
Sad that we are leaving Arkansas
Sad that I’m leaving friends
Sad that we won’t live in the house that H has always known as home, the house where she spoke her first words, where she learned to walk. Just sad

Sad that M had to leave last week and report to STL, leaving us in Arkansas.
Sad that I have 304,432 decisions to make. I can’t make a decision to save my life. Don’t believe me? Ask the cranky lady that told me to get out of her way at Kroger’s because I couldn’t decide if Natural Peanut butter was better than Reduce fat Peanut Butter.

I have been a mess this last week. Crying over every little thing. I miss M like a fat kid misses donuts. I need to get a grip. Pray for me.

Yes, moving will be sad. But it’s also a good thing.


I will be reunited with this hot mamma.All of our friends and family with be there. And more importantly GUESS WHO WILL BE BUYING WINE ON SUNDAYS!

This chick. #peaceoutdrycounty

This move will be bittersweet. But it will be good for us as a family.

I just need to find a way to get this girl to move to STL.

I'm without words

Sunday morning, Amy and I woke from our long night of pretending we were really 23 and not 32. We stumbled into our hotel room sore from our half marathon, smelling like the Tailor Park bar…dirty feet and all. The plan for Sunday was to meet one of Amy’s friends for brunch, causally take our time shopping before we hit the road back to LR. Amy, perked out of bed around 8am, I saw she was checking her phone, naturally I figured she was making sure she didn’t drunk dial anyone the night before but I was wrong. She had an alert on her phone that bad weather was headed towards LR and suggests that we nix our leisurely Sunday and head back home before the weather hits.

I fully don’t understand why I well up with tears when I think of this. Maybe because I think of God’s Grace, Maybe because God protects us from things before we even know we need to be protected. If we had not left Nashville we would have been driving right when the tornado hit.

We drove through a little rain, but not bad at all. Not shortly after we got home I heard the tornado sirens going off. Naturally I freak, because M is out of town and he is normally the one that keeps me from going 0-304 on the freak out scale. I immediately went to M’s closest and cleared a space for us in case we needed to take shelter. NOTE: Houses in Arkansas do not have basements. Which explains my high freak out score. I shut all the doors and corralled my mom, my dog and H to the master bedroom. With the News blaring so we could hear Ned Perme (also known as Ned Spermy because I’m 12yrs old) read the counties as the storm blew over. SALINE COUNTY came over the TV. I look at mom to see if we should head to the closet. I guess I didn’t notice.... but Mom had gathered everything but her curling iron.

She’s hysterical.

Shortly, the sirens go off and we go outside to see the damage. Nothing. It had barley rained. Whew, it blew over us.

We continued to stay in the master bedroom with the TV on watching Perm predict where the Tornado was headed… My stomach was in knots hearing Mayflower, Vilonia, and Conway… I immediately started texting friends who lived in those areas, most responded with “Were ok” “that was scary but we are ok” except one…

My coworker:

“We’ve lost everything”
“We are still searching for biscuit” (their dog)
“Please pray Amie”

My eyes welled up in tears. Tears of joy that she was safe, tears of joy that we were save but how did I have so much joy and so much sadness at one time?

I continued watching the news most of the night and into the morning.

Devastation is the only word that comes to my mind.

Monday morning, Tornado talk was all anyone could talk about. We received word that my coworker was ok. The dogs were found.


Unfortunately that was it.

It’s absolutely devastating. I came across this blog who speaks about the Smith family who lost their two sons.

GRAB a BOX of Kleenex and read HERE.

I absolutely cannot fathom the amount of pain this family is going through. It isn’t fair, it’s sad, it’s absolutely devastating. The amount of faith that the Smith family has is incredible. Absolutely incredible.

This really hit home “Everyone is here for a purpose, for God’s purpose not for our own fulfillment. And we know when their purpose is reached, they GET to go home. How incredible is was that Tyler and Cameron were able to serve their purpose in such a short time, when it takes some people 100 years”

WOW. CAN WE SAY GUT CHECK?

What a witness. What an awesome witness. These parents aren’t mad at God, of course they are filled with sadness but they don’t blame God. Instead they have turned this tragedy into a testimony.

I ask you today, to please keep the Smith family (and all the other families) in your prayers. Hug your babies, hug your friends and for goodness sake treat each other with kindness. You never know what tomorrow brings.

Graphic by Josh Phillips