I’m sure not everything listed here will be seen as brag-worthy by all readers, but they are things that have been pretty important in our lives and I want to share them. Why? Because I feel like braggin’! See if you agree with my perspective on any of them.
Next spring, hubby Jack and I will be married 46 years. Considering that we dated for nearly seven years before that and had met two years prior to dating, we’ve known each other, dated, and been married almost 55 years. When I say it feels like forever, you can understand what I mean. When I say that it feels like yesterday maybe you’ll know what I mean, too. When we were falling in love, saying we’d be together forever sounded so easy. Hahahahaha! How naive! It hasn’t all been easy but it’s all been worthwhile, and made easier by being able to laugh, both at ourselves and with each other.- As part of those 46 years, and just a couple of years after we’d married, we went on the road as over-the-road truckers. We went over all the 48 contiguous states, and into three Canadian provinces. We even went into
Mexico once, for a harried, scary trip (do they have the concept of stop signs down? Not that I could tell.). For almost eight years, we were hardly apart except to go to the bathrooms, living in an 8 x 8 foot truck cab. There were times I wanted to murder Jack but I never considered divorce. (I’m sure he never wanted to murder me—I was the epitome of the perfect traveling companion.) And if you’re prone to divorce at all, driving a truck together will get you there faster than a CHP officer can write a speeding ticket. Those were great days! - After trucking, Jack went into consulting. We stayed still for a few years and then he began consulting, helping companies prepare for FDA audits and validating software for FDA compliance. I guess trucking wanderlust hadn’t died, because we traveled to where the work was, once changing addresses six times in two years. We lived in such diverse places as Appleton, WI (loved it!), Kansas City (loved it!), the Civic Center area of San Francisco (loved it!), and tiny Greenwood, SC (loved it!). In fact, with few exceptions, we loved everywhere we lived. Exploring new towns and meeting new people is such fun.
After not graduating and leaving Virginia Military Academy in his junior year, Jack went back to school at age 63. Far from not graduating, he got his diploma and graduated summa cum laude! I’m so proud of him.- This might be the most brag-worthy thing of all. After all our years, all our ups and downs, moving, sometimes settling, we’re still grateful to have found each other. We still laugh, even when we cry, we still lean on each other—maybe more now than before—and we still love. What more does anyone need to brag about?
For those of you in the U.S., have a wonderful Thanksgiving and a great holiday weekend!
Read the next blog in the blog hop by going here.
Dee
Only a Good Man Will Do: Seriously ambitious man seeks woman to encourage his goals, support his (hopeful) position as Headmaster of Westover Academy, and be purer than Caesar’s wife. Good luck with that!
Naval Maneuvers: When a woman requires an earth-shattering crush of pleasure to carry her away, she can’t do better than to call on the US Navy. Sorry, Marines!
received calls. I laughed smugly at all those people glued to their Blackberrys and iPhones. I mourned for all those lost conversations when people sat across the table from friends and spent their time texting. I glared at those who unthinkingly knocked people on the sidewalk while playing Candycrush.
person.
I had to give up all apps, this is the one I would go of last. I am a sad, sad person.
days where she would lie in her bedroom away from distraction and get lost in the world of make believe.
trucking years ago and saw almond trees up close and personal in California. They’re very pretty. But what they produce is even better.
All I know is, almonds crunch, they taste good, and they help me get past that hunger stage when I’m too close to dinner to eat more. A great snack that isn’t a secret anymore!
So my biggest fear is water. I don’t like it. It’s okay to bathe in or drink, and I don’t break out into hives or anything when I’m near it, but all things being equal, I’d just as soon stay away at a distance from any large bodies of it. When I was growing up in Virginia Beach I used to go to the beach and even went out into the ocean—up to my waist, maybe—and cousins and I used to “swim” in the James River, but would I ever willingly go out to where I couldn’t see land? Um…no. All of those cruise ships you see advertised on TV? They are safe from ever having me as a passenger. My dad made me take swimming in college, and I was not even a happy camper in a pool. So when those same commercials show a cruise ship at sea and people frolicking in a pool, it’s like a double whammy for me.
perhaps I was a Roman galley slave, lost in a sea battle. Or maybe I was a Norse child who stepped foot in the north Atlantic and was taken by the Kraken. Who knows? I only see the result of those events.
Mediterranean, I did enjoy going out whale watching a few years ago in San Diego—within sight of the shore, of course. I absolutely cannot imagine my dad’s life, standing watch on board ship with nothing around him but water. That’s too much “Water, water, everywhere/Nor any drop to drink.” (Coleridge) Imagining that actually does give me hives!
