Long Relationships

I really need to learn the value of silence.

I have PCOS – Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome – which means I get a fun assortment of annoying things to deal with when it comes to my body. One of the things I have been so ‘fortunate’ to deal with is wonky hormones.

You can already see where this is going, can’t you?

Because my body cannot yet maintain a particular function with any regularity on its own, I’m on birth control pills. Not that I want to be – I hate birth control. But I do realize the necessity for it for the time being.

A big part of correcting the influence of PCOS is to lose weight, which is easier said than done because PCOS makes losing weight as easy as climbing up a slope with a boulder strapped to your back. You can do it – eventually – but most people quit because they wonder what the point is.

I’ve recently found a diet that has made the weight loss struggle easier. I’ve currently lost five percent of my body weight, which is the amount of weight that usually starts helping the body set things to rights when you have PCOS.

And, well, it would seem that my body doesn’t care that I’m taking birth control pills because it wants to start a TOM NOW.

Ugh. I’m very happy with the weight loss, but I have normal hormones trying to right themselves, introduced hormones (birth control) trying to keep things steady, PMS mood swings that scare even me and a very, very harassed husband who still loves me enough to go buy me an electric blanket because I have a hard time keeping warm.

Can anyone recommend a brand of duct tape that won’t hurt too much when it comes off? Even if I leave it on for the next week?

By Barbara Waters of Knitting Passions

JM has asked me to share just how two people can/could/have been married for as long as my husband and I have.

Whew! Tall order. It has taken me a bit to gather my thoughts in order to write this. You see, on any given day, either hubby or I might be willing to toss in the towel on our relationship. There are THOSE days when one or the other of us has just really had it up to HERE . . . and, given the right moment, or right suggestion, might just say “I am so outta here.”

And yet, there IS something still that keeps us together.

Hubby and I met while we were sophomores – in different schools. His best friend was dating my best friend and they decided we should meet. His buddy said “let’s go to a football game with R and B.” She told me it was a blind date with R’s buddy A. You can imagine where this might be going, right?

We met at R’s house, were driven by his dad to their high school for the game. All during the game I wondered why A was not paying any attention to me – and I was getting just a bit peeved and hurt. It didn’t help that as we walked from the field afterwards I tripped in a gopher hole and he laughed (!) and didn’t even wait to help me up.

I did NOT want to see him again. (I think the feeling was mutual)

Fast forward several months and the four of us double dated (this time it was called a date by all four) to the museum on the local university campus. There was an Egyptian display complete with mummy. I got my first ever kiss behind the mummy. Last year hubby and I took our oldest granddaughter to see that mummy and she insisted we reenact the kiss for posterity. (and pictures)

We became engaged after graduation. Eleven months later we were married.

That was 1969. Yes, we were babies - and the pictures show that.

Over the past forty years we have had our ups and downs – we’ve fought and made up – we’ve grown together and grown apart and grown together again.

There have been several life changes, physical changes, and family changes. We moved thousands of miles away from “home” (Ohio) to HOME (Alaska) to make a better life for out daughters.

And, through all of those . . . there have been those days when all was right in the relationship and those days when it was throw in the towel time. We’ve faced them all with humor and sensitivity, although not always both of us at the same time.

We tell each other and our friends that the secret of being married forty years is simply, lying down together each night and getting up together each morning. Sometimes it really is as simple as that.

Hello and welcome to the Friday Free-for-All!

Inspired by the Weekend Soiree over at Wifely Steps (and pretty much using her idea, to be honest, but you can go over there and play on her site as well!), we’re going to have a bit of conversation here on site. I’ll be responding when and where I can, but it would be great for the readers to respond to each other as well.

If you make a comment and it doesn’t show up, let me know using the ‘contact me’ button under the site description on the right. That way, as soon as I see the email I can rescue it from the depths of the spam filter. But, seeing as the spam filter is no longer regarding me as spam, I’m hoping none of you will have any problem.

The way the game works is this:

I pick a theme that we’ll be talking about and will start off things with a question. The first person to come along will then answer that question and ask another question still relating to the theme.

(Remember to ask another question! It makes the game harder if people only answer them.)

Eg. The theme is peanut butter. I ask, “Do you like peanut butter?” Someone answers and at the end of the comment asks, “When was the first time you tried peanut butter?” So on and so forth.

Easy? Yes, I thought so. Which brings me to the theme and the question for this week:

Theme: Vacation

Question: Have you gone on vacation lately?

Hello and welcome to this week’s installment of love questions.

For a while now (as you can read from the previous posts made by Mr. JM), the husband and I have been tossing around ideas for a bit of a holiday. We both have an absolute passion for travel and tend to get a bit itchy if we don’t at least take a day road trip somewhere every so often.

The hiccup with our travel is the fact I don’t drive. Oh, I have a license and I can drive, but I don’t. The main reason is that we have a manual and I have always driven automatics. I’ve had a manual driving lesson and the husband says I did well, but I almost went into fits with past memories of my horrible, horrible driving instructor.

Otherwise, our trips are quite nice. Mr. JM usually doesn’t mind putting in the kilometres anyway, so we’re good in that respect. We have comfortable silences as well as good conversations. We’re good about packing food and water, so we don’t have any problems with that. As I said, we love to travel, and I can’t recall us ever having a fight while on the road.

This week I’m wondering:

If you do answer on your blog, please spread the link love and link to:

Aud from Mom.Dad.Chat
Jenera at Just Me

And, of course, I always appreciate your links to me.

Don’t forget to leave me a link in the comments to your response.

Have fun!

By Mr. JM

There’s an old joke about how to confuse an Irishman. You put him in a igloo and tell him to piss in the corner. (Aussies tell jokes about everyone so don’t bother getting upset about racist jokes or whatever PC kick you have – we tell jokes about Politically Correct people as well.)

How to confuse JM. Start with an idea for a holiday that involves a re-visit to a place she fell in love with and where she began to find out who lives inside her skin. Let her run with the idea then suggest it can be other places, like somewhere (Tasmania) she hasn’t yet been.

Next day, from work, forward an email from www.bestflights.com that has a range of packages out into the Pacific Ocean that are around the same amount of money we’ve been talking about, such as Norfolk Island.

Then suggest possibly a package within Australia, one where the continent is reachable and we can see things like Kakadu National Park. We could fly somewhere & then explore around – she’s always wanted to go see Perth.

Then, over drinks in the local pub, talk about how we could get a camper-van or Winnebago and go touring around – with the leave I have built up, we could go for three weeks & see the red centre (Alice Springs, come down through the Nullabor and past Lake Eyre, then across to Perth and maybe up to Monkey Mia to pat dolphins).

Of course, (in casual off-hand manner) we could try maybe doing one of the resort island holidays up in Queensland, like Hayman or Hamilton Islands, where we could laze around for a week or so, rolling out of bed to a perfect blue-sky day, having breakfast in the pool (seriously, they have stools and a bar in the middle), snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef, and more.

What is a girl to do? (I will leave that for her to tell you…)

By Mr. JM

Tonight I watched poor JM go through sheer hell. And it was SOOO much fun.

It probably isn’t what you think – we’ve been casually talking about some travel. Life has thrown us a couple of curve balls and we’ve been contemplating some changes – new job for me, re-locating to another state etc. Unlike in the US, another State isn’t just an hour or so away – where the current jobs of interest are is the Gold Coast – almost 2000kms from here.

A couple of days back I mentioned that we could return to New Zealand (they pronounce it Nu Zilland) and spend some time touring around. We visited there when JM was here on a tourist visa so we could extend the time she could stay in Australia, but we didn’t stay long.

New Zealand is a beautiful country, lush green land alternating with dramatic mountains ranges. Peaceful farm scenes beside fumaroles and geysers, and caves with tiny worms that look, after your eyes have adjusted to the dark of a cave, like constellations of stars on the ceiling.

But we are looking at a bit of a holiday a few months off in the future, trying to take advantage of the off season.

Another possibility was a visit to Tasmania, a large island just south of here, lovely place, nice people, (if a little inbred – us mainlanders like to poke a little bit of hillbilly humour at them) with a ferry ride across Bass Strait with our car etc.

So why would this be sheer hell?

It has to do with choices, with the variety being offered to someone who has had few times in her life when she could make a decision involving pleasure. It has to do with a steadily increasing level of expectation of anticipated pleasure. It has to do with me being pleasantly cruel.

Some days bullets are just so much easier…

*My friend Jenera is holding a contest! Click here to find out how you can win an 8×10 print of your choice from Jenera Healy Photography.

*I think I’m starting to get baby brain again a little bit. I have found a weight loss plan that is healthy and is working, so Mr. JM has been joking that he will have to get his physical soon. (I’m insisting he get a full physical just to make sure he’s completely okay.) We have been talking about the future… It has been nice.

*We are still looking for jobs and houses all over Australia. Hopefully we can find something soon…

*That being said, we had our flat inspected last night because the rental agency felt some of our repair requests weren’t ‘urgent’. Pfft. I guess we have to wait and see what happens with that. I think I will be happy if we at least get our heater fixed, seeing as it is winter and all and the darn thing isn’t reliable…

*Crazily enough, the husband and I are also thinking about a short holiday. A week away somewhere. We can’t fly very far because it’s too expensive, but we’re thinking we’ll get off continental Australia. Where or when we’ll actually go…

*I have packed a few boxes for moving. It felt good and even a bit liberating. It’s nice to really feel like we are going to be improving our lives soon.

Ah. That was much easier than stringing together an entire post. Random thoughts are more fun, too.

I hope everyone had a great weekend!