My New Walkway

It's been a few days since I've posted and here's why. I decided to re-do my walkway. Here's a "before" short - I don't know if you can see it in the photo, but the walkway was approx. 23 feet long by 3.5 feet wide and all grey limestone gravel (3-5" depth).

BEFORE


On Tuesday, I spent six hours digging up the gravel from the walkway and putting it in a pile on a blue tarp on my (also limestone) driveway. My father-in-law expressed interest in my leftover limestone but we haven't even considered the logistics of getting it to his house yet. Fortunately, Son#1 helped for about 3 hours. He's such a hard worker, despite his small size. Son#2 helped for a bit but pooped out early on.

On Wednesday, I spent six more hours digging up chunks of clay, pouring bag after bag of paver sand to level the area, laying the stones (32 lbs each), pouring more sand between the stones. Thursday, I finished it off by adding a layer of pea gravel. Here's what it looks like now:

AFTER


There seems to be a lot of gravel, but it will settle over time. A couple of you may recognize the garden retaining wall from last summer's post. It's 90+ degrees here in southeast Louisiana. Why do I wait until July to do these projects? And do them during the week when Dear Hubby is at work? Because I'm an idiot. A very achy, tired idiot.

Love & Marriage

This is a continuation of last week’s post in which I discussed disposable relationships, esp. marriage.

I’ve seen the term ‘starter marriage’ used in the media to convey that first, brief, childless marriage usually occurring during or right after college. I know people who’ve had such marriages. I also know people who got married because they discovered they were expecting a baby. Too many of those “Because of Baby” marriages didn’t work.

Now, I’m not saying that it can’t work. But consider: a somewhat shaky relationship between a man and women. Neither have had time to ponder what they want out of life, what they want out of a relationship, what they hope to accomplish individually and together. Now add a complete stranger to the relationship. A totally helpless, dependent stranger who is going to count on you for the next 18 to 20 years. That’s a heavy load for even the most stable relationship.

I myself wasn’t always keen on the idea of marriage. I just didn’t understand my parents’ relationship. It seemed dysfunctional to me, yet they stayed together through thick and thin until my dad’s death in 1991.

I never really appreciated their marriage and the lesson from it until I started these last two posts. For my parents, for some reason (probably religious on her part, who-knows-what on his), marriage was forever.

Marriage = Forever

And that’s the subliminal message I grew up with. And although I’m only 16 and a half years into ‘forever,’ here are my thoughts on love and marriage.

1) Marriage = Forever*
The exceptions would be in cases of physical and/or emotional abuse, some cases of infidelity if – and only if – the trust between the husband and wife can not be rebuilt, and some cases of addiction if the addicted party is unwilling to seek help.

2) As a Catholic, I believe that Marriage is a Sacrament. I stood before God, thanked him for bringing this amazing person into my life and pledged to love him always. For better or worse (fortunately things have been pretty damn good), for richer or poorer (I think we’ve got the poorer part nailed), in sickness and in health (yeah, been there, done that).

3) True or False: Love fades. I guess it depends on what love means to you. If you mean the butterflies-in-the-stomach, can’t keep our hands off each other, just calling to hear the sound of your voice stuff – well, that’s not love. It’s a chemical reaction in the brain (and perhaps a couple of other body parts). Hormones. Lust. And it’s why I believe in long engagements.

4) Love is 10% emotion and 90% choice. Every morning you have the opportunity to choose to love the person lying next to you. No, I don’t wake Dear Hubby and say, “Today I choose to love you and reaffirm my commitment to you. Now how do you want your eggs?” It’s just a brief nanosecond mental note of why we’re together. It’s how I assume responsibility for my marriage rather than putting it on auto-pilot. When you forget to choose, or you’re too busy to choose is when complacency sets in.

5) True or False: Passion fades. Answer: Not necessarily. It’s more like the ocean tide. It ebbs and it flows. Sometimes you have to work at it. Other times, it sneaks up on you by surprise (as it did with my parents – see yesterday’s post). The trick is to have something to keep you in the game, so to speak, during the dry spells. If your significant other is fun to be with, trustworthy, respectful, has a good sense of humor – well, that can certainly carry you through any dry patches.

6) Sometimes you have to redefine “romance.” Dear Hubby still brings me flowers sometimes. We hardly ever hold hands with each other in public as we used to do – we’re usually holding our children’s hands instead. He doesn’t write the love letters that he used to occasionally write. He does, however, make sure the three boys get their baths so I can have a few minutes to myself at the end of the day. That’s pretty romantic to me.

I admit I get a little frustrated when I hear someone say that they’re divorcing because they “drifted apart” or “fell out of love.” I asked a friend who was going through this what she did to try to save her marriage. Did you try to talk it out? Did you try to get away just the two of you to reconnect? Did you try to put the spark back in the relationship? Did you try counseling? Did you try?

Now, I don’t want to offend anyone who had a marriage end. Some marriages just can’t be saved, and I’m sure you have reasons just as good – or even better – than the ones I listed in #1 above. Some marriages should’ve never had happened in the first place. If that’s your situation, then this next statement obviously doesn’t pertain to you. But in this disposable society, I think too many people enter into marriage without ever giving serious thought to what it means. And too many people give up so quickly. Someone once said that “parenthood ain’t for quitters.”

Neither is marriage.

Changing Horses Midstream...

Disposable relationships. Marital do-overs. Not sure where I'm going to go with this, but I was reading the July 6th post on ~d's blog and towards the end she asks, "Do people really change their whole lives mid-life for someone new?" Of course, she mentioned other things, but that one question struck a chord.

The answer to ~d's question, of course, is yes. People do. Brad Pitt did (although, in all fairness, I don't think the horse analogy works when you're talking about Jennifer Aniston or Angelina Jolie, but I digress...). Eddie Fisher did. Out with the old (Debbie Reynolds), in with the new (Elizabeth Taylor). Then consider Henry VIII. Not only did he have six horses, but he sent two of them to the glue factory! (I'm having way too much fun with the horse analogy.)

Dear Hubby's childhood friend (and best man at our wedding) came from a family of do-overs. He has commented to me in front of his third wife that he and Best Man's mother (Wife #1) would still be married were it not for his in-law's. Best Man's father married Wife #2 and started a relationship with a married neighbor, who eventually became Wife #3. They've been together for at least a couple of decades so it appears he finally found The One. (or wait, was "The One" wife #1?) Anyway, Wives #1, #2, and #3 all attended Best Man's own wedding approximately 18 years ago. It was all very civil.

Best Man married his boss's daughter. Not a great career considering the marriage fell apart perhaps 5 years later. No children. Best Man, now divorced and unemployed, joined the military. This was around the time of the first Gulf War. He wasn't sent overseas, but he was sent to Indiana, where he met Wife #2, who had a young son. Instant family. They had two more children together and moved to Best Man's native Louisiana, then back to her native Indiana where they bought a house. Somewhere along the line, Best Man decided to change horses. Out with the old (Wife #2, stepson, two biological kids) and in with the new (Wife #3). The trail stops there. We've been out of touch for several years. It's just as well. I have trouble keeping the names of my own children straight, much less having to keep track of his revolving wives. To this day, he is our most-married friend, a title he's held since his 3rd marriage at the age of 32 in 1999.

My own parents were married for 30+ years. Growing up, I never really understood their marriage. They'd argue (loudly) and bicker (constantly) and I'd wonder why they didn't just get a divorce already. (I was probably one of the few kids who actually wished their parents would split.) But no, they stuck it out. What's the secret? Beats the hell out of me.

Something weird happened nearly 30 years after their wedding. They rediscovered romance. With each other. I was 24 and absolutely mortified! My parents smooching in public. Not the face-digesting public displays of affection you see from adolescents these days. But if you knew my family, then any display of affection - public or private - was, well, alarming. But I didn't go blind as I initially thought I would, and eventually my appetite did return.

This is getting awfully long, so I'll take a break here and pick up the topic another day...

The Boys' Birthday Party

On Saturday, we had a little party at the house to celebrate the Son#1 and Son#2's birthdays which were June 23 and June 17, respectively. If you've been following my blog, then you know that Son#1 and Dear Hubby were at Boy Scout Camp from June 17-24, so we decided to celebrate with the extended family on Saturday, July 1.

The guest list included Dear Hubby's dad and siblings, niece and nephew and the neighbors across the street. That amounted to, what, 14 people in our little 1163 sf house. Nothing fancy. Chips, dips, half a dozen pizzas from Papa John's, and the cake I baked (Son#1 requested chocolate cake with chocolate icing). The electricity went out as soon as the guests arrived and stayed off for over two hours, so we started with the ice cream first (Son#2 requested chocolate). They made out like bandits gift-wise.

I'm going to take Sons #1&2, along with one friend each, out for the day - maybe Chuck E. Cheese and a movie. (Hey, I'm a glutton for punishment).