One Plus One Equals Infinity

Tonight, Butch and I did something we've never done in the history of our marriage since we've had children.
We went to church together...without the kids.

It all started this morning when I was having a hard time getting everything ready for the day and getting myself ready in time for church.

Then, I remembered: I have a child who can DRIVE NOW!!!

All three of the biggers went together and Butch and I made the plan to go to 6pm Mass. 6pm mass is normally not our very favorite because we're not fond of the contemporary music where the verses last FOREVER and are so repetitive that everyone around us starts looking uncomfortable...BUT, it is MASS and sometimes you just go and try to filter that stuff out.

We sat there feeling just ODD.
Here are the things we did NOT do (that we NORMALLY do, when we have kids with us):

1. Flash the peace sign across the crowded pew.
2. Take any bathroom breaks.
3. Have to move from kneeling to sitting to kneeling to sitting to walking out of church because some child is trying to get us to pick them up during the kneeling part.
4. Miss the entire Gospel and most of the homily because some child needs to be set right or brought potty.
5. Wonder how many people are staring at us and wondering "Are all those kids from those parents?".

and many other things that I thought about during Mass...that I actually kind of missed!

Yes! Surprisingly, while I was very happy to have the time to reflect on how it did feel a little like back when we were in RCIA and we would go alone together all of the time, I saw a little baby girl who was SO cute and it made me think about my little baby girl that was the first little one we brought to church...and THAT made me think of every other baby I brought to church over the years...which brought me right to the present and my little baby girl at home with my biggest baby girl...and I couldn't wait to get home to all of them.

We were walking out of church and I commented on a friend's little girl and how big she was getting. She and her husband noted "How did you get to come here with NO kids!? THAT must feel strange!"

We both laughed and kind of let out our breaths. It was SO weird to sit there the whole time with the elephant in the room being the one that was at home (namely, our missing family). I actually started to wonder if we were being stared at because we normally have so many bodies between us and the people at church maybe thought we were strangers or something! It's all about context, right?

The whole thing made me reflect on something I told a friend last night at a cancer benefit that Butch and I got to go out to last night. I was telling her that I was thinking how, someday, all of our kids will be grown and we might be faced with an empty nest of some sort. I was saying how very odd it would be and what the heck would we do without any children to care for and just each other? I thought about it a little more and then I laughed. YEAH! RIGHT! Duh... because we've increased our potential for MANY grandchildren and there will NEVER be a time when we have an "empty nest"! That's the most ridiculous thing ever! We'll ALWAYS have people in our home. Our doors will always be open to the people that need care. If it's a friend, neighbor, child, grandchild, great-grandchild...as long as we're living, we will have someone who depends on us and who we depend on to help us get through this life.

I'm so very glad to share it with the ONLY man who understands me and loves me as much as he does. I like time alone with him, but I like time with him and the people we love TOGETHER, even more.

Good Friday

Matty told me that when he was praying the rosary at the abortion clinic this morning, some dude shouted out his car window "You are all going to HELL!".

It's a sacrifice for me to pray for that person instead of wish that he get his hippie hair stuck in his window when he rolled it back up.

On a lighter note, here is a picture someone took of Butch at work:


He's down there, in the right hand corner in the orange sweatshirt. He's so manly and attractive at work. I love how studly he looks when he's large and in charge on the work site. He makes construction COOL.

Also, who else could do safety harnesses with this much style?

First Gripe of the New Year! UPDATE*

(*Thank you to the guy who suggested to go HERE to do something about all this. It may not be much, but it just might work, and there is more info there too.)

Aren't you just so excited to find out what it's all about?

First, go here.

Okay, now that you are fully informed, I can start with the griping.

I am so mad about this every time I talk about it, that I start shaking.

My beloved, manly, wonderful, sexy husband has had asthma since birth. It's allergy induced (and sometimes exercise) but he's tried to control it and not let it get in the way of his ADLs. He was very active in sports in high school, partied hard in college, and works hard doing physical labor for a living now. PLUS, he throws the ball around with the kids and wrestles in the living room. OH, and even though he's allergic to grasses/pollens/outside stuff in general, he loves to do yard work and make the lawn look nice.

(He's also cool enough to make fun of himself for Halloween picture purposes. Aren't you all jealous?)

So, to keep from using his inhaler too much, he's been using Advair (which is very expensive) every day as a preventative. He still uses his rescue inhaler about 4+ times a day. If he runs out of the Advair or forgets to take it, he's using his inhaler about twice that amount. In the winter, it's very many more times than that because he's outside and the wind is very hard on his lungs.If I were in charge of the world, I would reach my hand out to the idiots who thought that "cutting CFCs out of asthma inhalers" was a good idea and WRING THEIR EVER LOVIN NECKS. Then THEY could feel what it's like not to breathe. You see, I know it might be a really difficult concept for people who desire to save the earth from "depleted ozone layers" and "changing climate" (God forbid we have more warmer days, I just love the cold oh so much), but human beings actually need to respirate to live. I KNOW! WEIRD, HUH?

Now, I'm not a doctor (I only play one at my home when someone is sick), and I haven't done any specific, peer reviewed studies or anything (I did ask the pharmacist about it and they all say that patients who use the new inhalers hate them)...but I am a wife of an chronic asthmatic and I can tell you that these new inhalers suck eggs.

Here's the explanation of WHY this has happened:

"The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (Montreal Protocol) is a landmark international agreement designed to protect the ozone layer. As a Party to the Montreal Protocol, the United States has committed to phasing out and eventually eliminating substances that deplete the ozone layer, including CFCs. It is estimated that actions to protect and restore the ozone layer will save an estimated 6.3 million U.S. lives that would have otherwise been lost to skin cancer."

Okayyyyyy, so a bunch of people MIGHT have died from MAYBE getting skin cancer, possibly if we MAYBE got rid of stuff that MIGHT possibly deplete the ozone layer? Soooooo, a huge, belching factory in some third world country that has been shooting ozone depleting junk into the atmosphere for years and years may EVENTUALLY be gotten to and forced to comply with the "protocol" (...at least according to the Canadians...love the geese, by the way...they produce more ozone depleting waste into our ponds and on our sidewalks in one day than all the inhalers put together! Okay, that's not scientific, but I bet it's true!) but hey, you'd better get all those patients who shoot a teeny amount of propelled medication into their lungs to BREATHE on a daily basis? I've got some news for you. You can cover up your skin but you can't breathe if you can't breathe. I could save everyone a whole ton of trouble by telling everyone "Hey, if you don't want to get skin cancer (not even sure the sun causes it) cover your skin with some clothes and limit your exposure, m'kay?" instead of putting this inferior product on the market for millions of people who will now have to shell out more money, use MORE of it, and suffer more EVERY DAY. Hey, I'm not one to turn away a little suffering but COME ONNNNNNNNN. What about all the little kids who don't understand why their medicine doesn't work right? What about people like my husband who work outside and when their rescue inhaler dies about 2 months before it should can't get to a pharmacy or doctor in a reasonable amount of time and may have to spend thousands of dollars to visit the emergency room? "Hey, why not keep several of them on hand so you don't have to worry about running out?". Yeah, the thing is, it's a controlled prescription and you need to visit a doctor to get one more than once every few weeks. If we've lost one or ran out before the "designated time", we are SOL and have to visit the doctor again or get one by "illegal means". I love feeling like a criminal for having asthma (I have seasonal asthma and need inhalers in the fall and spring or when I'm pregnant.).

I can't believe that they made me give up my Rave aerosol hairspray, and now this. How super funny ironic that they are trying to make the "environment" more "safe" for, you know BREATHING and they are taking away the very thing that makes it possible TO BREATHE (in some people).

All kidding aside (was I kidding?), the new inhalers were phased in starting about two years ago and I at least thought that the old kind would be available if the new ones weren't effective. OH NO! The Environment Nazis have complete and total control here and the old, evilly propelled medicine is now defunct as of the First of this year. Nice. So, all those old inhalers? Where are they? Are they being destroyed in an environmentally friendly way? Are they being put in a jet and rocketed into outer space? Do alien beings in outer space have breathing difficulties on their planets? If so, I hope they can put all those inhalers to good use. Are the old inhalers being sold in the underground, inhaler black market? FOR SHAME! Can you imagine how maligned a doctor could be if it was found out that he was distributing free samples of leftover non-CFC-free inhalers? They could be sent to jail for doing something nice for a patient. It IS breaking the law, after all.

Here is the EPA's "explanation" of "what is happening with the CFC inhalers":

"What is happening with CFC-albuterol MDIs?
EPA coordinates with the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to determine which CFC MDIs continue to be essential for public health as alternatives penetrate the market. In 2005, FDA removed the essential use designation for albuterol used in oral pressurized MDIs as of December 31, 2008 FDA rulemaking (PDF) (26, pp., 212 kb, About PDF). Therefore, after December 31, 2008, CFC-albuterol MDIs cannot be sold, distributed or offered for sale or distribution in interstate commerce pursuant to Section 610 of the Clean Air Act (information on nonessential products ban). The term "interstate commerce" refers to the product’s entire distribution chain up to, and including, the point of sale to the ultimate consumer."

Yeah...Wowie, I don't know about you, but now I understand it perfectly. Hey!..."pursuant"...THAT's fun to say!

What a silly joke this has all become. I'm laughing and crying at the same time. Powerlessness does that to me.

If you work for the EPA, you'd better not come within an inhalers puff reach of me right now, I'm likely to light a match in front of my old CFCfull inhaler and blow you away.

Still Crazy After All These Years

Yesterday Butch and I celebrated 15 years of wedded bliss...or, as I told him on the phone, "more like, 11 or so great years and the rest not as great" heh!

Yes, we had to "celebrate" our anniversary on different sides of Minnesota. He was working in Duluth and I was on a mini-vacation with the kids near Nisswa. I didn't even remember it was our anniversary until I was "On a Bus to St. Cloud, Minnesota" that's the truth! Just outside of St. Cloud, after talking to him and saying our "goodnight"s, I had to call him back around 9pm and wake him up because my mom called me and asked if we were home yet and joked that we "sure had some kind of anniversary, huh?".

Whoopsie!

Hopefully we'll be able to go out tonight (when he gets home from Duluth) or maybe we'll just get the movie "Return to Me" and have some alone time after the kids go to bed.


I've already said on this blog all of the nice things about my husband but I guess it doesn't hurt to say a few more...

I love him more and more every year. He is more attractive to me than any other guy out there (yeah, I gots me the 'love blinders' but bad!). He is the finest father I could ever hope for for these children of ours. I really don't know what I did to deserve him. He is immensely patient with my womanly worries and neurotic tendencies. He really understands me and is my bestist best friend (with benefits heehee).
He works at places like this:


to keep us fed and clothed and housed in the manner to which we have become accustomed (man, I've always wanted to use that phrase!).

Umm hmmm, he took that picture from the top of one of his jobs just last week.
He has been working in places like that for 12+ years.
He told me a long time ago that he's still afraid of heights.

THAT'S how much he loves us.

That's how much he loves ME.

I couldn't ask for more, nor would I want to!

P.S. Please pray for Butch right now for a special intention, thank you!

Butch: The Man, The Legend

I know that Butch is just so much more than a "father of 6 kids". I'm sure he's plenty proud of that title but I know that he's so much more than that. He's a good friend, a reliable neighbor, an honest and loyal worker, the best husband for Laura, a loving son, and an all-around great guy.

He turned 37 yesterday, all alone in another town (he'll be home early this afternoon, don't worry) and he's been having a lot of time to reflect on matters in his life and he has a lot of concern about our future. The best gift I can give him, at this point, is prayer (will you join me?). I pray for the blessings of God in his life. I pray that he will truly have the gift of discernment when it comes to his family. There has been a lot of upheaval in his life this past year and I pray for him to have peace with his guided decisions and the results of his decision making!

I love that guy, no matter how old and crotchety he gets. He is so funny and loving.
And...he's the father of SIX!

Aw. I LOVE That Guy...

...because he tells it like it is!

36 Years Ago, Today...

...(yup, you guessed it, another birthday in the house) my mother-in-law (bless her heart) gave birth to a goofy kid named "Curtis". I don't know what happened between writing his name on the social security application/birth certificate and grade school, but somewhere in there, his name would be changed and from then on he would forever be known popularly as "Butch". The only people that call him by his birth name are business callers, telemarketers, teachers, and the people who write the phone book. Well, I'm surely glad his mom and dad decided to get hitched and invent him because I can't think of any man who would be more right for me. It actually repulses me to think about being with anybody but Butch for the rest of my life.

A Poem For Butch (don't worry, I haven't gone all soft on ya, it's supposed to be funny):

I don't know who could fill your shoes
should you die from too much booze...

Or fall from something you have built,
after living your life to the hilt.

I don't think it's possible to think of how
my life would be without you now...

So I won't.

Instead I'll dream of the years to come.
How much you'll say "I'm gonna get me some"...

After chasing me around the kitchen once more
and asking me, "Did you remember to lock the door?".

"How did I get so lucky" I am always thinking.
And believe me, that's not even after I've been drinking!

I mean it!

So now we've been married almost 14 years,
and even though you've given me many reasons for tears,

I couldn't have asked for a better hubs than you.
Who loves his children so much and sticks to me like glue.

I wonder how come you love me so much?
It must be that I haven't lost that magic touch!

And neither have YOU!

Okay, I know it's a little sketchy, but I'm NOT a professional poet (I just look like one) so cut me a little slack in that department, m'kay?
Hubs, you know I love you so much and now so does everyone else in the blog-oh-sphere! I miss you when you're gone for work but I love when you come back and I'm not even saying that because you come back and play with the kids to get them out of my hair...I'm saying it because I miss your presence and your love and respect for me. I love how you make me feel like the smartest, kindest, prettiest, mommiest, queen-of-the-universe wifey even though I know I'm not nearly as good as you make me out to be. No one could love me like you do. Nobody deserves the kind of love you give me, least of all, me. I will try to do my best to be deserving of that love for the rest of your life. I promise. I pinky swear, even.