My Wedding Day(s)

As you may notice by my title, I have had more than one wedding day. The first one happened when I was 19 years old and didn't really understand what marriage was all about. I got pregnant 4 months into the marriage and really didn't think about it much beyond that. 9 months later my first child was born in a teaching hospital in Iowa City, IA. We came home and started our family life together. I won't bore you with every detail, but suffice it to say 29 months later my second daughter was born as I was in the process of getting divorced from my first husband and starting a relationship with my second husband. My daughters are now 26 and 24 and are no longer in my life. We divorced after only 4 years of marriage.

I married my second husband when I was 27 and started life as a cop's wife and stepmother to three little girls. None of them really liked me much and again, without going into too much detail about it, I ended up divorcing him after nearly 10 years. I absconded with a vehicle and what possessions I could carry in the back of it in the middle of the night (literally), and left him a 3 page letter on the kitchen table without telling anyone in my family where I was going. I did, however, tell some trusted co-workers with express directions that they were NOT to tell him where I was or what had happened to me. I did not wanting him finding me as I was hoping to get divorced from him.

Now, 10 years later, I am happily married a third time, have an 8 year old daughter and finally enjoy my life and being married. Life is good to me and this is what marriage should be.

Had I known nearly 30 years ago how my 1st two marriages would have turned out, I would not have knowingly gone through them, even if it meant losing my first two children (I lost custody of them to their father when they were 6 & 8) because I don't have any contact with them anyway, and you can't miss what you don't know.

Life is much better for me now and there isn't one thing I would change about it, except maybe have two more children than I do. But, God blessed us with just the one and I'm not taking her for granted!

Sad and depressed

Ok, sad for sure, depressed? eh, probably really not. Sometimes I wonder what people are really thinking when they jump on a social networking site and blather away with profuse profanity. Seriously. I'm appalled and quite frankly disgusted with what people think is acceptable and then turn around and gripe because someone gets on there saying they're offended and the person using the disgusting, nasty, trash language says that if the person commenting doesn't like what's being said can just ignore it and doesn't need to comment. Well, excuse me, but when you type trash in all caps it's kind of hard to ignore. I mean come on, do you really expect me to just ignore the garbage that's up there on their page and not say something? Really?

Today is 9/11/10

It's been exactly 9 years since the World Trade Center towers, a field and the Pentagon were hit by jets. All those lives taken, all those beautiful things destroyed.

My husband and I were on the road driving for Swift as truck drivers. We had just gotten married on the 26 of August and couldn't believe our eyes and ears when we sat down to eat dinner at a truck stop restaurant in Kentucky. We had just been to New York the week before, seen the twin towers and thought how blessed we were to be able to see the countryside together.

We'd been driving all day, and quite by design I'd say, did not (thankfully) have the radio on. Which, in all honesty, is unusual for us, because normally we'd be listening to NPR.

Looking back at that day a few days later, I recalled noticing there were no jets in the air that day. Which when after hearing what had happened in NYC, made complete sense and I realized after noticing no planes, I didn't give it much thought beyond that.

Now, here we sat, numbly eating our dinner and thinking how lucky we were that we'd already gone to NYC and were not back there this trip. We finished our meal, paid the cashier and went out to our truck and Jack our JRT, hugged him, took him for his walk and then climbed back in the cab and got ready for bed. I don't think either one of us slept much that night for all the images in our heads and thinking about the lives lost.

Now, here I sit, 9 years later. I'm safely in my home in Arizona, I have an almost 8 year old daughter and my father has been living with us for the past 3 months. My daughter knows we are remembering those lost in the tragedy of 9 years ago, but not really understanding why. I'm still not sure a 7 year old is quite ready to hear all about it or that she will even completely comprehend what happened all those years ago.

I may tell her bits and pieces, let her ask questions and answer them, or find the answers as best I can. Life is good right now. I'm truly blessed to have wonderful family and friends and my health.