Ice Skating Awakening

Marriage is a lot of hard work.  Marriage can be more work than fun.  Marriage can be exhausting.  I have wanted to write about this for awhile but I was afraid to because who admits this?  Who would say that being with the love of their life every day is not the happily ever after they thought it should be?  No one wants to hear that marriage is work and compromise and polite smiles and the occasional dead eye.  People want to know that even when it is bad, blue birds are chirping and hope is on the horizon and by the end of the day there will be wine glasses clinking and a romantic fire blazing.  

Clink.  Blaze.

Marriage gives us the chance to present the absolute worst to each other every day.  We present our one-eye bleariness to each other in the morning and return at night to prop up our empty shells in front of the TV. Sometimes people change over a marriage and their partner is left wondering if they are the same person they married.  Sometimes people start eschewing meat while their partner starts writing about their life in a very public forum and they are left wondering who is this person??  And even, do I still like this person?

Sometimes in a marriage you begin to wonder what you have in common with your spouse.  This can be especially true as your kids get older and their day to day claims on your time start to fall off.  Maybe you think you never had anything in common and this makes you sad.  And while you are sad, you are building Jenga blocks of resentment and grievances in your heart and mind that color your reality.  And you know that you love this person and even like them a little bit you just can't understand why it feels like work.  Why is it the things that attracted you to them in the beginning drive you nuts now?  Sometimes you end up paying someone to remind you both what it is that you like about one another and what you can do to build that up.  And sometimes, you just trudge through.

But then little things happen that chisel at your heart.  Maybe it is a holiday.  Or maybe your spouse writes you a note.  A hand-written note with illustration.  Or perhaps, even though she is not happy you weren't there for dinner, she still saves a plate for you.  Little things that chip away the ice at your heart and weaken the mortar of your Jenga block tower of resentment.  And maybe you start focusing on how your spouse takes the early run to the school with the athlete instead of grumbling about dirty socks on the couch or five pairs of shoes by the door.  Or maybe she will bake vegan things just for you and you will not begrudge her early bedtime.  It is the little things that drive us crazy and apart and the little things that nudge us back together.

Sometimes you take the kids out for the day and end up having an epiphany.  We took them ice skating as the boy is almost 11 and somehow has never been on skates.  (Hush Canada, I can hear you tsk-tsking from here.)  We all had fun but I forgot how damn beautiful my husband is on skates.  He is all shoulders and muscle and fights gravity on land, but he is weightless on skates.  He is fluid and fast and light and effortless.  I always expect him to throw in a triple axel or a split jump, he is that light out there.  It takes my breath away.  And when he skated by and caught my eye and smiled, well, that took my breath away too. His eyes were alight and his cheeks flushed and he just moved through the crowd like it was nothing and for the first time in a long time, I saw Bill McMahon.  Not Bill McMahon the father or Bill McMahon the husband, it was just Bill McMahon.  And I really like Bill McMahon and I am so terribly guilty of not seeing him, just him, in a long time.  It is like marriage has you look at each other all the time until you are just an expected vision on the landscape.  You fall into your roles, your ruts, your expectations and that is when it feels more like work than happily every after.  

I am so glad I had that moment of seeing, really seeing, Bill.  It made me remember how I couldn't wait for him to call me, to pick me up, to kiss me.  I remembered a dad who held his new babies and told him all the things he was going to do with them.  It made me appreciate the fact that we have made it through some awfully hard years.  Marriage is a lot of hard work, and I think that it is okay to say that, feel that and admit it out loud.  There are good years and bad years and years where you trudge on, but through it all, if you take the time to see, is the person you promised forever to. Forever can seem like a blink of an eye or it can seem like a million years - depends who you have along side you for the run.  Me?  I have Bill McMahon and I am grateful and after he reads this, I see a lot of ice skating in our future.

Carol of the Girls

I have not been feeling very Christmassy or in the season or even interested much in Christmas this year.  I have not been running around crazy trying to prepare for it, I know it will all get done, so seasonal frenzy is not the cause of my indifference.  It happens sometimes, but this is usually my favorite time of the year.  Actually, now that I think about it, I didn't feel much like Thanksgiving this year either.  I think the problem might be that I miss my family, or more specifically, holiday memories of my family.

Holidays growing up were filled with aunts and uncles and cousins in too small houses that grew too warm and loud as the night went on.  It was unlimited cookies and waiting desperately for that one last family to get there so you could open your present.  It was badgering Grampa slowly and steadily until he gave in and would put "Snoopy and the Red Baron" on the record player.  (record player, I am that old).  It was too much to eat, too many cookies to choose from, too many dishes to help wash and always too loud.  Holidays were full.

Holidays here are sometimes just the four or five of us.  There is too much food, too many cookies to choose from and because I am here, it is still loud.  However, they don't always feel full.  SG and I took a walk on Thanksgiving night and we passed a house that was packed with people sitting around a dining room table and we both sighed.  I am sure it was not as idyllic inside that house as it appeared from the road, but it sure looked full.

I took the day off recently and did a big portion of our Christmas shopping.  I don't know about you, but I find that there is nothing like Christmas shopping to strip away any Christmas spirit you may have.  Luckily for me I followed it with a lunch out with my best girls.  Lunch was followed by a two dog nap which led me to finally feel that thankfulness I was missing at Thanksgiving.  If thankfulness was three weeks behind I thought I might not find my Christmas spirit until mid-January.  

But then today happened.  Today my thirteen year old woke up happy.  I don't know about your thirteen year old, but mine never wakes up happy.  She wakes up with one eye and some grumbles and crazy lion hair.  She wakes up grouchy and moody and miserable. I cannot wait until she is old enough to drink coffee and I can hand her a steaming cup and know not to talk to her until it is gone.  But today is the last day of school.  Today is parties and cookies and reindeer antlers to school.  As we were leaving for school, I said the only way I would give her a ride is if she sang Christmas carols the whole way with me.  She instantly agreed.  So we sang our hearts out to "All I Want For Christmas" at least three times.  She tried to stop me from car dancing, but once started, there is no stopping.  The look of complete horror on her face only intensified my dance.  We laughed til we cried and we sang loudly, off-key and enthusiastically. My Grinch heart grew hundred times and for the first time this season, I felt joy.  

SG and me.

Now, I am not sure I can retain this joy for the next six days, but the fact that I have some right now is enough.  I will break if off into little pieces and share it with everyone I might see today.  This way, when mine runs out, maybe someone will have some to share back.  

This ten minutes of love and laughter have made me see that I don't need to be full to be happy for the holidays; I just need to be present.  I need to see an opportunity and take it.  I need to get out of my head and go with my heart or follow others even when I don't think I feel like it.  And, no matter what, there absolutely must be more car dancing.  

2014 Books of the Year

I like to hold books and read books and fall into a book and lose myself in a book and become the book.  I absolutely prefer holding a real book in my hand to reading one on the Ipad.  I doggy ear pages and I set books down open and I crack their spine.  I thoroughly enjoy my books.  People know this and often ask me what is good to read.  I am not sure why, but I always initially freeze when someone asks me what to read.  I do it at work too and it is very awkard.  Sometimes I have to walk through the stacks with a reluctant teen tailing me until something jogs my memory.  My goal for years has been to read 100 books in a year.  I did not come anywhere near that this year but I did read some good books that I have to share with you. 

This would be my happy place.

First up, please read “The Girl You Left Behind” by Jo Jo Moyes.  That Jo Jo; she gave us “Ship of Brides” and “Me Before You” and was then generous enough to give us “The Girl You Left Behind” as well.  I love historical fiction and I love a good war novel and this has both.  It is also set in WWI, not WWII, and the ending will surprise you -that is all I have to say about that.  I was on a real Jo Jo love fest until I read her new one, “One Plus One”, and decided she might be pumping them out too fast to satisfy her readers’ demands for more.  Meh, I thought.  Take your time Jo Jo!  We will wait.

Next up, Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell.  Oh. My. God.  Have you been a teen girl?  Loved a teen girl?  Been a teenager?  Lived in the eighties?  If you answered yes to any of these questions, pick this book up!  I finished it the same day I started because I couldn’t set it down.  The characters entered my mind and occupied my thoughts.  The writing made me laugh and cry.  The chapters change voices and tell the story from both perspectives and it made me wish that books were written like this when I was a teenager so I had some clue what boys thought.  READ THIS BOOK RIGHT NOW!

I must say that I am most proud of reading Anna Karenina this summer.  That was 800+ pages of Russian turmoil and strife and was some heavy stuff to get through.  It took me six weeks.  There is only so much angst one can take at a time.  That Anna – what a hot mess!  Good grief, by the time I hit page 300 I was wishing they had Zoloft back then and that she would take some.  By page 600 I was eagerly turning pages hoping this is when the train got her and was both happy and relieved when it did.  However, just because I didn’t like her doesn’t mean that I didn’t like the book.  It is good to read literature like that when you have time to read a page and as you turn it think “what did that just say?”  I found myself going back or forgetting which Russian guy was which and having to trace the dotted line of characters throughout the novel.  It was interesting and it was good to stretch when reading like that.  It will, however, be awhile before I pick up my next Russian novel.

Have you been a Room Mom?  Hated a Room Mom? Wondered when it was that the PTA got so political and vicious?  Then you should read Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty.  I was not expecting to like this book because I did not like her book The Husband’s Secret – anyone with a brain figured out the secret by Chapter Three.  This book was funny and funny in a way that points out how stupid we are about our kids and about the social scene at school.  In addition to providing us with a magnifying mirror, she also provides us with a really good, funny and interesting story.  Dig in!

Do you just want to read something that makes you laugh?  This is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper is what you need.  I know they made a movie out of it and I am sure that is funny too and yes, we all love Jason Bateman, but how often do you read a book that makes you laugh out loud?  This book will do it for you and more than once.  I tittered, snickered, giggled and guffawed. 

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith.  How I did not find this book ages ten through fifteen, I have no idea.  I loved this book! Historical, interesting, characters that made you care about them – it had it all.  If I had found this book when I was younger, I would have read it a million times.

Alright, here are some honorable mentions before I get to my favorite book of the year.  In the YA category:  Losers by Matthew Roth (I recommend it at school to kids all the time because it is short and I thought it was well written and funny) and The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer Smith.  Teens fall in love, fate keeps them apart, what will happen?  Cute and feel-good.  Oh and  Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King (my first Stephen King book!) and Silkworm by JKRowing but under her detective alias Robert something with a G.

Ready??  Drum roll please……..My favorite book of 2014 was Shotgun Lovesongs by Nikolas Butler.  It is his first novel and I would like to lock him in a room providing him with only food and water until he writes another one.  Oh the writing!  It was beautiful, it was lyrical, and it painted pictures in my head.  It is very rare for me to get hung up on words or a phrase while reading as I like to read, read, read, and get to the end.  This book kept me hitting pause with its descriptions.  I could see what he was describing every single time and it was haunting, aching and mesmerizing.  The book follows four friends and their lives in high school and present day and changes voices (love that!) throughout.  The story itself is good and the writing will just destroy you.  Absolutely read this book. 

So that is it for the year in books.  2014 saw some great ones but more average ones or ones where I look at the title I wrote down and can’t remember reading at all.  I am currently in a bit of a book slump, but I think that is because I know I should be studying instead of reading.  I am sure that once my content test is behind me that a multitude of fabulous books will fall into my lap.  Until then, I will ignore the guilt of not studying and plow through the tedium until I find one that makes me so excited that I have to share. 

From Our House to Yours

Ahh, tis the season.  Tis the season where I realize there is not a picture of the five of us anywhere, I am not going to take one and pay extra to have it made and shipped and we will once again not be sending Christmas cards. I love to receive Christmas cards so I apologize for my lack of planning and good will.  I feel funny sending just a Christmas card with no picture and a few hastily scrawled words at the bottom because the fortieth time you write “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year” it tends to sound insincere.  So my gift to you this Christmas season will be my words wrapped up in flowery phrase and deep thoughts/ sarcasm and wit.

Maybe one year....

2014 was a good year for the McMahons.  We had a road trip of epic proportions this summer and all still like each other.  (It was touch and go those first days back, but we are good now.)  We saw a lot of America and more of Canada than ever.  It made us both grateful for what we have and yearn for the quiet, soul-enhancing woods of Canada that we left.   We learned how to throw knives and tomahawks and canoe and kayak.  We learned how still the night can be and how many stars there are.  It was lovely.

Bill started 2014 driving 1.5 hours to work each way and I am happy to say that he will end 2014 driving about 20 minutes to work each way.  He has been busy and busier building restaurants and most of them in Austin.  He continues to live his vegan lifestyle.  He started a large garden in the backyard that produced wrong colored vegetables and an enormous pumpkin vine.   He recently added a composter and has high hopes for next year’s bounty. 

Rebecca continues to work at her library and encourages teens to read while hunting them down in class to get the overdue books back.  Her teaching classes are complete and her content test will be taken in January.  She had a brief boo-hoo while studying as it encompasses US History, World History, Texas History, Government, Economics and Psychology and wished she had done this studying twenty years ago when she was able to retain information.  Then she started thinking that if she had done this twenty years ago, she could almost retire.  This made her very sad so she stopped thinking all together.  She was also very sad when her gym closed but has taken to working out at school for free and alongside the high school football team.  Yes, that is uncomfortable for everyone.

Maizy is a junior and doing very well with both her high school classes and dual credit college classes.  She is working at a children’s clothing store and has learned to hate the general public while smiling.  That is a life lesson that will take her far!!  She is driving and incredibly independent.  She asked for a new stereo for her ten year old car for Christmas.  I replied that I would rather set money on fire. She replied that she now wanted a new stereo system AND for me to set money on fire.  Always one step ahead of us that girl.

Sophie has delved into the area of athletics this year.  She ran cross country and now takes the dog for a run on the weekend just because she feels like it. She is currently managing the basketball team at school and is up early or at school late every day.  She likes being busy – alright, we like her being busy.  She is still kind, she still likes us and she still acts like she knows us in public.  We consider ourselves very fortunate.

Ahh, William.  Never a dull moment with the boy around, that is for sure.  He is busy, he is trying hard at school and he is growing like crazy.  Someone please tell me, what is that smell preteen boys give off?  It is not dumpster on a hot day; could it be battlefield? Brimstone?  Whatever it is, it will bring you to tears.  He loves to watch football and has a mind for football stats.  We wish it was multiplication tables, but he is a happy kid and makes us happy as well.

We hope that this Christmas season finds you happy, healthy and content.  We wish you a light dusting of snow, a stocking filled with surprises and at least two viewings of “Love Actually”.  We will be missing our relatives far away but are so grateful for the friends who step in as our family here.  May 2015 bring you joy, laughter and moments that take your breath away.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year – and we mean that most sincerely.