My Week of Mushrooms-Rings-Shots-Audiobooks-Students-Kiddos-GarageSale

I’m tired. I’m so tired I’m walking around all hunched over and saying (in one of those old man/Hepburn voices) “Oh, my bones! My aching bones!” It’s very satisfying to do that.

We’ve just had the kind of two weeks where you go…uh…what the hell were we thinking?

MY WEEK:

Last weekend was mushroom hunting with my crazy-wonderful family. (see previous post)

I narrated all day on Monday, and then that night, Kealoha proposed and we had a few days of endorphin highs as we responded to lots of well wishes.

Tuesday my classes started and I had to remember how to teach a 3 ½ hour long class, and figure out how to teach two in a row without going brain dead and/or spontaneously combusting.

Wednesday, Kealoha and I took my son in for another shot of allergy testing. Get it? Another ‘shot’ at allergy testing. Oh, the puns. Anyway, we were just guessing what he was allergic to before since he only made it through half the testing, but this time, he made it through 14 scratches on his back and 24 shots in his arm. The only way we could get him to do it was heartbreaking and funny. He sat in Kealoha’s lap, one nurse held his arms, one nurse have him shots, I coached him, and we all said “Crap crap crap crap crap.” The only time I’ve let him ‘swear’. The stream of craps evolved to crappycrappycrappy pooppooppoop and then I threw in a chicken butt. My son looked at me and said “What?” and then we returned to the crap chanting. All five of us. Even the nurses. I think we all cried a little too. We now know that Louis is allergic to cats, dogs, mold, trees, grass, dust and possibly goat (but we didn’t test for goat).

Wednesday night and Thursday brought stressful conversations with my ex as he yelled at me for not immediately ‘getting rid of’ my three cats. I said that the doctors didn’t say we had to and they suggested our son get allergy shots to build up his resistance to, well, AIR. We’re still talking. I’m taking my daughter to the allergist in two weeks and I’m doing more research on this.

Thursday and Friday brought more narrating and driving an hour to Grand Haven and just being exhausted and bloated and not able to exercise. Thursday evening and Friday evening, we prepared for the Rapturous Garage Sale.

Saturday: Rapturous Garage Sale and hence why I’m so tired. (I’ll blog about this one separately.)

Sunday, I took care of kiddos, we cleaned the house, I prepped for 7 hours of teaching on Tuesday, read through the next audiobook script, finally got a workout in, made shrimp with lemon risotto, and fell asleep watching “The Tourist”. I’m not sure if that says something about how tired I was or the movie itself.

Oh, yeah. And I gave up wheat last week.

Yeah. One crazy week. This week will be about as intense. Kealoha and I are checking out a wedding venue, I’m teaching and narrating…blah blah blah. I see the light though. It’s in two weeks when I’m done narrating, and in five weeks when I get an actual vacation from everything. I am counting the minutes.

Okay. I’m not really counting the minutes because I’m too brain-fried for math. But I am counting the days. Sort of. It’s something like 42.

(pause) (pause)

It just dawned on me what “42” is. Dammit if Douglas Adams wasn’t right. It IS the answer to everything!

That's Right. He Put A Ring On It.

Kealoha and I are getting married! Woohooo! That’s right. We’re going to get hitched. I’m going to be his ball and chain. I’m going to wear curlers and a bad robe and fuzzy slippers and he’s going to mow the lawn wearing tall brown socks and his boxers. It’s so romantic, I can barely even talk about it.  

Honestly, Kealoha is a dream come true. For real. A year and a half ago, I wrote a Letter to the Universe stating the things I was looking for in a partner. If I can find it, I’ll re-post it. The letter is hokey, sentimental, and filled with longing. It was a wish made…and somehow it’s been granted. Kealoha is, I think, my missing piece. He makes all the clichés feel real.

I could go on and on, but instead I’ll tell about looking for the ring. We’ve been talking about getting married for a while. It’s one of the reasons he moved in. We wanted to make sure that we ‘fit’. Both in terms of our lifestyles, but also with being a family.  Maybe he’d find dating a woman with kids overwhelming. Maybe I’d be annoyed with him. Maybe we’d hate each other. Maybe the kids would hate him. The opposite proved to be true. It was all easy. And I still haven’t gotten annoyed with him. So...we decided we were ready to get married. We both want it. We want the party and the symbolic gesture of joining our lives. And Kealoha said he wanted me to have a ring.

The problem was…what sort of ring? Originally, I told Kealoha to look for something and that it didn’t matter. I just said “something not traditional”. I had no idea how many rings were out there. We were sitting on the couch and he mentioned that he wasn’t sure what to do and he was a little overwhelmed, so I grabbed his iPad and said “Let me look” and started my online search for a ring.

There’s like a million things that pop up when you search for a ring. I knew I didn’t want the diamond solitaire. Diamonds to me are more about money than a commitment. Plus, I never know when a diamond is real or not. And they get caught on everything and snag and Kealoha and I decided we wanted to wear just wedding bands…so I wanted a ring I could wear in my right hand once we were married. Something classy like and simple.

I immediately searched for RING and then ONE RING thinking that’d simplify it. This is what popped up with ONE RING.

I pointed to it and said: “This is the ring I want. Can you get on that please?”

Kealoha: “You want me to give you My Precious?”

Me: “Yes. Now.”

Kealoha shrugged and said: “Okay, let me just journey to Mordor first.”

I thought that might take a while so I changed my search. I wanted either an opal or a moon ring. The moon rings, though, were a little weird. And I’m not like a Wiccan or Renaissance woman.

I searched dozens of pages, ring after ring after ring. They were just bad. Gaudy, too big, too small, too many stones. I just wanted something simple and elegant. Something that didn’t suck.

I typed in RING THAT DOESN’T SUCK and got a Facebook page called “Just because I got a tongue ring doesn’t mean I suck dick”. I asked Kealoha if we should join that page. I don’t think he answered me.

Then I gave in and checked Tiffany’s and then Jarrods and then Zales. Muther humper! I was giving in to The Man! I did try to go a non-traditional route though.

And then I found it. As soon as it popped up on screen, I knew it was right. Simple, elegant, I can wear it on my other hand and it’s an opal which reminds me of the moon and the sea and the stars.

Yes I’m getting poetic, but you’ve got to cut me some slack.

Kealoha ordered it for me. We waited….and waited…and went mushroom hunting…and last night he gave me the ring and told me that he loved me and told the kids that he loved them and asked if I would marry him. I said No. That was mean. I shouldn’t have done that. Then I said “Yes”. I keep saying yes. Don’t ask to borrow money from me right now because I’d probably say yes to that too.

The short story is…Kealoha makes me happy. Knowing him, loving him, all that stuff has been incredibly easy. I thought love would be hard work and a fight. I never imagined it could be so effortless.

And that’s truly a wonderful thing. No joke.