Author Archives: midlifenatalie

Today, as I was packing up my house to move, I came across some candy in my pantry.  It was in the bowl where I keep chocolate chips, chopped nuts, and various other cookie/sweet making ingredients.  These candies were not there to be used to make sweets though.  I was saving them.  You see, I got those candies in 2008 when I visited France.  If you’ve read my story, you know that I was madly in love with a friend who lived in France.  My husband and I had gone to visit her and her husband, and while we were there, her husband gave me these candies.  He remembered her saying that I had loved them when she sent them to me in a care package once so he thought he’d be sweet and buy some for me again.  Of course, I felt terribly guilty because I was having an affair with his wife.  At the end of the week long visit, I brought the candy back to Turkey with me, and then my friend and I broke off the affair and went our separate ways.  I grieved the loss of the friendship and dealt with the shame of cheating on my husband.  When we moved back to the states and through my divorce, I carried those candies with me.  They became a sacred thing to me, and I couldn’t bear to eat them very often.  Every once in a while I’d allow myself to have one as a memory trigger.  Even though my friend’s husband had technically been the one to buy them for me, those candies reminded me of her. Eating one every once in a while was a way to keep the idea of her alive.  Eventually, I was down to my last three candies and I stopped eating them.  Running out of them was not an option…that meant that it was over somehow.  I couldn’t even fathom our story being over.  Today, when I saw those last three chocolates, I smiled at myself.  I hadn’t even remembered those chocolates being in my pantry.  I took a picture of them and texted it to Candied Jansen because I knew it was a good story to tell.  And then, I threw those last three chocolates in the trash.  My story with my friend has long been over, and by throwing them out, it was like I had written in all caps, THE END.

It was a great story and one that I will always remember fondly, BUT I’m currently in the middle of another story.  One that has me moving in with Candied Jansen in less than a week!  This one comes with rings and adventures and forever.  This is so much better!!

Candied Jansen went out of town for a few days this past week.  While she was gone, we signed our lease via email, and dealt with a couple of other things that needed our attention.  We texted back and forth several times a day and connected with a phone call once during her trip.  I guess what they say about absence making the heart grow fonder is true!  We were both feeling all the feels.  She sent me this text which summed it up perfectly.

“I love that you and I aren’t complicated!  I love that we are just in love…and that everything else is just things to be worked out.”

It was exactly what I’d been feeling.  The final stages of living apart are here, and the appreciation for her and her commitment to me just grows daily.  I can’t imagine being in this place with anyone else.

I had the hardest time going to sleep last night.  Because I was up so late, I ended up needing a nap today.  During my nap, I had some of the strangest dreams!  The strangest by far was about a friend of mine from Turkey.  Let me set the stage…I haven’t talked to her since I came back to the states 7 years ago.  I can see her Facebook page and I hear through the grapevine about what’s going on in her life.  Recently I heard that she’d had her third child.  This is where the dream starts…

She was coming for a visit.  I hadn’t seen her or talked to her in so long so I was so surprised that she was even interested in visiting me.  When she showed up, she had her baby with her.  She excused herself to use the restroom and grabbed a small tupperware container that had 3 pickle slices in it from her bag.  She said she needed to pee in that container.  I was a little confused, but she continued to explain her reason to me.  She needed to pee on those pickles and then eat them.  Doing that would help her breast milk develop the immunities it needed for her baby.  In my dream, I had vaguely heard of others doing this, but I was surprised that my friend was one of those who did.  Then she asked if I would pee in a cup so she could dip a rag in it and use it to wipe her baby’s face.  Apparently this built up the baby’s immunity against anything I might have wrong with me.  I remember thinking it was so strange to let her wipe my urine on her baby, but I went along with it.

This is when I woke up.  Despite the house and the other random family members present in the dream not being my actual house or anyone I actually know, the dream felt so real.  I remember being in that half awake, half asleep state and wondering if it was real.  When I was finally coherent enough to realize it was a dream, I had to look around my room and remind myself where I was and about my actual life.  It was the strangest feeling!

If anyone wants to interpret this dream, go for it!  I can’t find any meaning in it at all!  So weird!!

Now that I am moving, I am forcing/encouraging my oldest daughter to move as well.  She is moving to an apartment and being a grown-up!  She has dealt with her own stress over it all.  Looking for a place she can afford was a huge deal.  Also, setting up electricity and renter’s insurance mostly on her own helped her to see what responsibility looks like.  I hated that I was pushing her out of the nest, but I honestly thought if I didn’t push, she wouldn’t ever leave.  She had this idea that she could live on her own, but mostly just played house at my place.  She pays a weekly sum to me for her car insurance and cell phone, but other than that, she pretty much lives on my dime.  My food, my electricity, my house.  I don’t really mind it.  It’s nice to have someone else besides me living here full time, but she’s 22.  And now that I’m moving in with Candied Jansen, she needs to experience life out from under my wing.  She is excited and nervous and all those things that I remember being when I first moved away from home.  I am excited for her.

The best part is hearing about how she wants to fix her apartment up.  I just smile because there really isn’t money to fix it up.  She’ll have hand me down furniture, dishes, and linens.  She did get quite a few kitchen appliances and other kitchenware for Christmas and her birthday from relatives who knew the plan for her to move into her own place this summer so she will have some new stuff thrown in.  I’m glad.  Today we were talking about the first house I shared with her father.  I was trying to offer some perspective.  It was a little house…2 bedroom, 1 bathroom.  It had a living area, a dining room, and a kitchen as well.  I don’t know how many square feet it was, but I bet it wasn’t more than 1000.  The kitchen had cabinets along one wall.  The refrigerator and stove were on the opposite wall along with the hot water heater.  Yep, right in the corner for all to see.  The washing machine was also in the kitchen.  The dryer was around the corner in the dining room.  I know…fancy!!  The bathroom was tiny and had absolutely no storage.  A single sink stuck out of the wall.  I stuck velcro around it and hung a piece of fabric as a skirt so I could hide stuff underneath.  She just laughed and said her apartment was so much better than that!  I know!  Even with hand me down stuff, her first place will be nicer than mine.

And so it goes…

Growing up, I moved every few years.  Between birth and graduating high school, I lived in 8 different houses in 5 different cities.  In college, I lived in a dorm, and two different apartments during my 4 years there.  After getting married, I moved 6 times in 10 years.  The longest I ever stayed in one place was the apartment we lived in overseas…a whopping 6 years and 8 months.  Since coming back to the states in 2008, I’ve moved 3 times.  Moving…it’s what I do.

Candied Jansen and I are in the process of house hunting.  After almost a year and a half of dating, we are ready to combine our homes, but moving isn’t coming easy this time.  We’ve looked at so many places, but none have worked out for us.  The first house we acted on was technically a 3 bedroom house, but they listed it as a 4 bedroom house.  We were willing to make do because it had a pool in the backyard.  When the landlord came back with a ridiculous amount of money per pet for a pet deposit, we decided it wasn’t worth it.  The next house was almost perfect.  It had enough room on the inside and a huge yard with a pool outside.  The only issue was that it was for sale and not for rent.  We knew that we would be moving again when my kids got out of school, so we planned to rent for the next two years.  We decided to splurge and made an offer on the house for sale, and it was accepted!  We were so excited!!  During the inspection report, our excitement quickly turned to disappointment because the house was full of mold.  The roof also needed replacing as well.  We decided it was a sign that we weren’t supposed to buy a house right now.  The next several houses we looked at had issues.  In one, smokers were living there and it smelled horrible.  Another was great, but it wasn’t really centrally located.  Finally, we found a house that would do.  It was kind of a blah house, but it was big enough and centrally located.  We put an application in and then waited.  The realtor seemed sure, but she was horrible about getting back to us.  Every communication with her was initiated by Candied Jansen.  We had no idea what was going on.  She said it was ours, but we had questions.  When the realtor did respond to text messages or emails, her responses were vague.  We kept looking at houses and found another one we liked.  It reeked of dogs even though the carpets had been cleaned.  Finally, we found another house that seemed perfect for us.  There was plenty of room and it just felt right.  The only downside was the small backyard, but it would only be a two year house so we could deal with it.  We applied and got word that it was ours if we wanted it.  But wait…there is a teeny, tiny issue.  The owner is going through a divorce.  She wants to give us a two year lease, but she is concerned that when her divorce is final, she will be forced to sell the house since she and her husband own it together.  She is currently waiting on a call back from her lawyer about the legality of a two year lease.  And so we wait.  And now we have an appointment this afternoon to see another house.

When I told my mom that I was planning to sell my house and that Candied Jansen and I were moving in together, she told me that she was going to pray that it didn’t work out.  I wasn’t surprised.  I don’t blame my mom for my house hunting woes though.  I am so sure of Candied Jansen that I refuse to give my mom that power.  I know the right house will come along.  I just have to be patient and keep my frustrations in check.  I look forward to sharing a home with the love of my life!  It will happen!

Candied Jansen and I are going to Turkey.  The trip is over a year away, but it is actually happening.  She put a nonrefundable deposit down on it this week.  I’ve started three different blog posts with my thoughts and feelings about the trip, but I can’t seem to make any of them work.  My thoughts are too jumbled to make sense.  I decided that I would just copy and paste all three starts here and see if I could come up with an ending that would tie the three together.

Attempt #1

In the midst of all of my struggles in January, the opportunity to visit Turkey presented itself. I was already so overwhelmed with the idea of preparing my students for a test that seems so out of their league and the prospect of school work for myself that I had trouble with what emotion to feel when it came to the Turkey trip. When Candied Jansen mentioned the possibility of a trip to Turkey in 2016, my first thought was WOW! I looked over the places on the itinerary and was happy to see familiar sights as well as some places I hadn’t ever seen. When I looked at the dates for the trip, my heart sank. It was during a relatively important week in the school year. I didn’t think there was any way I would be able to take time off to go. I told her that while I would love to go to Turkey with her, I didn’t think I’d be able to get the time off. She encouraged me to talk to my principal to see what she said about it. A week or so later, I finally felt like I could ask her and not cry about the inevitable “NO” I was sure to hear. But she didn’t say no. She didn’t say yes, either. She wanted to think about it. She said she thought it sounded like a fabulous opportunity and wanted so badly to say yes, but as my principal she needed to think it through first.

Attempt #2

Candied Jansen and I are planning a trip to Turkey in 2016. The itinerary is set for us, but just thinking about it makes me nostalgic for the things I love about that country. I love walking everywhere you need to go and taking public transportation to get you to the further out places. I love shopping in open air markets for everything from clothes and towels to fruits and vegetables to random plastic items. I love buying simits from street vendors or from pasthanes.  I love visiting small towns and being invited into people’s homes for tea.  I love seeing really old history alongside modern amenities.  I love the tiny elevators and the huge jugs of cooking oil.  I get an ache in my chest/throat at the thought of getting to experience this place again.  I am so excited to share it with her as well.  

Attempt #3

Candied Jansen and I are going to get the opportunity to visit Turkey in 2016. The opportunity presented itself and we couldn’t pass it up! When I looked over the itinerary, I was excited to see some familiar places as well as a few places I never had the chance to visit. I honestly can’t wait to go.

The only bad thing about planning a trip a year in advance is all the time I have to think about the country and what I’ll miss not being able to see or do.

I won’t be able to go to the city I lived in while visiting Turkey. It is a good 6 plus hour bus ride from where we will be, and it really isn’t a tourist attraction. Part of me is sad about that, but the other part is somewhat relieved. If I visited my city, I’d only be able to walk around town and look at the places I once frequented. I have plenty of friends still in town, but I’m sure no one would be interested in a visit from me and my girlfriend. If I was alone, perhaps they would be okay with me stopping by, but I still wouldn’t feel comfortable doing so. These people are all faithful Southern Baptists and divorcing my husband and coming out was a sin in their eyes. Nobody would be rude or even claim that my sin is worse than any they are/have committed, but I know I would hear about repentance and all. I just don’t feel comfortable doing that.

I wouldn’t be able to visit Cappadocia. It is even further from where we will be tourists for the week.  The underground cities and unique landscape made it one of my favorite places to go.  One of these days, I hope to be able to go back there.  

All of these posts have me thinking.  I guess it’s true what they say.  You can never go back.  I know things will never be the same for me as far as Turkey goes.  That’s where the lump in my throat comes in, but I was the one who made that happen.  I don’t regret the decisions I made and am very happy with my life.  So I’m excited that I get to return to Turkey for a visit.  I’m also glad that I have no expectations of Turkey being the same place for me as it was in 2008 when I left.

I was reading a eulogy the other day about a woman I didn’t know. After the eulogy there were many nice comments from people who did know her. I noticed people talking about how kind she was and how she didn’t have any enemies. They said she was generous and loving and would be missed. By just reading the comments, I felt like this woman must have been a saint. She seemed perfect. Nobody talked about any of her faults, which I’m sure she had, but it wasn’t the time or place to share those. This was a celebration of the good in her life.

I also watched the movie The Fault In Our Stars over the weekend.  Spoiler Alert…when Gus does a mock up of his funeral because he wants to be there to experience it, Hazel and Isaac read their eulogies to him.  I love that they tell him how much he means to them while he is still alive.  What a special thing to hear.  To see the emotion behind how much he was loved and would be missed brought tears to my eyes.

I woke up this morning thinking about that. About how we are quick to speak well of the dead. About how 15 years after she died, I wrote a post about my Aunt Barbara and how much she meant to me and many others. I feel the need to do better. To do the living justice.

And that brings me to Candied Jansen. Of course I’ll start with her. She is, after all, one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met. So many things make her amazing, but her thoughtfulness and generosity astound me.  I’ve truly never known someone so perfect at gift giving and thoughtful gestures as she is.  For Valentine’s Day, she gave me a necklace and ring that hold special significance.  I love them.  But, while they were such sweet gifts, what she gave me next blew me away.  She knew I was stressed about the state test we give to the 4th graders at school every spring.  She saw me worry over their chances of passing.  She saw me struggle with the whole idea of continuing a career in education.  So she got this for me.

Personalized M&Ms in my school colors, maroon and white.  Then, because you can’t add print to the maroon ones, she picked a second color, purple, to go with them.  Purple is one of the colors of the college where our school campus is located.  Amazing!  To think about adding a color with significance…wow!  When I brought them to school to show the other teachers, I had several say they needed to find a girlfriend!  I told them that not all girlfriends were created equal!  I’d had a few and Candied Jansen far outshines them all!

And then yesterday…once again…I was blown away by her thoughtfulness.  We are planning a trip for Spring Break.  My youngest two kids will be going with us, but my oldest two will be staying at home.  They are adults and have responsibilities and would prefer to stay home.  While going over some of the budget plans for the week, Candied Jansen told me that she had a Spring Break Envelope for each kid staying here.  She’d included movie passes, concession stand gift cards, gas cards, money for a dinner out as well as a couple of coupons to some local eateries.  What??  For my kids??  I had only planned to make sure there was a little food in the house so they didn’t starve, but she just gave them their own mini spring break fun pack!  Such a wonderful idea!  So perfectly perfect!

You know, I’ve never been one to compare myself to my girlfriends .  I’ve never thought I was better than them or that they were better than me.  Until now.  She is so much better than me!  I can’t get over how lucky I am!

And so I say this about Candied Jansen…

When Candied Jansen and I first started our email relationship, I admired her words.  I assumed she was being honest and I loved that she just told it like it was.  I loved that she was not afraid to type until she felt like she’d said enough.  Those were some lengthy emails!  After a couple of weeks of long emails back and forth, we ended up just being Facebook friends.  I saw her stuff on occasion and she saw mine.  Then on January 25, 2014, she did what she is so good at doing.  She reached out and told me exactly what she thought about me, and those thoughts culminated with her asking me to dinner.  The very first time I met her in person, she flirted with a couple at the bar, and they ate it up.  Our waiter came back to our table over and over, more times than necessary, because he was so enamored with her.  I sat back and observed.  I loved watching her be her.  She was so good at it.  So natural! Over the days and weeks that I spent falling in love with her, I came to know that she was my perfect match. The qualities she exhibited were so important to me.   She is kind and loving and good.  She is constantly thinking about how she can serve others in some form or fashion.  She loves to shake her ass on the dance floor and watch movies back to back.  She is friendly and flirty and rarely meets a stranger.  She is an extroverted introvert who greets waiters by name and draws people to her.  When I leave her presence, I feel refreshed and hopeful.  I know there are a few people who aren’t big fans of hers, but I believe it is only because they messed up and now they know what they’re missing!  I love her.  I am so thankful for her.  I hope to be able to show her how special she is and how much she means to me for the rest of my life!

The other day I saw a picture of my Aunt Barbara on my cousin’s Facebook page.  The picture was one I hadn’t seen before, and I smiled at the memories of her that came flooding over me.

The first thing I think about when I think of Aunt Barbara is how big she was.  As a child, I truly thought she was the fattest person I had ever seen in real life, and I was somewhat in awe of that fact.  In the 30 plus years I knew her, I never once remember her wearing anything but dresses.  She bought yards of fabric a couple of times a year and had all her dresses made in the same basic pattern.  I can remember her breasts being so large and prominent that my infant cousins, her grandchildren, laid on them like they were a shelf.  She waddled when she walked and always sat down immediately after entering the room.  My mom couldn’t understand how a woman could let herself get that big and not do something about it.  Because of the way my mom and a few other relatives talked about my Aunt Barbara’s size, I understood fat to be wrong.  And because her weight was so appalling, she must be the fattest person alive.  These are the thoughts that worried me anytime she was around.

Even though I was trained to believe fat was wrong, I couldn’t help but love my aunt.  She had the most infectious laugh I had ever heard.  She would get to laughing so hard that no sound would come out.  And there was something funny about everything!  She was also an amazing cook.  She used recipes that called for ingredients by the pound and cooked and shared food with everyone.  Her roux was second to none and her kitchen was a sight to behold.  She always sat at the kitchen table to do all mixing, chopping, and fixing.  She would get it all prepared for cooking while she sat and visited with the endless array of guests coming and going in her home.  I enjoyed sitting back and watching the show!  I also loved tasting the food!  The amount of cheese she added to dishes was almost sinful.

We were a regular church-going family and my uncle and aunt didn’t attend church.  I remember visiting their house and seeing a wooden sign hanging in the kitchen that had the word “shit” in it.  I can’t remember what the rest of the sign said because I always fixated on that one word.  It was a dirty, forbidden word in my house so to see it so prominently displayed for all to see was always so shocking!  I would venture into the kitchen just to be able to glance at that sign.  Scandalous!

Aunt Barbara was also one of the nicest people I had ever known.  I honestly can’t remember her saying anything negative about anyone.  Not only did she talk people up behind their backs, she was always so complimentary of everyone to their faces.  She told me I had a cute figure and great hair every time she saw me, and I heard her give appropriate compliments to others in the family as well.  I loved that I knew she talked about me just as positively when I wasn’t within ear shot as when I was.

My aunt loved to play Bridge.  She had her regular bridge club and was very faithful to attend. I was always quite intrigued because I hadn’t ever even heard of bridge and always wondered what secrets the bridge club knew.  While I never did learn to play bridge with my aunt, she did teach me several other card games and how to shuffle using a bridge method.

The picture my cousin shared on Facebook was taken during a Mardi Gras celebration where I’m sure my aunt was the life of the party like always!  My Aunt Barbara died on Christmas Day in 1999.  Seeing her happy smile again after so many years made my day!

Candied Jansen is heading up my budget for the year and asked me to save my receipts so we can assess where my money is being spent.  It has only been a month and a half so I don’t have results yet, but I do look forward to finding out where it all goes.  My amateur prediction is that I will find out that I have too many kids.  That and I like to eat.  But those are just my first thoughts.

On January 20, I bought a book on my kindle.  I bought another two on January 25 and one on January 29.  February 7, 8, 10, and 11 all also saw book purchases.  I spent a total of $40.65 on 8 books.  Maybe I should guess that my money is being spent on books, except before the January 20th purchase, it was 2 books in November, one in June, and one last January.  Not really something I did very often.  I’m currently itching to buy something else, but I’m not even looking at books so I don’t have any idea what I’d want to purchase.  I just know I’m in the mood to read and I now have a financial planner to answer to!  I will also add that I love that financial planner with all of my heart and love that I’m stopping to think before I make purchases.  Sometimes I think “who cares…I’m buying it” and sometimes I think “Careful, remember the budget”.

I’ve also purchases a few gifts.  $35 here and $7 there.  It adds up.

I paid the guy who mows my yard $100 because he’d come several times when I wasn’t home so he didn’t get paid.  When he came this past weekend, I asked him how much I owed him for past services, and he said $100.  I totally trust that he’s telling the truth, because he isn’t mowing regularly since it’s not prime grass growing season.  The fact that he is willing to mow when he sees that it needs it and then trusts that I’ll pay up the next time I see him even if that next time is actually 4 yard mowings later makes me think he is fairly honest.

I had toll violations from when Candied Jansen and I first started dating.  When I realized the fastest way to Candied Jansen’s house was over a tollroad, I immediately ordered a sticker, BUT I couldn’t handle not seeing the woman I was falling madly in love with immediately so I took several trips over the tollroad before my sticker showed up at my house.  The fact that they just sent me a bill for toll violations that occurred a year ago surprises me, but it is what it is.  There goes $70.

I could keep going, but I think I’ll quit now before I figure out that I can’t blame my money disappearing on my kids!  (Well, there is the one kid in college who happened to ask me for money on the day that I was at my wits end with my students so he got $75 out of me because he was smart enough to make it to college!  I’ll blame him!)

Candied Jansen is a cycler.  Every year she rides in the practice rides that prepare riders for the MS150, a 150 mile bike ride between Houston and Austin.  Last year, she actually participated in the MS150 as well, but this year her plan is to just do the practice rides for fun.

A couple of weeks ago, Candied Jansen was trying to decide if she wanted to continue to do the bike rides.  I wanted to encourage her so I offered to do the next day’s ride with her.  Part of me thought I was crazy for offering, but the other part of me was excited to try it.  She said the short ride was 18 miles long but that it was all flat terrain from what she was told.  I told her I wasn’t sure how many miles I could give her, but I would give it my best shot!  I went to her house and tried on biking apparel and tried out a couple of her extra bikes.  The next morning was cold and I was a little worried that I might not make it.  We got to the ride and went to the back of the pack.  I knew I would be slow and would be holding Candied Jansen back, but she was just excited to have me there with her.  We found out that the short ride was actually 23 miles long which didn’t sound much harder than 18 to me.  We started out and were pretty much in last place.  I didn’t care and actually enjoyed being out there.  There was a hill though and despite trying to make it up the hill, I could barely peddle fast enough to keep the bike upright so I had to get off and walk the bike up the hill.  No worries!  We came to a rest stop at about the 10 mile mark, and my crotch was hurting pretty bad!  I hobbled to the rest room, grabbed some gummy bears, and water, and we hopped back on the bikes.  The next part wasn’t too bad at first.  I started to get tired and the bike seat was more and more uncomfortable.  Then we came to another hill.  It wasn’t much and was probably more of a slight incline, but it was pretty tough for me.  I made it to the top of that one, but another hill/incline loomed ahead.  By this point, Candied Jansen was talking to me to try to keep my mind off of it, but I could barely talk.  I kind of wanted to cry.  And I knew I was done.  I looked at the speedometer to see how far I’d ridden and saw that we had come 18.6 miles.  Wait…I did the 18 miles I said I’d try when we first talked about it!  At that point, I didn’t care that I hadn’t made it the full 23 miles.  I did what I came to do!  

This was before we started.  I’m pretty sure I wasn’t smiling quite that big when we were done!  But I was proud of myself for at least trying it.

And I’m super excited for next week!  Next week I’ve volunteered to work one of the rest stops.  The rides get physically harder and longer over the weeks so I know I couldn’t do the actual rides, but I love that I can support Candied Jansen by helping out!