My life after the 15 minutes…

 I think one of the big misconceptions about me and Bubs when everything blew up on Reddit two years ago is that we are some sort of small-town Texas bumpkin couple who doesn't know our asses from a hole in the ground. While the actual town we grew up in is pretty small, there are midsize cities less than 15 minutes from us, and we're also between San Antonio to the south and Austin to the north. And if you want to extend that, the entire I-35 corridor from San Antonio to Dallas is really kind of one big city—which probably even extends on up into Oklahoma City. So I've been in and around decent-sized cities my entire life, and I never really thought I was all that much of a "country mouse." Well, all it took was one walk in downtown Tucson to completely shatter the idea that I'm not just some wide-eyed plough girl with $100 bills hanging out of her pocket, ready for all comers to tell me a sob story and make off with my money. Literally. For the previous few ...

Like pretty much any girl born in the greater Southern United States since the mid-1960s, I was born to be a Dolly Parton fan. I've never really considered myself a "super fan," but when she passed away earlier this week, it hit me that she's had a much bigger impact on my pop culture life than I ever really recognized. I don't typically follow major celebrity culture, and I don't often cry when a celebrity passes away. But when I heard on Tuesday that Dolly had died, I found myself crying for a few minutes. She certainly was an icon, but I loved so much about her. I've seen people on social media from both sides trying to claim that their side was the only side that could appreciate Dolly when she was alive. One side points to her charitable work and her support for things like COVID vaccine research; the other points to the fact that she was a devout Christian until the day she died. Then there are people saying that she didn't support this cause or ...

So life continues as a very boring but very content stay-at-home mom in the desert suburb of Tucson known as Vail. Truly, the most exciting thing that happens around here is that we have a rattlesnake (Bubs says snakes ) that loves to come visit us by hiding out behind a planter and our retaining wall. I'm sure it's the same happy girl, because I recognize her patterns, but Bubs says it's just a cool place for snakes to hang out. I've also learned something: I never thought I was afraid of snakes, but hearing that rattle is a whole other story. Though I am getting better. Bubs grabs them with these "snake tongs," moves them into a bucket, and takes them far away from our house into the middle of the nearby state trust land. He says snakes wouldn't travel that far just to come visit us. I still think it's the same one. So that was the most exciting thing that had happened to me until just now.  Today was one of those days where I just needed a kid break...

We're getting ready to wrap up our summer in Texas. We fly back home to Arizona on Saturday, and the kids start school the following week. Bubs has essentially been working from home while we've been here, but he needs to get back to the office and his lab. Abby and TJ absolutely love their lives in Arizona, so they're ready to go home. Ashley and I? No. We are most certainly not ready to leave the paradise where almost all of our family lives on the same block mere steps from each other.  Of course, Ashley is a wonderfully happy 15-month-old, so I may be projecting just a little. Fortunately for me, before I had time to become homesick, my mom presented all four siblings with perhaps the greatest gift she's ever given us. A studio-quality, wall-sized family portrait from our Florida trip. One tiny problem. My younger sister's underwear is clearly visible for the entire world to admire. And there are now five copies of this masterpiece. Now, as I've mentioned be...

 To open this blog up, I am going to let Bubs give his insight into the events of the past few days and then I'll give the reality of what happened to stop the fight between me and Jess.  Thank you Ms. Dani, it's an honor to step in and be able to open your blog. I suppose we are just preserving this for history since I saw your view count on the last blog (5? really? Don't you have some in the past that had 10k views? I mean not for me to say, but 5?) For Dani's readers, let me clarify something that I think may have come across in her past few blogs is that this vacation to Florida has been miserable. It hasn't at all. Everyone here is so used to a sisterly meltdown that we stay out of the way, we know it will come to an inevitable conclusion. I think whoever the husbands are that are involved feel a need to try and help make peace but we know its a fruitless endeavor. Now there have been moments of course and Dani's mom and older sister Jenn were about at the...

Obviously, I'm on a blogging tear over the last couple of days. I wrote the first post in this little trilogy the day after we arrived in Florida, and I've discovered that if I'm sitting in front of my MacBook saying I'm "busy," I get at least a short break from the 19 people packed into two mid-sized beach condos. (We started with 17 and later gained one husband and one 16-year-old best friend from Texas.) Since I'm getting a people break, this one may be longer and meander more than my typical entry. Sorry! As I mentioned in Monday's blog, my younger sister Jess and I got into a fight on the drive here. It started because I apparently did a "bad job" filming a video of her dancing in front of a gas station sign. She was so mean about it, saying things like, "I can NEVER count on you to do anything cute for me," and "I should have just asked Maddie, but how was I supposed to know you'd be this bad?" (Maddie being our ...

I guess, like all of my blog posts, this one needs a bit of a prelude. Like most married couples, Bubs and I sleep together. I guess that shouldn't come as a shock, but explaining how we sleep together will make the rest of this blog make a lot more sense. Our first night where we quite literally slept next to each other was in 8th grade. We went to a party with my older sister where some high school boys thought it would be hilarious to get me very drunk. Bubs got creeped out by them, so he quite literally carried me to a little park near his house, deposited me there, ran home, grabbed quilts and comforters, and built us a little bed so I could sleep it off. Waking up next to him was magical. It's one of those memories that, even now, feels almost frozen in time. I remember thinking that morning that this was something I wanted to do forever. Now we sleep very differently. If I had my way, we would sleep like a pair of intertwined and motionless spiders. I love cuddling with...

So another long break from blogging. For sure, my shoulder has been the main culprit, as for the longest time I couldn't really type effectively. I tried voice-to-text blogging a couple of times, but if you thought my writing was scatterbrained and chaotic, you should have seen me trying to speak a blog. Woo-wee. So how are things? Well, the really good news is that I am almost certainly not going to require surgery on my shoulder. When I was home, I did physical therapy and it actually started to feel so much better. I was even able to go back to work at the gym (with the strict prohibition that I have to get in much better shape before I'm allowed to demonstrate skills). We also needed to make plans for the summer.  This is one of those moments where I still can't quite believe how lucky I am to have married who I did. Bubs' gift to me and the kids this summer was sending us to Texas for the majority of the kids' break. At our district in Arizona, we're on a m...

I didn’t even look at my previous blog date before starting this one. My best guess is that I haven’t blogged in well over two months. As always, I never want to leave the punchline until the end of the blog. I’m not a cliffhanger girl at all. Everything is good…really good actually…well, save for a potentially year-changing injury. Ok maybe I do enjoy the occasional cliffhanger from time to time. So here’s what we’ve had going on in the past few months— We had a baby celebrate her first birthday. My gorgeous little ginger baby turned 1 on April 14th. I got myself a part-time job. I had a husband watching the news with extreme jealousy that his friends were flying a real combat mission on the actual aircraft he’s been flying for the last 10-ish years. Numbers 2 and 3 are very much related. So as you all know, we are apparently in a war (I guess? I can't keep up with the whiplash of what is or isn't happening) with Iran. I have a husband who, despite having a wife who wi...

One of the things I’ve tried very hard to do with these blogs is make them feel light and “mom-like,” mostly because that’s how I want to remember things. And I do go back and read them often. But the reality is, things aren’t always great. And the last month has been a prime example of that. Through the mountain of medical tests, psychiatrists, obstetricians, therapists, etc. that came as a result of the Mexico incident — followed shortly by getting pregnant — one of the things that came out is that I have bipolar disorder. I remember the psychiatrist very clearly saying, “What you’ve told me indicates to me you suffer from bipolar disorder.” “Suffer” feels like a strong word, because most of the time I am happy. I’m outgoing, I love being around people, and I really do think I live a pretty great life. But at the same time, there have been brief periods where I’ve fallen into deep depressions that all but immobilize me. And my way of coming out of those has always been a pretty inten...

As I sit down to write this blog, I’ve realized there’s been an overarching trend in my last few entries… I am an incredible brat. This is true when I read each blog individually. It’s also true when I zoom out and read the overall narrative of my writing since we first blew up on Reddit. I met an amazing guy when I was the ripe age of thirteen, and I’ve spent nearly every day since being an absolute pain in the ass. I’m thirty-four now. I write a lot of these blogs almost like diary entries. I try to make them entertaining for the people who read them, but a big part of why I write is to have a record of this season of our lives. Sometimes that season is big and exciting and a lot of people can sympathize or empathize with me. Other times I come across as a bratty, boring housewife who doesn’t appreciate how good she has it. After this long preamble, this blog will be the latter. One of the things that has always driven me crazy about my husband is how he can have 30,000 irons in the ...

As most of you know, we moved from our childhood hometown in Texas to Tucson, Arizona last year. For the most part, it’s starting to feel like home—and while I had my reservations at first, I’m actually starting to like it here. One of the things I’ve come to appreciate most is how quiet it is. Tucson is a very “normal” mid-sized American city of about a million people. We have all the same stores, all the same chain restaurants, mixed with a lot of local flair inspired by the Native American and Hispanic cultures that were here long before Tucson became a genuine Old West railroad town. (The O.K. Corral—the site of the most famous shootout—is less than an hour from our house in Tombstone.) That was until this week. Earlier this week, Today Show host Savannah Guthrie’s mother was reportedly kidnapped from her home on the north side of town. I tend to personalize stories like this anyway, but Savannah Guthrie has been something of a personal hero of mine since her reporting on the ...