We had been married about two years.

We had been given “Free Meal” certificates to a local Mexican restaurant.

We had two.

Not “Buy One Get One Free” but “Free Meal.”

But there was fine print:

“Limit one per table.”

After the server told us this, my husband piped up,

“What if we sit at different tables?”

Oh yes he did.

And yes we did.

Separate tables for the duration of our meals.

This was the night I realized I may very well be married to the CHEAPEST man alive, and it is the night he learned that cheapness doesn’t get you laid.

In fact all it really gets you is a lividly pissed off wife.

And who wants one of those?

***UPDATED 2/28/2008***

Did you get here from StumbleUpon? Yes? Well hey, how are you? If you’re thinking I’m some sort of two bit whore you’d be sorely mistaken. This was written with sarcasm, unfortunately first time readers (especially you men) who don’t know that I regularly employ sarcasm and don’t know that I joke on a regular (healthy) basis with my husband don’t see this as the funny little story it was meant to be. I adore my husbandand he adores me no matter how much money is or isn’t spent. We ordered, received and ate our food from different tables, then moved and sat with each other for dessert and never went back to the restaurant mentioned. So there is no need to call me a floozy, whore, tramp or bitch. Thank you very much. xoxo-Casey

*****

“Well, I guess I’ll see you in Chicago in March then I’m off to Cedar Rapids for work and then we’ll be in Nepal in April.”

“Excuse me, mom? DID YOU JUST SAY NEPAL? As in next to India, Nepal?”

“Yes, yes I did.”

My mom is going to Nepal. In April. Dalai Lama, Nepal. She just dropped it into casual conversation. Like it’s normal to be going to Nepal. Little does she know you can’t casually drop Nepal into a conversation that started with talk of Illinois and Iowa. There’s a rule about it. Somewhere. I know there is.

And apparently Tiny Grandma and Grandpa Poopsie are going go on a river rafting trip, they are going to fly around Everest (29, 035 foot EVEREST) and RIDE ELEPHANTS THROUGH THE JUNGLE.  Have you seen my mom? She’s called Tiny Grandma for a reason.

My grandparents, in their late 80’s and married for just about sixty years have taken to traveling far and wide lately also. Two years ago it was the Great Wall (as in China). Last year it was New Zealand. In April they’ll cruise around the TIP OF SOUTH AMERICA and in the fall they’ll be cruising to Russia. RUSSIA. At eighty years old. I can only imagine that my grandpa is his travel agent’s favorite client.

In the meantime, it’s Louisville, Chicago, San Francisco and Naples for me this year. (Oh, and by Naples I mean Naples, Utah. Not Italy.)

Before I got married depression involved a lot of heavy drinking and recreational drug use.

After I got married it involved a lot of sleeping away my life and refusing to eat or leave the house.

When the moosh was little, depression involved endless amounts of crying and screaming into pillows to drown out the sound of her crying.

Now that the moosh is older, and wise to my every emotion, depression is a whole new experience.  It feels as though I am relentlessly treading water, and if I stop to rest for even a moment, I go under. Fast.

Every phase of my life has had its own scapegoats for depression. From substance abuse, to a starting over a whole new lifestyle, to a horrendous pregnancy, to having a new baby and now having a husband that is gone 80% of the time and a family that is thousands of miles away.

It has become difficult to distinguish any real feelings any more. Am I depressed? Or just feeling sorry for myself? I honestly don’t know. I keep myself so busy that if I stop for even a minute, I start to drown quickly. Thankfully I am blessed to be surrounded by dozens of other girls in very much the same situation, dozens of distractions to keep me busy. But I’m afraid to slow down, afraid to stop.

Afraid of what will happen if I do.

Because if it is what I fear, I don’t know what I’ll do.

In all my kicking and fighting to start a cooking blog, I lost.

Come read me channel my inner Paula Deen to turn five (FIVE!) sticks of butter into Cinnamon Rolls over at Linoleum Dynamite.

My sister knew from a very young age that she wanted to be a vet.

She has worked at the same animal hospital for over ten years.

I knew from a very young age that I wanted to be a gardener, in the symphony, a physical therapist, a dance therapist, an artist,  a ballerina, a writer, a Porche driver, a professional soccer player, a speed skater and beauty queen.

Here I am at 25, a stay at home mom with an idle degree in graphic design. (While the SAHM title is honorable, it’s not exactly rocket science, OOH! Astronaut! I could be an astronaut!)
Whoo! For dreams! goals! and ambitions!

I want to go back to school, scratch that, I will go back to school. And when I go back I’ll become a web designer, a pastry chef, a photographer, an ASL interpreter, and I’ll also get my nursing degree and a degree in social work all while going to medical school on the side. Maybe I’ll even hit law school when all that gets boring. Oh, and there’s all these other people who tell me I should be a writer. Both novels and children’s books.

Oy.

I have this little voice in the back of my head that says “By the time you finish any of those you’ll be so OLD. Besides, you’re a big fat quitter, so quit while you’re ahead.”

SHUT UP VOICE I SAY!

But it’s true, I want to be good at so many things but want to be good at them immediately. The only thing I feel like I’ve ever been good at immediately was baking. Now if everything else in my life could come that easy I sure would appreciate it.

Even little things like Dance Dance Revolution. Do you have any IDEA how frustrating it is to practice a song for over an hour only to have your HUSBAND BEAT YOUR HIGH SCORE ON HIS FIRST TRY?

C’mon universe, GIVE ME SOMETHING!

I so want to be something, to do something with my life. To have mad wicked skills at all sorts of stuff. Musically, athletically, academically, craftily. I’ll keep on trying, and in the mean time…

Will someone else tell please decide what I should be when I grow up?

How did you decide what you wanted to be when you grew up?

And when will I get really good at Guitar Hero?

I’m not proud to admit that I’m a jealous person.

I’m jealous of just about everyone in my life in one way or another. Even the people I don’t get along with all that much, because they are usually the ones who are pregnant, rich or have the abs of Hilary Swank.

In fact I’m jealous than no one else seems jealous of anyone else.

When I actually have the opportunity to sit down and read through blogs I usually come away feeling all down on myself because so and so can sing, so and so has an amazing house, so and so just got a new car, so and so is pregnant, so and so just met Steve Carell at a party, so and so is an amazing photographer, so and so is an amazing writer, so and so has the fashion sense of Jackie O., so and so lives in New York, so and so is married to a man that leaves her love notes and cleans the house, so and so looks like a million bucks straight out of bed.

*sigh*

Does this happen to anyone else?

I know we all don’t share everything in our little corner of the internet. I don’t because frankly it’s none of your business and also because I’ve found that by only keeping a memory of the good, the memories of the bad are able to fade a lot faster.

I’ve kept a journal since I was 12. Until I ended up in the psych ward three years ago I wrote about everything in it. Good and bad. Which meant when I went back to read over my past the hurt came bubbling to the surface like a noxious gas. While writing at the time was theraputic, it was poisonous to my future self.

I now keep what I call a “bitch journal”. There are no dates, no proper punctuation, no breaks between entries. I keep it tucked away, deep and hidden and pull it out when the therapeutic need to write hits me. I never read what I wrote. I never will. No one ever will. It will be burned when it is full. But it allows me a release that is sweeter than any chemical or edible substance.

But this brings me back to the seething jealously I have for everyone else’s lives. I know you have problems, a whole mess of them that I wouldn’t really want even if it did come with that fabulous thing you wrote about last week. If any of you want to be me when you grow up, just know it comes with a matching set of baggage that you’ll be left to carry around by yourself.

A lot.

Jealousy and my own (very numerous) insecurities are something I really need to get a grip on before the moosh gets any wiser. They are not traits I want to be passing on.

Aw, YOU GUYS.

(Well, you in particular.)

Rachel nominated me in the Blogger’s Choice Awards for…

Holy crap right?

And people have actually voted for me. (Okay, so I voted for myself, but it’s all in an effort of self love, this Eat, Pray, Love book has made me want to love me more.)

So I know you have to register to vote, but it’s really a painless registration and they don’t send you any garbage. (At least they haven’t sent me any, maybe I was blacklisted as a “self-voter”?)

I would just like to be able to get on the first page, not even first place, just, you know, towards to top. By all the winners.

JustMommies made up a list of the top 100 Mommy Blogs of 2007. Guess who made it to #27 and didn’t even try? I wouldn’t even know about it if it weren’t for the only Daddy Blogger who made it on the top Mommy Blogger list. (To share a list with women like this and this and this and this is an honor.)

Even thought I haven’t showered and the song “Barracuda” is pounding through my head as punishment for not quitting Guitar Hero in a reasonable amount of time last night, I’m happy. And thankful.

Now if you like me go vote for me.

Please?

I’ll even make good on a promise to you!

Remember the tongue promise?

Who’s the hottest mommy blogger NOW?

the moosh has learned the fine art of, well, doing what I do so well.

You know, knowing just how and when to ask a question so the answer generally results in a yes? It’s a fine skill I’ve honed in my almost seven years of marriage.

She has learned to ask me questions when I am incapable of hearing well or catching her full drift.

Like when I’m on the phone or in the shower for example. Or maybe blowdrying my hair.

She starts out with a simple enough request that I can understand.

“Mom? Can I wear my Barbie dress?”

I am able to answer yes without much further investigation.

“Mom? Can I wear these?”

Requests like these require me to poke my head out of the curtain, see that she is holding some form of plastic pink dress up shoe, and I answer “Yes, of course you may wear those.”

Next comes a question that is a little harder to understand as it is said outside the open bathroom door but I do know it involves the words “Can I” garble garble “dance” garble garble “Barbie” garble garble “princess”. With my killer maternal skills of deduction I assess that she would like to “Dance like Barbie the Island Princess” Easy enough right?

“Of course you can dance like Barbie the Island Princess!” I reply.

“Mom? Is Barbie friends with the animals?” she asks right outside the shower curtain.

“Yes, she is friends with the animals.”

Then again from outside the bathroom door I hear “princess” garble garble”animal” garble garble “white” garble garble “shelf”.

Again with my intuitive skills I deduce that she wants to “get the princess animals down from the white shelf.”

“Yes, the moosh.” I say, and that ends the conversation, she’s obviously off playing princess with all the magical animals of the forest.

Right?

That’s the obvious answer.

I HAVE BEEN FOOLED.

There were never any animals on any white shelf.

There were however WHITE ANIMAL crackers that the PRINCESS wanted to eat off the SHELF.

I came downstairs from my shower to Barbie kicked back on the couch picking every single white animal cracker out of the bag.

Ah, a sneaky one I have birthed from my loins.

Sneaky, sneaky.

*yawn*

Oh hi.

I’ve slept for five hours in the last 38.

Why?

BECAUSE I AM SO COMPLETELY CRAZY AWESOME THAT I STOOD IN LINE FOR FIVE HOURS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT TO GET A WII.

That’s right, I was the first fool one there. With books, snacks, a pillow, a camp chair a blanket and a my iPod. Boys showed up about 2:30 a.m. with nothing.

Boy were they bored.

I’m pretty sure they were pissed that a girl beat them to the front of the line. And I’m also pretty sure they were jealous of my luxurious spread that I had no intention of sharing.  By six a.m. there were about thirty people in line with only 16 Wiis to go around.

HA HA! FIRST, SUCKAS!

So yes, we have a Wii, Cody is currently ROCKING the Dance Dance Revolution. (I’m shocked and awed.) In an effort never seen before in our marriage we pooled every single cent from our Christmas money to buy one. (Cody just threw off his socks in an all out Wii Dance Dance Revolution SMACK DOWN. It is so on.)

I cook, I clean, I wax, I’m bendy, and I stand in line for hours to get a video game while my husband is at home sleeping snug as a bug in our warm little bed.

That’s me. Best wife ever.

Please be sure to remind my husband how good he has it, I think he forgets all the time sometimes.