Tag! I'm It!

http://www.mamadweeb.com/ just tagged me in a super fun Q&A about Love and Marriage!
So without further ado, the fun little answers!

♥What are your middle names?
Marie and Gaylon

♥How long have you been together?
Since June 2001 when he FINALLY asked me out. ;)

♥ How long did you know each other before you started dating?
I met him when I was 13 and he'd just turned 15. He didn't ask me out until we were 18 and 19. I met him at the county fair. My friend's friend introduced me to a group of kids from her Church and he was among them. He doesn't remember this. ;) I later met him again in Sunday School. We'd been going to one Church for a year, since we'd moved to town, but we switched Churches and started going to the one my now-hubby attended. I admired alot of his qualities but didn't really think of him like THAT. He was just some guy. Then one wintery night when I was about 14 I brought a newborn cashmere goat to youth group to show it off. There was one guy I'd been watching and praying about because he had alot of the qualities I was looking for in a husband, but when I offered to let him hold the goat he got grossed out, said animals grossed him out, and he was acting like a showoff refusing to touch the kid like it was diseased or something. So that crossed him off my list loud and clear. There was only one other guy in whom I'd noticed the qualities that I was looking for... my now-hubby. I didn't have any *special* attraction to anyone there though before this point, just an observant interest in seeing if anyone matched up with my Perfect Man list. Like I said, only 2 guys seemed to have enough of those qualities to attract my notice and the one just snubbed my favorite animal in a most rude manner and therefore was transferred to my Perfect Jerk list. Lol! So I was walking around letting everyone hold the goat and there was shy future-hubby on the edge of the crowd watching the goat intently. I walked up to him and offered to let him hold it and his eyes lit up! He was I think 16 at the time. He took the goat and I showed him how to hold it. The goat was just a day old and only about 6 pounds. A tiny little baby goat it was. Well someone asked me a question and I got to chatting and then realized Mom was waiting in the car for me to bring back the goat so she could take it home to it's mother! Whoops! So I looked around to see who had the goat, and I didn't see it anywhere! I was like, "Where's my goat?!" and the youth leader pointed to the other end of the basement where future-hubby was standing and rocking the goat with an adoring look on his face, his cheek on the top of it's head, and the newborn kid was sound asleep in his arms!!!! Yeah I know, total Awwwww, right? And I fell head over heels crazy in love with him in that instant. I said to myself, "I'm gonna marry him!"

♥ Who made the first move?
I made him. Haha. I knew he was THE ONE when I saw him cuddling my goat but it was over 3 more years before he came to the same conclusion! :p It was the longest 3 years of my life, waiting and praying and lots more happened but if I got into all that, this post would take a week to write.

♥ Who asked who out?
He asked me. Lots more to this story but I could fill a book...

♥ How old are each of you?
I'm 26. He's a year and a half older than me.

♥ Did you go to the same school?
I was homeschooled and he was not. So no.

♥ Are you from the same home town?
I moved to his town just before my 13th birthday.

♥ Who is the smartest?
We are both smart in different ways.

♥ Who majored in what?
Neither of us went to college. He joined the Navy at 17 and I got a job while I waited for him to realize I was the one. Lol!

♥ Who is the most sensitive?
Sensitive could have alot of meanings. He's super sweet and compassionate for a guy! :) And me... I'm sensitive in the extreme. Like in both the good way and the bad way. I'm compassionate but I'm also easily hurt.

♥ Where do you eat out most as a couple?
Ummmm... We only go out on our anniversary really now that we have kids. We like Olive Garden and Outback Steakhouse for special occasions. With the kids though we go to McDonald's sometimes and occasionally IHOP.

♥ Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple?
We lived in Hawaii for the first 3 years of marriage, but were only actually there and together for less than half that. Due to deployments. :p One deployment his ship was in Florida so I flew out there to see him. I've never been out of the country.

♥ Who has the worst temper?
Both of us about different things.

♥ How many children do you want?
*I* want as many as God gives me. He however is more than content with the 2 we have. We shall see what the future holds.

♥ Who does the cooking?
I do. Except on rare occasion when he makes a concoction of Mac & Cheese and hotdogs when I'm sick or gone. Icky.

♥ Who is more social?
He would be content to live out life as a hermit in the woods speaking only with me and the kids. I am SUPER SHY in person but I love to interact on the internet and am quite social online, so I would have to say me. I would be so sad without online interaction.

♥ Who is the neat-freak?
I used to be. I would have to say each of us has our things we're obsessive about.

♥ Who is the most stubborn?
Oh man both of us have a stubborn streak a mile wide! But I'd say probably him... ;)

♥ Who wakes up earlier?
Him.

♥ Where was your first date?
The phone. He was home on leave when he asked me out. He was only home on leave 1 time that I recall between asking me out and marrying me. ;)

♥ Who has the bigger family?
Oddly enough they are the same. He has 2 siblings and I have a have 2 siblings.

♥ Do you get flowers often?
Yes. :) About once a month, sometimes more or less. But he brings me something chocolate every week and that's at least as good as flowers!

♥ How do you spend the holidays?
His fam has a reunion every Thanksgiving so we spend Thanksgiving with his family.
Christmas is a big deal with my fam so we spend it with them. Both our families live 6 hours drive from here.

♥ Who is more jealous?
Neither of us? He used to get jealous of time I spent with my internet friends and I get jealous of time he spends with his work friends.

♥ How long did it take to get serious?
Welll... He asked me out one night and I told him I'd think about it! Lol! Like I said, alot of story is missing but it's long. ;) Anyway, the next night I said yes, he asked if he could kiss me. I said yes to that too. I'd had guys try to kiss me before and I freaked out. It wasn't right. I couldn't give my first kiss away to someone I was not going to marry. When now-hubby asked me if he could kiss me, I'd been praying about him for 3 years and knew 100% without a doubt he was the one. So I said yes. And when we kissed I could have sworn I heard angels singing. It was perfect. It was serious from the get-go. It had been serious through the preceeding 3 years of fervent prayers. And 3 months later, September 11th, when we realized the country would be going to war and things could be shattered in an instant, he finally told me he loved me. I waited for him to tell me first but I loved him too. And after that, I have no idea how it happened but when we would talk on the phone we would always just talk like we were getting married. Then in February he called me up and said that he could get leave in May if I thought that would be a good time to tie the knot. Which I did of course. So my family went wild preparing a dream wedding in 3 months and I had my fairy-tale wedding. We went ring shopping together one day, he officially proposed, and the following day was the wedding. :D

♥ Who eats more?
We both eat alot. We like food. Food tastes yummy. Plus I'm a good cook, so that helps.

♥ What do you do for a living?
I chase my kids around all day. Hubby works in HVAC control systems now that he's out of the military.

♥ Who does the laundry?
ME. He's not allowed to touch it. He would dry in stains or wash socks with towels and jeans or something. *shudders* Yes I do have laundry OCD. Haha!

♥ Who’s better with the computer?
Him. I know a little bit about a few things that he doesn't know, but overall he knows more than I do.

♥ Who drives when you are together?
Him. I think it's kind of symbolic. Then there's the fact that I am intimidated by driving. ;)

♥ What is "your" song?
It being 3am right now I can't think of the name of it. It's the one by Brian Adams that is on the Kevin Costner Robin Hood movie.


Now to tag some people. Hmmm who shall my victims be? ;)
I pick.... Georgiann, Amy, and Cat!

Beginnings of Writing

This post is inspired by a post on MckMamma's blog which I had to comment on. Actually the following is for the most part excerpted from my comment. ;)

Well I heard about "blogging" some years ago and thought honestly, "Well how BORING! Who would read some stranger's online diary?!" But secretly the writer in me was intrigued.
When I was a little child, before I could write creatively, I was told constantly, "You are SO dramatic! You need to be a writer or actress. Find an outlet for all that creative energy!"
Then when I got older I began telling my little sister bedtime stories. We shared a room and the stories of princes and princesses and heroes and babies and love went on into the wee hours of the morning sometimes.
Then when my sister was too busy, tired, or just too old to care about my stories anymore, I tried to write them on paper. One day I asked my sister if she'd let me read her one and she let me, and she didn't like it. I was sooo embarrassed and took it really hard.
I decided I was a bad writer. I burned all my stories. Well actually I think I shredded some, in the interest of full disclosure. Not that that has any point whatsoever...
As a young teenager I had penpals. Over eighty of them. I wrote and wrote and wrote every night but there was something wrong. I would say the same things to different people in 100 different ways and it lost it's personal touch when I was too tired to try to think of the 82nd way to write down what I'd done today. I kept writing as long as I could, for over a year, and stopped replacing them when people stopped writing back. Finally there were none left and I was sad. Sad because they hadn't filled whatever void it was I was using them to try to fill. Sad because I must have let them down or they would have kept writing.
Here's the part in my life where I found my Knight in Shining Armor and we married when I was 19. I didn't do much writing. I knew nobody would ever read what I wrote, let alone enjoy it. I deleted or threw away everything I did write.
As a mom I have been on some message boards and occasionally in the telling of one of my latest mommy adventures I get told I should be a writer. Well I just smile with a tear in my eye when I read that because it's a sweet thought, but in practice who would really ever want to purposely search out and read anything I wrote? There is nothing special about me at all. Nothing whatsoever. I'm not a housekeeping dynamo. I'm not a supermom. I don't have the best behaved kids on the planet. I am not a chef. I am not a big executive with lots of money and ideas to make more. I've only got 2 kids so far, not half a dozen or more, and the two I do have are still just toddlers. I haven't travelled the world, adopted or fed orphans, or even gone to college. There is absolutely nothing about me that anyone would find interesting! I could name off a list of what I WANT, what I would LIKE to do and have and see. But nobody's going to read about someone who wants lots of kids adopted and biological but only has two so far, has lots of ideas but hasn't done anything, and wants to visit Australia but has never left the country. Let's face it, I'm as average plain-Jane as they come... In my own opinion at least. My kids think I have magical powers to manifest milk and cookies out of thin air, kiss away ouchies, and fix all manner of broken mangled abused toys.
About 2 months ago I stumbled upon the Raising Olives blog, and found MckMamma's through there.
That's the first I've ever had any interest in reading blogs. I didn't know they could be about anything and everything. I didn't want to know that they could shine with individual personalities and suck you in like a good novel. Because then I would be HOOKED. And once I got hooked on reading them, I knew I'd never be able to keep stuffing my inner writer down in the dark depths of past hurts and current insecurities.
And MckMamma's annoymous "Mck" nicknames inspired me to get over another of my hurdles- privacy.
So a couple months ago I started a private blog, and then about a month ago I started this public one, and I have not shut up since. And I read blogs every singe day as well and baby Stellan is on my prayer list with my mom who has cancer and baby Jonah and all my friends/family who are out of work from this recession.
Thank you to the bloggers I read for inspiring me. Although I think I've opened Pandora's Box with the whole starting a blog thing now... I seriously can't stop. I've been writing constantly, on everything, not just my blog, and the ideas don't hush up long enough to let me sleep anymore! ;) Look out cyberspace! Boring old me is about to talk your virtual ear off!

My Story

Welcome to my Blog. I’m Mirage. I have been married to my Prince Charming for 7 1/2 years. We have a daughter, Miss Chicklet, who will turn 3 in September. She is a ray of sunshine, happy and chatty and starving to learn everything she can about this world. :) Our son Mini-Man (Bug) will be celebrating his first birthday in a few days. He's not walking yet but he COULD... if only he realized it! ;) He's into dropping things and then chanting "Uh-oh!" and eating big sissy's sticker collection or anything else that happens to be in reach of his teeny little fingers.
So much has happened recently I wish I had started to blog sooner! I will have to settle for a 'breif' (okay stop laughing...) summary backtrack...
When I was 5 I was eager to learn, eager to go to school. They would not let me until I was well past 6 years old though due to my birthdate being in December. Having a December birthday was one of the most bemoaned parts of my childhood! It seems when you're born near Christmas, the relatives either forget your birthday altogether, or they commit the ultimate in baddies by saying that your Christmas present/card is "for both." :p
While I was in Kindergarten bored stiff coloring and playing (while wishing I was actually learning something real), my mom was having convictions from God regarding homeschooling. God finally won out and my mom didn't send me back to public school for 1st grade. I was quite happy with the arrangement since I was nothing but bored silly at school. I had two younger siblings who, at least at first, thought they'd missed out though...LOL!
At 8 years old my paternal grandmother gave me my first crochet hook and some yarn - the start of my lifelong love of crochet! Not to mention a severe addiction to yarn.
When I was about 9 years old my dad brought home a baby goat, much to city-girl Mom's annoyance. ;) (Mom grew to love them and became a regular homegrown veterinary herbalist.) This was the start of our farm life and my love of both goats and natural remedies.
At age 11 I found out I had brain cancer. I was healed completely! God used natural methods, I never had chemo. Praise Him! :)
When I was a month shy of my 13th birthday, the family moved to the middle of nowhere. Literally. Out in the mountains and it took half an hour to drive to the nearest town. I found the woods intimidating and didn't venture out much. I started collecting penpals- eighty-something at one time was my record. It kept me busy and really helped my spelling and writing skills! This is when I discovered another one of my life's addictions; stationery. I absolutely adore office supplies. Sharpies and Post-it's, gel pens and notebooks, staplers and White-Out... *sigh* ♥♥♥
I married the man of my dreams at 19 years old. He was 20. He was in the US Navy. We knew each other from Church. Actually I knew he was "the one" when I was 16, just before he enlisted, but we all know men are usually a little slower to recognize their soulmate. ;) For the first 3 years of our marriage I went back and forth from where he was stationed. When he was deployed I would go home to my parents' farm for the 6-9 months until he returned.
In late summer of 2005 his enlistment was up and we moved back to the home state. The jobs aren't exactly plentiful back in Nowheresville though, so we wound up moving 6 hours away from our families, back in the city I spent most of my childhood in, where we got our first goat. While hubby was in the USN we avoided having children because I couldn't bear the thought of our babies not knowing who their daddy was; he was only around for 6 or less months out of the year. After moving back here, the family dynamic was in place but the financial situation was not. He was just starting a brand new job and we were renting a house with severe electrical issues... It just didn't seem to be the right time. But God had other ideas.
Not 4 months after our move to civillian life, I found myself feeling sick and tired all the time. One day I was complaining to my little sister on the phone and she told me, "That's because you're pregnant." I laughed at her of course. We were using protection. I didn't FEEL pregnant... I felt like I had the FLU. Wasn't pregnant supposed to feel all glowy? MORNING sickness was so named for a reason, right? I feel queasy all day. So that weekend I took a test to prove her wrong. I'll bet you've guessed by now who was proven wrong, and it wasn't my sister.
In September of 2006 we welcomed out first child into the world. A beautiful baby girl; sweet Miss Chicklet. In June of 2007 I became pregnant again. I knew I was pregnant and had all the symptoms, but the tests just kept coming out negative. I KNEW it though, no matter what the tests said! I thought of names for him. Then one day I just felt all wrong. Something was wrong. That night I started spotting. Just barely. But something was wrong. I felt hopeless and depressed. I knew the baby was gone. My baby that had never been proven, never showed up on the test, was gone. A few weeks later I got my proof as my body cleaned out. I thought I would bleed to death. I don't know how I managed to take care of my daughter. I was in the most awful pain and the bleeding would not stop. For 6 days I bled so much I could barely stand. I bled so much I could not contain the blood and spent all day in bed or my computer chair crying. I should have gone to the ER but my brain was so hazed from bloodloss I honestly didn't realize I was in danger. Then it stopped. But the pain in my heart did not. For months I was severely depressed. I felt like I was not allowed to mourn because I had never gotten a positive test result. Like nobody would believe me if I told them. So I bottled it up. My husband didn't understand. My heart hurt so bad! Thankfully God sent a friend to chat with me online late one night. She sensed something was wrong and I was so full from months of bottling it up that I told her everything. It just came rushing out. She gave me the courage to speak about it, and the confirmation I needed to be able to grieve for my baby. And grieve I did.
Then my husband informed me he was ready to try for another baby. I had been pushing for it at the time I conceived my lost baby, so when he said he was ready, I pretended to be overjoyed. But inside my heart cried for my lost baby and I prayed God would heal my heart before I got pregnant again so I could give the new baby the love it deserved. And in God's perfect timing, just as the pain in my heart lessened and made room for joy and love again, I found myself pregnant for the third time.
For the first half of the pregnancy there was scare after scare that I would miscarry again. Then for the second half I fought preterm labor. Right up until 37 weeks. Then it stopped. Of course... Mini-Man wound up being 2 days late. It's a good thing he did not come early, although he was large (8 1/2 pounds) he had alot of trouble breathing those first few months. One night I was dreaming he was cold. I dreamt he could not hold his body temperature and I didn't know weather to put him on a heating pad or call 911. Well the dream scared me so I woke up to find my baby curled up between my husband and I, freezing cold despite about 7 blankets on him. I jumped up and this startled him and he stirred in his sleep. I cuddled him closer, nursing him, and got more blankets and he warmed up. One day not long after that, he stopped breathing and turned cold and gray in the swing. Practically gave me a heart attack!!! I had just checked on him, then I was blowing bubbles for my daughter right in front of the swing, and as we were giggling and playing I looked up and my baby looked dead in the swing. He was a pale shade of gray and his fingernails were purple. I grabbed him and he woke up madder than a hornet. He was like ice. I immediately crawled into bed with him and a heating pad under a mountain of blankets and nursed him. By the time he was fed he was toasty again but for the rest of the week I had to bundle him carefully and check on him constantly because he kept starting to go cold again. I of course had him checked out and was told that he's perfectly healthy, that he might have sleep apnea and would probably grow out of it, and that I did precisely the best thing for him by nursing him in bed to get him warm. They asked if I let him sleep in my bed, and when I said yes, they said that's the best way for me to keep him safe when I'm asleep. Like my dream that woke me up, my mother instinct would be able to tell me better if something was wrong with him sleeping with me. I had been going to start having him sleep in the bassinet but after hearing that I decided to postpone it! He did outgrow it; from then on it got better and better and he had no more scary ice cold episodes. Today he is a healthy boy, smiley and wiggley and loud as a 1 year old boy should be! ;)
Well that is my life to date in the 'short' version! Rest assured you'll be subjected to more detailed flashbacks occasionally as I blog! I am eager to celebrate every precious joy in my life with you as I blog. My precious children, precious time with my Creator, precious memories, and precious hopes and dreams for the future! Thank you for taking the time to read my story. :)