Love in Five Parts – Part III – For All the Men I’ve Loved Before

Are you ready for this? This is like the most intimate 20 minutes I have ever spent in my life. No joke. Sit and relax and read about the men I have loved, how they have influenced me, and where I’m headed. Ready? Here we go…

True love has found me three times in my life. No, I haven’t only enjoyed three relationships. I’m talking the real thing. That thing folks hope for – true love. My first true love I met when I was fifteen. He was so incredible that I dumped my boyfriend just because he was brazen enough to bow up at him in public. Through ups, downs, breakups and reconciliations we married, divorced, married and divorced. Walking through fire wasn’t enough to keep me away from him, but the threat of becoming a Molotov cocktail was enough to make me realize there was more to life than fear.

The second great love of my life taught me about romance and how real men treat real women. He held me when I broke down, made love to my mind, body and soul, challenged me to always be the better person, and to love with my whole heart. He taught me how to see myself the way he saw me and understand that a loving touch in just the right place lights me up like a fire cracker (minds out of the gutter people – my “g” spot is in the small of my back).

I’m still reeling from the pain of losing the love that lowered my guard and produced the most amazing little girl EVER. I can still remember the first day he knocked on my door and how he looked in his butter yellow cotton shirt and faded blue jeans. Or how we used to kiss for what seemed like hours finally forcing ourselves apart so we could go to work. The look on his face when I walked down the aisle, when he held his little girl for the first time, when I surprised him for his 40th - there’s nothing like those unforgettable loving moments.

All of these men have taught me so much about myself. In fact, I think first and foremost, they’ve taught me who I am but they have also shown me what I want. I can’t imagine ever opening my heart to another, other than my daughter and family, for a long time. When and if I do that’s it; no more doormat. And boy is this guy going to have to be something special. He’s going to have to be a real man, someone who can hold his own in life and with me. A man who knows where to touch me, how to kiss me, how to appreciate making a wrong turn or wrong decision and learning from it, a reader to my writer, a cook, a partner, who loves to laugh and doesn’t pick or criticize, who feels secure in himself and safe with me. He will have his own interests and will want to include me, and will in turn accept and be interested in mine. God, let there be a man with one green eye and one blue who smells of chocolate chip cookies and whose favorite shape is a silver, five-pointed star. God, let there be that family man.

Join the conversation. What loves have influenced your life? Are there particular qualities in your man, woman, or the partner of your dreams that you cannot live without?

Trying desperately to get back into the groove, I am still Unstoppable and still end in Start!

Wisdom Wednesday – Love…in Five Parts

It struck me this morning, as I was driving into an office I frequent and entire day-and-a-half a week, how blessed my life has been by love. Are you wondering what brought about this epiphany? Why, Lady Antebellum did. One song in particular entitled, If I Knew Then. The chorus - Cause love only comes once in awhile, Knocks on your door and throws you a smile, And takes every breath, leaves every scar, Speaks to your soul and sings to your heart, And if I knew then what I know now, I’d fall in love - touches me on the many levels of this mysterious condition that allows my heart to soar and ache all at the same time.

It’s a charming little four-letter word, isn’t it? L-O-V-E. Its definition remains so enigmatic that not one of us has yet to truly figure it out.

At its foundation, love is defined (in this case by Dictionary.com) as: a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person. Sounds lovely, right? But love has many different levels, layers that fill a person’s pie shell with sweet, sour and savory flavors that affect how we give generous, or calorie reduced slices of love in return.

In my lifetime I have been touched by the love of my parents and family, I have fallen in love with three men who shaped me as a woman and will always hold a place in my heart, and I have experienced the enormous love between mother and daughter. Blessed I tell you, blessed!

So what is it about love, on a Wednesday, which inspires me to delve into this recipe? Pain. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to drag you into my current brand of crazy, but, that insanity is what is keeping me up at night forcing me to think about whether my recipe is good enough, or not.

Also, love is taboo. It’s something we choose not to jinx; talk about before its time. Unless we are closely connected to friends and family, we rarely release it from the vest. So, this is my attempt to get you to share your recipe for love. Educate me. Listen intently, I may just teach you a little something in return. Ah, the give and take of…love. See, intimacy abounds.

Here we find ourselves at the end of Love – Part I. Mise en place is complete. Now, let’s start putting the ingredients in this pie and talk about how they help us express the love we feel. Yes, feeling is scary, but you can do it. I believe in you.

Until next Wednesday and Part II, I remain Unstoppable.

Truth or Fiction Thursday - Can Carpet Shampoo Do That?

Got ya wondering, didn’t I?

So, I’ve said before that I can’t be all Tony Robbins all the time and today is one of those days. So, being the domestic goddess that I am, I wanted to share with you the best product on the planet to clear away stains. Not only does it clean normal, everyday stains like coffee, wine, mud, grass (yes, I have a pretty messy family, but who doesn’t) it has even cleaned – drum roll – red fingernail polish out of beige carpet.

No. I. Am. Not. Kidding.

And, you don’t have to buy the fancy and terribly expensive vacuum cleaner for it to work (just please don’t tell the Rainbow people I said that. Yes, it is Aquamate Floor Shampoo offered by Rainbow.

You can buy it online for anywhere from $17 to $23 and it’s worth every penny.

Being a young, penny-pincher back in the day, I used to sit in the middle of my living room floor watching Chicago Hope and painting my toes. I know, I’m telling my age here, but I did say I was young then. Well, one night while getting into one of Mandy Patinkin’s many musical performances, I knocked over a bottle of red nail polish. OMG! I thought I was in for it. My husband would kill me. Okay, so I wasn’t that young.

I dashed around the house looking for anything that would take out the glaring red smudge and not bleach the carpet. And lo and behold there it was, the Aquamate Floor Shampoo in the laundry room just waiting to be challenged. I say challenged because it came with the unreasonably expensive vacuum that I got suckered into by a door-to-door salesman who managed to convince me that selling vacuums was how he was going to pay for his blind wife’s eye replacement surgery and that his products would miraculously save the dying with a tiny daub. After that night, I ran right out and had “sucker” tattooed across my forehead so others could convince me to spend an ungodly amount of money on something else I didn’t need.

Back to the story – So, I sat down in the floor with a white dish rag and this cleaning solution and went to scrubbing. At first, the spill got worse. It spread like wildfire the more I tried to scour it away, but then I think the friction I was causing changed the chemical compound from cleaner to miracle worker. The dramatic red polish spill was gone.

No. I. Am. Not. Kidding. I love making dramatic statements with periods (but only in my blog Grammar Divas).

So, am I telling you to run right out and buy this stuff? Well, I am not trying to afford my blind wife’s eye replacement surgery, however, I do highly recommend if you have kids, pets, carpet, a house with any fabric in it whatsoever, spend the dime and get the good stuff. It will last you forever and come in handy in any number of fabric emergencies.

Join the conversation. Is there a product that worked miracles you never expected?

Until Monday and the ABCs for New Writers, I remain an Unstoppable domestic goddess.

Today’s disclaimer: I do not own stock in or represent Rainbow Vacuum Cleaners or their products. I am an independent consumer with one opinion.

Wisdom Wednesday - Where Are We Hurrying To?

The thing about the rat race is that even if you win you’re still a rat. – Lily Tomlin

There’s this wonderful little book sitting on the table next to my recliner that, when I’m a good girl, I read with zeal and put right to practice. It’s called The Power of Patience by M.J. Ryan.

The title of today’s post and what I want to share with you was inspired by the passage, Where Are We Hurrying To? By example, it begs the question, “What is so important that we would sacrifice our sanity and serenity to get to “it” or get “it” done without bothering to enjoy the journey?”

My little girl has been dealing with, next to death or serious illness, the most painful thing a kid could experience – divorcing parents – and it’s starting to wear on her. So tonight, when she got home from dinner with her father and had a meltdown because she didn’t want to take a bath without her bathing suit on (yes, Sally, I think she’s met Her Majesty), I quickly soaped her up, rinsed her off, got her dressed for bed and then laid down in the floor with her for as long as my back could stand and colored.

For a lengthy time before bed (and I even put it off a bit) I took direction from her about what color marker to use on what corner of the page. It was the most important moment of my day. Not only did I learn that Tinkerbell actually looks good as a “pink candy fairy”, I gave up my far-from-first-place position in the old rat race and patiently accepted my daughter’s need for love and attention. And, thanks to The Power of Patience I was able to give it to her.

I can’t lie to you; I personally enjoy the rat race. I find challenge exciting. But folks, I don’t want to be that rat that missed out on her baby girl growing up. So, for today, I’m happy to have left the race a little early.

Until tomorrow, I am still here, better late than never, and remain Unstoppable.