IT’S SIMPLY COMPLICATED

If you’re a long-time reader here, you may remember my true love story that I wrote about how NoleBoy and Daughter #2 became an item.  The words “true love” were used with a bit of tongue in cheek but they are now approaching two years so maybe……..?   Could it be?

I’ve told you about my music wars with NoleBoy, about playing SmartAss with him by text while he was in class and our fun at Parent’s Weekend.  My Harley Stud and I love NoleBoy.  He is smart, a gentleman and a responsible young man.  He comes from a very nice family and has been raised with a value system similar to ours.  Simply put:  He’s a good guy.

What I haven’t told you before now is that Daughter #1 is in a relationship with NoleBoy’s older brother whom we shall refer to from this point forward as NoleBoy Too (who, by the way is also smart, a gentleman and a responsible young man). 

It was last October: FSU’s Homecoming.  Both D1 and NoleBoy Too are FSU alumni.  It’s kind of funny but while they went to different high schools, they still have many friends in common.  They went to the same college at the same time and even lived in the same apartment complex and yet…….they never met.  That is not until they both returned to FSU for Homecoming.  They spent the weekend with their siblings and hit it off as friends.  Once they both returned to Palm Beach County, their friendship blossomed into something more and by Christmas they too had become an item. 

At first D2 and NoleBoy #1 weren’t thrilled with this new development.  They worried that if the older sibs had a terrible break-up, it would make things awkward between the families.  Eventually they relaxed and started having fun with it. 

It does make things interesting. 

While neither couple is ready to make any life-long commitment, it’s fun to think about the what-ifs.

• At this rate, all of my grandchildren (should there be grandchildren) could have the same last name.
• Having only one set of in-laws to work with makes for easier holiday event planning/child sharing. 
• Double wedding?  Oh my!
• It’s fun to hear the stories that the siblings tell on each other.
• The level of competition when playing Wii Wii has increased tenfold. 

Aren’t they cute?

The Fabulous Four celebrating D1’s 25th birthday. 

D2 & NoleBoy on D2’s 20th birthday.

 D1 and NoleBoy Too at Miss Lolly’s 4th of July party.

Oh and the NoleBoys have a sister who is NB1's twin.  I guess MHS and I really dropped the ball by not providing her with a date too. 

THE STORY OF US – High School Sweethearts…….or not

You might think that after our little adventure that landed us in “jail” that my parents wouldn’t allow me to spend time with a scoundrel such as My Harley Stud. Or that his parents wouldn’t want him seeing a girl that landed him in the “pokey”. Fortunately for us, neither set held a grudge and both held their own child completely responsible for their own bad behavior. As it should be.

But that was middle school stuff. As we moved on into our high school years, we were much smarter and didn’t get caught more mature. MHS and I dated off and on all throughout high school. Really more off than on. We both dated other people but there was always a strong connection that couldn’t be denied and we remained friends when we weren’t dating. But sometimes when I would see MHS while I was on a date with another boy, I would drop my date’s hand so as not to appear too into him. And other times I would pretend to be even more into my companion than I really was just to see if MHS would be jealous. Years later, MHS confessed to doing the same thing when he saw me.

MHS had one girlfriend with the same first name as mine. I know……..another Smart Mouth Broad. Hard to believe. The other SMB (as if) was a year older than he is. I am a year younger. I remember thinking how cool he was when he told me that he was sending her 18 red roses for her 18th birthday even though I hated the bitch. Everyone knows that you only send roses by the dozen unless it’s a significant number for a special occasion. (or so I was taught by my US History teacher who sent dozens of roses to Jane Pauley in a lame attempt to gain her attention. – Sucker!)

Another girlfriend was on the gymnastics team with me. We were chatting one day while taking a break or should I say I was being interrogated on all I knew about MHS. I mentioned that I thought he was quite a romantic and illustrated my point with the 18 roses for the 18th birthday story…………………..How was I supposed to know that he had done the same for her 18th birthday? He doesn’t tell me EVERYTHING! PS. My eighteenth birthday……………….no roses.

Dating or just friends, MHS was always there for me. One spring I was riding with two girlfriends when we met up with their boyfriends on motorcycles. Next thing I knew they were on the back of the bikes and throwing me the keys to the car. It was a Datsun B210. A stick shift. I didn’t know how to drive a stick. I yelled this little piece of information to them as they pulled away and I was told, “Live and learn.”

Somehow I made it to the QuikMart where I found MHS. He took me out to the country roads and taught me how to drive a manual transmission. To this very day, I’ve never met a gear shift I couldn’t handle.

The summer before my sophomore year, I was with my cousin in her car. We were doing a little harmless flirting on the CB radio when we were rear-ended at a stoplight (the only one in town) by her boyfriend who was listening in his mom’s car. Again, I was abandoned while she went off with him to fight it out. I was instructed to drive around until she came back. While I did have my learners permit that allowed me to drive with her in the car, I didn’t have a drivers license. Hours went by and still no sight of her. I couldn’t go home because we would both be in trouble that I was driving her car. I couldn’t go to her house or she would be in big trouble. That was when I ran into MHS and the Biker Nazi who were out running off some “bad pizza” before they went home. (Bad pizza was MHS’s excuse for getting sick from teenage drinking)

MHS ditched the Biker Nazi in favor of keeping company with the damsel in distress. He passed out almost as soon as he got in the car but it’s the thought that counts. At least he didn’t get sick.

It’s always an adventure with MHS too. One winter he and the Biker Nazi took the Saint and I sledding…………………….behind his 4wheel drive truck. We actually wore through one of those little metal saucer sleds. But we were having way too much fun to give up. The guys put their heads together and came up with a plan. We went back to MHS’s house and he took the hood off his little brother’s car and VOILA – a sled for two! Don’t try this at home. We’re professionals, you know. We wore helmets. And we only ended up being thrown into a corn field once or twice.

It wasn’t until the summer before my senior year that we finally got together for good. But that is a story for another day.

Catch up on prior episodes:

The Story of Us

The Story of Us – Arrested Development

** Note**

Always save your work. *wink*

Hugs,

Smart Mouth Broad

THE STORY OF US (Part II) - Arrested Development

My dear friend, Linda, from Crone and Bear it tagged me to do a Love your spouse story. I’m embarrassed to say that it was probably about a month ago. It’s not that I didn’t want to do it, I just wanted to be sure that I took the time to give it the proper attention. After twenty-eight years of marriage, if you decide to tell your story, it should be something special, right? Of course this caused me all sorts of anxiety as I crumbled under the pressure and did what I always do in this situation: I procrastinated.

Finally I decided that enough is enough and opted to just continue the story already in progress. I met My Harley Stud when I was ten years old. It’s a long story. I couldn’t possibly tell it in one post. If I tell the WHOLE story, I couldn’t even do it in 10 posts but I will spare you the details and try to just hit the high points. We’ll see how many editions it takes. Come along with me as I tell how we first fell in “love”.

In Part I, I told you about how I first saw him and developed a crush. And how I fought for the right to be assigned the safety patrol station that he had to pass every day just so I could look at him. Fast forward a few more years. I was in the seventh grade and he was an eighth grader. I have to be honest here and admit that I don’t really remember how it happened. I just remember that all of a sudden, he was walking me home from school. And yes, he did sometimes carry my books. I still have my diary from those days and a smarter girl would have reviewed before writing but I’m a smart mouth, nobody said I was smart.

Summer arrived and we said goodbye to books and hello to shorts and bare feet. Well, my feet were bare. MHS always wears shoes. The park was the place to be every evening in the summer time. There were little league baseball games and it seemed that every kid in town would be there. We seldom watched a game but instead would gather in crowds near the swings and just talk or try to hang with the older kids who had cars and would scoop the loop as my mother used to say.

Our home town is a small town with about three thousand people. It sits in the middle of some prime farmland and many of our friends and schoolmates were farm kids. One of my good friends lived on a farm outside town. She came to stay with me for a few days. We had big plans to hang with MHS and his friend who conveniently was my girlfriend’s beau.

I had a neighborhood friend who was a few years older than us and she invited us to her house for a sleep-out. A sleep-out is a sleep-over but outdoors, under the stars. It was a great way to sneak out to explore the town and get into mischief enjoy the great out-doors. Farmgirl and I were excited to hang with the older girls. It didn’t take long to realize that once we were in sleeping bags, the older girls had invited boys over to join them. It was more than a little awkward for Farmgirl and me.

Fortunately for us, we had mentioned to MHS and his friend what we were doing. We didn’t invite them to join us. But being the horny hopefuls knights in shining armor that they were, they came to rescue us from a very uncomfortable situation.

We were a little young to be gettin busy in a sleeping bag so we settled for sitting and talking in one of the older boys cars that was parked in the doctor’s office driveway down the ally. MHS and I fought a lot back then. (I guess this was a good thing because we rarely fight now. We got it out of our system early.) I have no recollection of what triggered our little spat that night but we began to argue. I got mad and got out of the car and stomped back to my sleeping bag. MHS was way too proud to come crawling after me but this left our friends to entertain MHS instead of staring into each other’s eyes and squelched any possibility of getting in some quality smooching.

MHS’s friend took the bull by the horns and came down to where I was snuggled into my sleeping bag trying hard to put a curse on MHS with my underdeveloped superpowers go to sleep. He pulled me out of the sleeping bag, picked me up, threw me over his shoulder and carried me back to the car. It was no easy task as I was kicking, punching and screaming all the way. He pretty much threw me into the backseat of the car where MHS was pouting waiting.

The goo-goo eyes resumed in the front seat while MHS and I sat giving each other the stink eye with our arms crossed, each leaning as far as possible into the armrest of their respective side of the car. This continued for about ten minutes when a police car came around the corner. There was a curfew in our town and children our age were not allowed to be out after 11 o’clock without an adult. So we did what any wrong-doing teen would do and we laid down across the seat to hide from the police. It was all in vain though because they already knew we were there. Some busy-body neighbor had called the police after hearing some poor, young girl screaming “bloody murder” down the ally.

Book ‘em Dano. We were hauled to the police department. This carried with it the added embarrassment of facing my aunt who worked dispatch. Our parents were called to collect us and we were released into their care with the promise that we would be tarred and feathered appropriately at home.

I was grounded…….for life.

Farmgirl was never allowed to spend the night at my house again. Her parents were convinced I was a bad influence.

MHS’s friend was a spoiled brat and I’m sure he didn’t get in trouble at all.

I think that MHS’s parents (now my in-laws) thought it was funny.

Ahhhh, the difference between raising boys and girls. Fair? I think not.

A few weeks later, MHS went to stay with his cousin in a different town for a few weeks. My father always says, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder………….or you just find someone else.” And I did. I can’t help it. I have a short attention span.

Stay tuned for Part III of the Story of Us coming soon or not so much to a blog near you.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

THE STORY OF US

A few days ago, I posted my 100^th blog post. I announced at the time that my friend, Nothing Fancy was working on her 100^th also. Well, Fancy (I can call her that because we are friends, ya know.) used her 100^th post to tell how she met her husband and their love story. It is a romantic, ooey-gooey tale of almost and near misses that will just make your little heart go pitter pat. If you haven't read it, go there. Especially you Northerners…..you could use the extra heat. *wink*

Fancy's story inspired me to tell my own true love story. Now bear in mind that I met My Harley Stud when I was a wee bit younger so my story doesn't quite have the steam that Fancy's does but maybe….just maybe, it will make you say……………"Geesh, them thare country folk sure start 'em young."

Once a year when I was in elementary school, my mother would meet with my current teacher for a parent-teacher conference. Each year she was told the same thing.

• She pays attention in class.
  
• She follows instruction.
  
• She is helpful.
  
• She gets good grades.
  

  
  

  But…
  

• She talks too much….
  
• And she's boy crazy.
  

Every.Single.Year. What can I say? At least I'm consistent.

The year I entered the fifth grade was the first year that the sixth graders moved to the middle school. Suddenly the fifth graders were the top dogs. My twin girlfriends, the Purdy Girls, and I were selected to be safety patrols. We were giddy with POWER.

We trained for our posts during the first week of school. Each day while we were training, there was a boy……a sixth grader…..who would walk over from the middle school to collect his younger siblings and walk them home. He was HOT. Seriously. OK, maybe not so seriously. But he was twelve year old HOT.

When it came time to pick our posts, the Purdy Girls (who were apparently just as boy crazy as I was) and I fought over who would get the corner where the HOT boy had to walk past everyday. I think we drew straws or flipped a coin. I can't remember. It doesn't matter because……I.WAS.THE.WINNER!

This hot, older "man" was a new kid. I was aware that his family moved to town. It's a very small town and if you know anything about small towns, you know that not much flies under the radar. Everybody knows everything. Plus one of his brothers was in the fifth grade. Kids notice the new kid. And in a small town, we embrace them. Anyway……….the HOT sixth grader would walk past my post everyday on his way to the school to pick up his four younger siblings. They would walk back past my post in stair-step formation. Now before you get the idea that they were some kind of modern day American Von Trapps, let me tell you this. MHS is the oldest of six children. Five boys, one girl. The youngest was not yet in school. Each day as they walked past, there was usually some swearing heard, the boys might pull the girl's hair. Sticks were thrown. They weren't singing "My favorite things" if you know what I mean.

Nevertheless, this foul-mouthed older "man" intrigued me. He didn't pay any attention to me. I was a fifth-grader after all. As if!

But all year, every day I would watch him walk past me twice. I would stare at him all glassy eyed, dreaming of the day we would have a mortgage and car payments and……..WAIT! That was NOT the fantasy. The reality was he never even said hello. He would just pass by and smile. The most amazing smile. Blue eyes and great teeth. The first time my mother met him (a few years later) she said, "Marry him, Smart Mouth. He has great teeth. Your children will have great teeth." She was kidding. I wasn't.

Things didn't heat up for another two years but that story will have to be another day.

OK, so it wasn't a steamy and edge-of-your-seat kind of story. But it was kinda cute, right? What is your true love story?

***Note***

I just read this post to MHS who confirmed that he has no recollection of that silly safety patrol who was all ga-ga over him.

23 DAYS TO TRUE LOVE

I got the text message today. "I'm a girlfriend!" it declared. I can't say I didn't expect it. I've been counting the days.

It was MHS's birthday. We were dining out for the occasion. I felt that little vibration from my purse. Because I have children, even though they are grown, I am always quick to check my messages to make sure all is well with the world. It was a text message from D2. The message read, "NOLE boy doesn't like olives." I turned to MHS and said with a smile, "Oh boy, here we go."

You see we have a true love test in my house. We believe that when you find your own true love *wink*, you will also find someone who feels about olives the exact opposite of how you feel about olives. We believe that God made it this way so that for all time, when you share a pizza or salad or sandwich with your own true love, the olive hater has a place to dispose of said olives and the olive lover gets bonus olives. For instance, MHS is the center of my universe. I love and adore him. (most of the time) I love olives. He hates olives. It's the perfect arrangement.

After a careful in-depth study, we have found this olive theory to be true among all the successful relationships we encountered in our research. Oh sure, there are rare exceptions. We didn't encounter any in our study but there is always an exception to the rule.

While on vacation in Indiana, I received another text message saying, "NOLE boy thinks Paul Newman is just a salad dressing guy too." I smiled to myself and told MHS that things must be progressing.

After receiving the "I'm a girlfriend" message today, I quickly replied: "Who's the lucky guy?" I received the response, "WHAT!". I smiled my most evil smile. Then I quickly quoted a lyric from Little Big Town's Welcome to the Family and texted "Does NOLE boy know that Mama has a real bad temper and Daddy's got a shotgun?" The reply came quickly…….."MoMMMMM!"

It's been twenty-three days since the olive message. I knew it was coming. Oh boy. Here we go.