Mae @ Rainydayinmay

DMV, a music video and sugar- oh my…

Published on May 6, 2013 by Mae @ Rainydayinmay3 Comments

Happy Monday morning!

I don’t know what it was like for you, but last week sped by in our little tuck of the world. While I thought I had a wee bit of time, my husband’s birthday, (which is today, by the way) literally jumped in my lap and announced it’s presence. Wasn’t it just Easter?

Hmmm.

Anyway, we had such a busy weekend, I thought I’d just show you some snapshots of our three-day, with only a FEW explanations… like this one:

Who in the world deemed that birthdays would be the deadline by which to renew your car registration? (since we moved we also had to get new driver’s licenses so we we figured LOTS of coffee would aid in the THREE HOUR time at the DMV…)

Cute little ice cream place. I may have mentioned Gen and I had a bad experience there in March but what’s one bad experience when you get ice cream like this?

{Funny story… Chw does not read. He’ll listen to Audio books but he hates to read real books. YET- could not put this little children’s book down. Seriously.}

And this is ice cream place, bad experience, take 2. Their table ripped my {FAVORITE} shirt, our waiter was a total tool and everything from our very small order to our check was completely messed up. Note to self: Find new special occasion ice cream spot.

Not a great photo but it’s our favorite theater. When I did entertainment work through Allied, back in the day- I felt like I lived here. It really is the best theater though, and for Chw’s birthday we did their “dinner and a movie” special. (See, they have a full chef staff and a gourmet kitchen in there.) We had a delicious dinner, complete with coconut cream pie for dessert… Cuz you know, we needed MORE sugar.

And then it was out of the dining room and into the theater to see Iron Man 3. {Which was awesome, btw}

This was Gen’s first Dinner and a Movie experience. Honestly, she was just enamored by the free unlimited popcorn and the recliners…

It was a late night but our little rockstar managed to wake up in time to go help do make up for a community theater production and then come home to shoot a music video on our deck. I tried to discretely document the divas at work, but you can barely see one of them through the door…

The stars :)

What Chw does while loud music videos are filmed on our deck…

What I did when said video shooting moved to various locations in our house. (notice who woke up… for about 12 seconds.)

Birthday cake at Chw’s favorite local restaurant- J Alexanders.

Happy 39th birthday, husband! You are amazing and I love you so incredibly much!

You are my rock and I am so grateful to journey through life beside you…

Come Tuesday morning though, we will need a sugar detox. <3

A few thoughts with which to greet the weekend…

Published on May 3, 2013 by Mae @ Rainydayinmay2 Comments

01.} I do believe that Spring has finally made an entrance, all late and Diva style, here in Michigan. Then I hear, from my daughter who currently resides in Wisconsin, that she’s getting snow, and my spirit sinks. I literally felt overcome with panic as I began thinking of ways to conserve sunshine and hoard our stash of synthetic Vitamin D.

02.} S0 far, thankfully, our forecast is golden. {It’s here that I have to face reality that it was also Golden on Tuesday- and promising sunshine, while reality had us in downpour & thunder city. Boo.}

03.} Last weekend I made this totally awesome chicken slowcooker recipe. It’s such a great recipe and really makes the BEST Chicken tacos. And nachos. And quesadillas. And green chili enchiladas. Basically, what I’m getting at is- pretty much super sick of this chicken for now. Yep, that is exactly what I am saying. Great recipe- spread out. (and shared with like 3 other families.)

04.} I’ve been thinking a lot about dreams vs. goals, and what is reasonable for each side, what is required for success and what is flat out foolish. While Pinterest, Facebook and well meaning loved ones are all full of cliches and wives tales, I suspect the truth is somewhere muddled in the middle of here and there. Thoughts?

05.} My beautiful sheep dog Emma needs a job. Back at our other house she liked to take pillows off of the patio furniture and pile them in the corner of the yard, and then guard them. She took her job seriously. Upon our move, and the loss of our yard, she’s becoming less affectionate and pretty irritable. I’m guessing this is just the way she handles unemployment.

06.} I read, on CNN today, that the unemployment rate is the lowest it’s been in five years. While that’s awesome and I’m super happy about this, Emma isn’t feeling as grateful. How’s an Australian Shepard/Border Collie supposed to find work? We have been putting a few gluten free treats in her giant rubber mouth toy. While it does keep her focused and busy for a couple of hours, and make her a tiny bit sweeter in the evenings- I’m concerned about the message. Unemployed? Eat snacks. Struggling with your worth and possibly your self esteem? Eat snacks. See where I’m going with this? She needs a better job. So far, dishes and folding laundry don’t seem to interest her. Such a shame…

07.} My husband is about to turn 39, which I personally think is awesome. He’s less in favor of this development. He’s a rockstar, a rockstar who has only gotten better with age. I love that man of mine!

08.} I have been absolutely obsessed with watching Indie film trailers recently. You should definitely watch this one, and this one. Amazing right?

09.} We have to head to the Re-store, in search of a light fixture and faucet. Keep your fingers and toes crossed for us please, that they have the most amazing options for hardly any cost. Is it wrong to cross our fingers for such a superficial miracle?

10.} Watching a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie with Genny this week, as she was sick and laying around all restful, we had the funniest conversation. The female lead of the film was suspicious of a guy she liked. To preface it, they’d gone on a date. My sweet, naive 14 year old pipes up and says “man, she’s going to think he’s cheating on her and break up with him.”

M- Well they have only gone on one date honey, so if he was seeing someone else, that’s ok. And it’s way to premature to “break up”. That’s crazy.

She stares at me, jaw as dropped as humanly possible, those big blue eyes saucer like and in shock.

M- Gen?

G- What are you even talking about? It’s CHEATING?!?!

M- It’s only cheating if they are in a relationship.

Emphatically she grunts, pointing at the tv.

M- going on one date does not mean you are in a relationship.

G- What do you mean? Why? Since When? Are you sure?

It went on like this for awhile. I talked about dating, relationships, etc. She processed and reprocessed for the better part of the evening. How she missed this, I’m not sure. Before her sister left home, I remember countless conversations where Amanda would go out with a guy and Gen would call him her “boyfriend” and we would set the record straight.

Geesh, Denial much?

Happy weekend! Do something lovely and amazing, drink in some beautiful and sunshine- and for goodness sakes, go eat a few bites of delectable sugar in honor of my husband’s birthday… Cupcakes all around!

Choose Happy…

Published on May 2, 2013 by Mae @ Rainydayinmay2 Comments

These are the best sort of weeks. The short sort of work weeks, and that is the pretty cool thing about summer- there are a lot of short work weeks!

This weekend definitely deserves a trip to the cupcakery as we will be celebrating my husband’s birthday in the fashion of the things he love. I am so blessed to be around to celebrate and love this man!

Today will be busy with Thursday’s household responsibilities, and Friday’s household responsibilities so that I can make tomorrow all about Chw…

Maybe you should go choose some happiness and eat a cupcake too.

Just Sayin’…

disLIKE…

Published on May 1, 2013 by Mae @ Rainydayinmay4 Comments

Facebook has the potential to be this really cool thing. In a life that’s so busy with rushing, working, juggling and stressing- it allows us the opportunity to maintain long distance friend and familyships without really sucking a lot of effort out of us. Ironically, for many, Facebook is also a huge time suck, but whatever…

Facebook is also great when it comes to building your business. I learned this well, a few years ago, when my husband and I started a small photography adventure.

Facebook is a powerful, powerful thing.

Power isn’t always awesome.

I’ve heard of marriages breaking up over reconnections. I’ve seen the same stupid sort of bullying happen online, and I’ve seen people get truly hurt.

In fact, I got hurt. While I will be the FIRST to admit that I am not a perfect person- this scenario was one where I really did nothing but believe in the goodness of people.

A couple of years ago my high school best friend resurfaced and friend requested me on facebook. This request came complete with a long message about his* life now, a huge apology and other random little updates. It had been a really long time since we had seen each other. (like 17 or 18 years.) {*because of the history of our marriage and my husband’s affair early on, Chw and I very guarded about this sort of thing. Before I accepted the request, he had read the message and was very much a part of the conversation between us from the beginning. Chw is also an amazing husband and he knew how much the lost of this friendship had hurt me early on so he was beyond excited for us be in touch.}

Messages continued for a couple of weeks. Surface stuff about our families, careers, etc. Then, suddenly he was going out of town for work. He sent me his number and asked me to text or call him that weekend. Again, Chw and I talked about it and decided that a text was best. So I texted him. The next day his girlfriend (of almost the entire time I hadn’t seen him, but I didn’t know her personally) facebook messages me the most heinously vile attack I’ve ever read. It was akin to a Jerry Springer episode in an email. Thinking she misunderstood (While Chw was just really angry and protective of me) I tried to explain to her that I was happily married and that my husband was right there, involved, and nothing sordid was going on. Of course, she didn’t believe me. It was too much, I felt horrible for having put her in that position so I sent him a quick note explaining that I knew what being betrayed in a relationship felt like- and that I felt awful to have her feeling that way because of me. It literally made me sick. I unfriended him and moved on.

Months later, while our family was on vacation, he recontacted me. Once again he had an apology, this time for her. He explained he had been unfaithful many times and she was defensive, BUT that things would be better this time. I was skeptical, but Chw was beyond skeptical. Sure enough, a few days later, her emails came again. I was called a whore and a husband stealer. It was ridiculous drama that, high school best friend or not, my time was far too valuable to deal with.

Roughly a year after that, he contacted me again. I was curt, at best. He and my husband worked near each other and Chw suggested maybe they meet for lunch and hang out. He wanted to talk to him about how this garbage was not ok and that we had no room in our lives for this nonsense. We do operate on a ZERO DRAMA policy, and honestly- I love it. Of course, this “friend” never did follow through with that, but his daughter did contact me in the in-between time, blaming me for destroying her family and stealing her dad. I was done. My husband was beyond angry at this point, bless his heart.

I never blogged about this because it was a waste of time. The entire story is stupid and irrelevant. I had worried for years about this friend because there had been drugs and poor choices involved. I reconnected with him long enough to learn he’d cleaned up and had a lovely family. As far as I was concerned, this was a happy ending. MY marriage and MY family are my top priorities, every time. Whatever was said or went on between he and his family- that was their business. It’s been almost a year, and I honestly very seldom even think about any of it… That is, until I hear from a “friend” that they were told a very different story about what happened. Then, another mutual friend relates a tale to me about how I am a whore and husband stealer. Baffled and in tears, I show the text to my husband.

The moral of the story is, sometimes we can guard ourselves, protect ourselves by doing things the right way- and still get hurt, with our reputation decimated in the process. I guess. the moral of this story, kids, is that at least I prioritized what was important and my husband and family are great. We did talk to our kids about what had happened (er, was happening, since it’s all of a sudden a gossip mill of cruel fabrications out there…) and hopefully it will be some sort of a social media lesson- though I don’t know of what.

what the world needs now…

Published on April 30, 2013April 30, 2013 by Mae @ Rainydayinmay6 Comments

there will always be tough topics that people aren’t comfortable talking about. hey, it’s a tough world, so it’s bound to happen. There are religious ones, political ones and moral conversations that always turn debate. Lately, unless you are only facebook friends with people like minded, you have probably seen endless video and news “discussions” about things such as abortion, our president, gun control, homosexuality, etc… Tension rousing debates are everywhere. Sometimes they are timely and relevant, and other times they are distractions from where our focus needs to be… Which brings me to the point of this post-

I’m not trying to preach at you by throwing a Bible verse in your face. I’m just saying, regardless of where you are- how can you argue with the relevance of this? THIS is what we are told to do. To simply love others, as ourselves, and CARRY EACH OTHER’S Burdens…

Last night Chw and I stumbled upon this blog post. Now, before I go much farther I have to point out a few things:

– i LOVE Russel. Yes, i also love Jesus. There you go, according to Westboro- I’m going to hell. {Good thing I don’t belong to Westboro.}

– i do appreciate that he did show them respect. He didn’t really attack them and he was sweet to them. The WBC tends to fuel a lot of angry reactions in people so i did feel the whole thing was pretty great and it humbled me a bit.

– The guy on the right was WAYYYYYY nicer than I expected anyone from their club to be. The guy on the left however, reminded me of that Jerry Springer bouncer who went on to have his own talk show of an equally irritating nature.

ok… Moving on. The whole thing is pretty interesting. She raises a great point about how it seems Christians feel that the Bible and it’s message are moldable to suit political correctness and current issues. I have heard it spoken and preached that “times are different now,” or “things have changed”, which seems ironic since- well, yes things HAVE changed since the Bible was written. The world is a very different place, and has been for a very long time. But that’s not my point…

What I am getting at is, Westboro is wrong. As passionate as they may be, they ARE wrong. They are mean, and they are cruel and they spew hate. It truly, truly saddens me that they (let alone anyone else) believe this is how you love. This mentality justifies everything from spousal abuse to child abuse. Let’s place Westboro in a parental analogy, shall we?

You LOVE your child. She’s a little 2 year old girl. Let’s call her Alice. You LOVE Alice. She’s the light of your life and you LOVE her so much. As she grows up though, and turns 3, 4, 5 years old- she refuses to use a fork at the table, or wipe her bum in the potty. (Or tell the truth, or pick up her toys, or to share, or to be kind to other kids, or to not kick the cat.) And so, as Alice’s “loving” parent, you stop speaking kindly to her. Whenever she gets off that school bus, you shout at her about how God hates her and she is a loser going to to hell. You publicly shame her at school, at the playground and in your yard. There is no love, no nurturing, no kindness. But it’s ok, you tell yourself, because you LOVE her. After all, isn’t it your JOB to show her the error of her ways?

That way will never work. It could never work. It only causes more pain. On one hand, the sad realization that these now westboro adult children likely grew up in that very scenario is pretty startling. Considering also, that this parenting pattern continues is equally so. But, bottom line- it’s wrong. When you eliminate love (which is an action,) you change everything. This is the real issue at hand. Galatians says to “Carry Each Other’s Burdens.” You can’t do that if you are too busy only seeing your self while spewing judgement and condemning others. It doesn’t matter what side of whichever debate you fall on. Love transcends politics and religion. One thing that has not changed is that the world is a hard, lonely and hurting place. More than ever, people need love and friendship.

My husband had an affair a long, long time ago. He had a friend (whom we are still friends with, to this day) step up, in love, and say “look buddy, this isn’t ok. This is your wife. This is your marriage…” He could have stoned him in the town square, or raked him through the coals, but he didn’t. My husband is a better man because of that friend. His love allowed him to be honest about my husband’s short comings. Just because he didn’t get angry and condemn Chw, does not mean he accepted his choices. He stepped up, in love, and helped him “carry his burden”, and our marriage (as well as their friendship) is for the better.

THAT is the beauty that the Westboro idea misses…

Stepping off my soapbox now. Tune in tomorrow when I post about something super shallow like the design of my office or a recipe. :) Or maybe I’ll finally take a stand for the truly oppressed and overlooked minority: the people with short arms.