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Random Report from the West

I lay here in multi-splendored glory, pondering those things that make a marriage work.  This past week has been a prime example of many of the concepts that I believe make it work:  support, willingness to be used, allowing your OCD to be aggravated by new toys.

In less positive news, my in-laws were in a very scary accident as they left their hometown.  It would seem a youngster with a rather large truck with a reinforced bumper (extremely common in our neck of the woods) failed to yield the right-of-way as he rushed to his destination point.  Fortunately, my father-in-law saw him coming and was able to minimize the t-bone impact, but it left my in-laws very bumped, bruised, and bloody and with an unexpected trip to the ER.  They were released and continue to recover, and will eventually be alright, but understandably the family was scrambling as we worked out a plan to take care of everything.

My very minor role was to drive to a town about 45 minutes away (with kids in tow) and retrieve suitcases from the car.  I arrived and met the wrecker-driver only to find no suitcases.  As I called El Hubbo and reported the lack of travel gear, he began to question his father.  I questioned the wisdom of expecting a man who had taken an extremely hard hit to the head any questions related to the whereabouts of his t-shirts and other sundries.  The wrecker driver, observing our inexperience at handling such situations, suggested we call the police or sherriff's department in the town where the wreck occurred. (About 30 minutes away.....remember we are technically in "rural 'merica".)

El Hubbo, began the hunt, I took the kids to eat.  Soon, I received the call....the mystery was solved.  Bags were in the hometown fire station.  Alrighty, so the kids and I loaded up and headed out.  Thirty minutes later, the bags were secured and we began a race to beat incoming storms back to Lubbock.

We delivered the bags and checked on Mimi and Papa.  We then headed home where I was greeted with this......



Yes, my closet imploded.  I sighed, turned the light off, texted my boss that I would not be coming in the next morning and went to bed.  I'm a firm believer that Scarlett O'Hara said it best:  "Tomorrow is another day."

The next day was spent sorting out clothes for donation and creating various piles of clothes throughout my house that I could roam around like a lost zombie each morning attempting to cobble together an acceptable outfit for work.  I researched closet systems, and informed El Hubbo that he officially had plans for the weekend.  If you wish to test the strength of your vows, attempt to work on a project such as this.  I'm not sure who may have had the most creative death threat lobbed at the other, but when we both arrived at the checkout lane of the Home Depot with a shovel, we decided a military detente was in order.


On a happy note, I won something!  Or, technically, El Hubbo did.  You see, I am big Circle E candle fan.  As in they are my candle of choice.  I follow them on facebook.  They posted a special that if you commented on a picture they had posted with a recommendation for a teacher to win a candle, they would select three deserving teachers to win.  In my not-so-altruistic way I commented the following:

"Few realize the time an ag teacher spends in and out of the classroom. Darin Martinez loves his job and is always working in the classroom, at the shop, at the school farm to try to provide students with a great experience. He's on the road to stock shows, judging contests, leadership contests, scholarship interviews, meetings, etc. Given he is around not-so-pleasant smells most of the time, he loves when I burn a Circle E Candles, inc in the house. Love you, babe!"

And we, I mean, HE won!  I, er HE, was soooo excited!  And it has already come in it's fabulous, peanut-packed glory!



Finally, for being a relatively good sport, I got El Hubbo something he could really be excited about.  Ladies, let me tell you, this is a cheap, homerun of a gift.  You need not buy your guy anything else for Christmas.  There are lightbulbs that also serve as bluetooth speakers.


As all little kids, he couldn't wait to get it open and installed.  Interestingly, the directions are not grammatically correct, which causes me some concern about what the potential safety rating may be, however, this did not stop him from playing incessantly with the color change feature until I almost experienced a seizure.  It comes with a remote, so he can lay in bed, listen to his music and change the colors of the light.  This makes our bedroom seem way too much like a bad European discotheque, but you can see he is happy.


That's it.  Bonus post complete.  As you can see we are rocking right along.  

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