Sleepytime

On most days I start to feel the itch to go to sleep around 9:30 PM. I never actually get to sleep at that time though because Mike is against going to bed before midnight. He tells me how we only get to spend the evening's together and we don't get home and settled until 8pm on most nights so how could I cut the evening short, etc. Which makes complete sense - except that I'm exhausted. So we usually land at some sort of compromise and I'm in bed by 11.

Last night was a little different, I had had a bad day. End of the month = time to do bills, which never fails to ruin my day (or week). Some nonsense happened at work - not sure why I still let that bother me! The usual worry and pressure from mom about something - guilt trip and all. And although I'm about to embark on a 5 day adventure to DR to hang out with my brothers, I was sad that Mike wasn't able to come. It seemed wrong that my first trip back home after being married would be alone...

So I moped on the couch for a few hours and to my utter shock and amazement, at 9:30 pm, Mike turned off the TV and all the lights and announced that we'd be going to bed. And we talked in bed for a half hour or so and went to sleep. I think he could tell that the longer I stayed up, the more I would turn all the negative things around in my head and the worse I would feel. So he did the thing that he know gives me great comfort - sleeping snuggled up with him. It was a relief to just let it all go.



In the words of Mike's niece at 5 years old (Zenzele) - "When you're sad, you should pray and then take a nap. And when you wake up, things will be better."

Sometimes it is just that simple.

It's the Little Things

In the Fuller household, we pray every night before dinner.

Standard Daily prayer before dinner: "Bless this food we're about to recieve for the nourishment of our bodies in christ's name. Amen."

Tonight's before dinner prayer: "Bless this food we're about to recieve for the nourishment of our bodies in christ's name. Amen. And bless my honeybear (that's me) because I love her more and more everyday. Amen. Except Tuesdays, I love her the same on Tuesdays but more every other day. Amen."

It's hard not to be happy when you come home to that. The perfect balance of love and silliness.

Down Home with the Neelys

I love to cook. And luckily for Mike (who would live off of McDonald's and chicken wings if I didn't cook), I'm also pretty good at it. So yesterday in my lounging around, I watched "Down Home with the Neelys." It's a cooking show with a terrible time slot on Food Network - Saturdays at 1 PM (or something like that). But it's actually pretty good. This too cute black couple cooks soul food together for a half hour. Yesterday they made fried chicken, collard greens, sweet potato pie and other artery cloggers. The result looked so good that I was inspired to try my hand at fried chicken. I mean my husband is a black man from the south - so what business do I have being his wife if I can't make some soul food! So, with appropriate advice and commentary from the southern black man, I proceeded to make my first batch of fried chicken. And although when I thought I was done, it was raw inside and I had to bake it before we could actually eat it, the end result was juicy and had that perfect brown crispy outside. So I got half of it right and look forward to improving my second attempt!

Conversations with Home

Since Mike worked today, I spent most of the day lazing around, channel surfing between food network and HGTV. I also took the opportunit to make some phone calls. I called DR and spoke with my Dad and Mariella and Jose and Cristian. Cristian had me rolling - he asked how I was doing: como tu ta' and proceeded to tell me about his little brother Patricio. Patricio was urmiendo (instead of durmiendo - sleeping) and apparently he talks now. Cristian told me he says Papa and that he's gordo (fat). So I asked him if he was gordo too - si - and if he eats a lot - si - amd that he was bien. It's so easy to get pleasure from even just a few words, he had me rolling.

Cristian & Jose













Then I talked to Jose who excitedly announced that he was on summer vacation! That he's now 5 whole years old and that he has a loose tooth! So we went back and forth on what a big man he is and I congratulated him on "graduating" to the first grade. He asked me when I was coming and I excitedly told him, next week. And then he said bye - and then he said (as quickly as he could get it out), bye Hermanita (sister) and threw the phone to his mom. He's my stepbrother and has never called me his sister before - it was sweet how he threw it in, like a test to see if it would be ok. Lucky for him (and my Dad), I've always been open to more siblings!




Patricio

The novelty of talking to my younger siblings never wears off. I'm always amazed at how cute and funny their simple words and stories are.