Focusing on Life :: You Are

This week Sally's prompt for Focusing on Life is to finish the sentence 'You are ...." She asked us to think about what kind of a person we are. If you could only pick one word, what would your's be? 

I've been thinking about that all week, and it just isn't that easy. But I've finally decided on the word unconventional. When I think about the things that define my life, that is the theme. I wouldn't confuse that with more traditional things. I did take my husband's name because I wanted all of us (my kids, my husband and I) to have a family name. 

But some of the choices my husband and I have made are unconventional. I work full time, and he stays home with the kids. We didn't mean for that to happen, but when my oldest was born I had the boring, steady job with good insurance. He had the better paying, interesting job in high tech, but his work was on a contract basis. So he quit and we made do on my salary. Don't get me wrong, there are many, many days when I wish we could trade places. But we're just too far down this path to make that change. We both felt strongly about one of us staying home with the kids. It is just how it played out for us.

Last week I told you about my two rings, and mentioned that there was another story behind the diamond ring. So when we got married, we exchanged simple wedding bands. That is because we wanted a simple wedding. We got married by the justice of the peace up in wine country. It was the dead of winter (December) and pouring rain. I wore green velvet (that first pic is us on our wedding day). As many of you know, my favorite color is green. We planned everything over the course of 3 months .... so there was no running off in the night. It was just how we wanted to do it. But perhaps I should back up one more step. Late Summer, I was planning a trip down to see my sister who lives in New Zealand. As I was completing my plans I said to my then boyfriend, "so am I going by myself? or are you coming? because either way I'm going." He decided that he did want to come with me. And then as we started to plan out all the places to visit we realized that for a mere extra $100 we could stop off in Fiji. Sign me up! The more we talked about it, the more we realized that we were planning a very romantic trip, and commented on what a great honeymoon Fiji would be. We looked at each other and said, 'let's do it."  So we planned our honeymoon before the wedding. But that is our life. We love to travel, so we tend to plan around places we'd like to visit. (Picture of our island in Fiji and a picture of my sister and me in NZ)

Ok, the diamond ring. We had been married 5 years at this point. I was roughly 38 weeks pregnant on our 5th anniversary. We decided to celebrate by going out to dinner. We were at a 'cozy' little restaurant in San Francisco (where we lived at the time). You know the kind of place where the tables are all right next to each other with a bench that lines the back wall across all the tables. A couple with their kids sat next to us. The woman was a serious Nosey Parker telling everyone what to do, what to order, reaching across the table to cut someone's meat. She saw my husband pull out a little velvet box and slide it toward me. She audibly gasped. She nearly yelled "he's going to ask her to marry him!" The look on her face was sympathy that he was going to make me an 'honest woman.' We both shot her a glare and my husband said, "we've been married for 5 years and this is our anniversary, as if it is any of your business."  You could see the relief on her face that I was not having this child out of wedlock. Now it makes me giggle when I slide on my ring and think of that bossy stranger interrupting my moment. It is par for the course of my unconventional life.