I promise never to put you first.
I promise never to love you the most.
I promise you will be second after Him.
I promise I will love you more than you can imagine by first loving Him.
I promise to pursue you every tomorrow more than I did every yesterday.
You are my wife and my best friend, but I don’t love you more than anything. I love you as much as Christ wants me to.
My wife knows my work schedule. She knows that while I am very busy during working hours I will return her call at my earliest convenience. We have also established an emergency signal. If she calls and the topic of discussion can wait, she will simply leave a voicemail. If there is an emergency she will let the call ring all the way through to voicemail, hang up, and call me right back. Once I feel the vibration of the immediate callback I drop everything and take the call. This process has been utilized successfully throughout my career. Twice due to extended family medical issues, and once when my oldest son cracked my youngest over the head with a putter. If you have read any earlier posts you know my youngest has head issues.
Last week I received the emergency signal. I was in the middle of meeting when I received the immediate callback signifying an emergency of some importance was taking place in the Pell Family. Immediately my heart began to race. My first thought was Jack, our youngest, had gotten his large head stuck somewhere. I calmly collected myself, excused myself from my meeting, and whispered “Is everything alright?”
My lovely wife’s sweet voice replied, “Yes, everything is fine.”
I know my wife very well. I could tell there was a hidden sadness behind those words. “What’s wrong Babe?”
There was a slight hesitation after I asked those words which gave my mind another split second to visualize all the places where Jack’s large head could fit into but not back out of.
My wife collected herself, then emphatically stated, “I can’t get the DVR to work!!! We are missing AMERICAN IDOL!!!”
The sad reality of this story is there was a real emergency on our hands. You see, we have dealt with Jack’s cranium problems his entire life, but we have never missed an episode of American Idol.
All couples need Morse Code. This code is used in a variety of situations. The most important use of “The Code” is when you need to leave an awkward party, gathering, or “couple date”. All of you know what I am talking about and the next time you are hanging out with new couple friends look for the signs. Unfortunately, they are rather obvious due to a lack of discipline in practicing and refining this art. Rookie couples often have not practiced their signs leading to more awkward situations. I’ll be honest ladies, usually you are the ones to blame. Let me illustrate with a fictitious couple, Chet McMasterson and Sabrina LaFleuer.
Chet and Sabrina have been dating for over a year. They just joined a small group through their church and are on their first “couple date” with a married couple from their small group. Both Chet and Sabrina are extremely excited about a dinner invite they received from this couple. Chet and Sabrina go to dinner without first establishing “The Code”. This is much like going to war without bullets, or invading a country who does not have WMDs. It is just not a well thought out plan.
Half way through dinner Chet realizes he has nothing in common with the married couple. Sabrina also knows this, but due to some genetic pre-disposition, unknown to us men, is unable to turn that reality into action, simply thank the couple for a nice dinner and “Get the hell out of Dodge.” Instead Chet is forced to listen to the husband give a surprisingly convincing argument about why he chooses Penzoil over Quakerstate and how Duct tape actually got its name.
Here is where the lack of establishing “The Code” makes the situation more awkward. Chet begins nonchalantly raising his eyebrows at Sabrina as if to say “I want to go the eff home.” Sabrina thinks this is Chet’s cute way of saying he loves her and returns the favor by raising her eyebrows. Chet then cunningly squeezes Sabrina’s leg. Sabrina shouts out, “Chet, why are you squeezing my leg so hard?” Cover is blown folks. The Penzoil renob stops in the middle of his passionate discussion about the negative impacts global warming has had on the Brazilian soil and an awkward silence fills the room. Feelings are now hurt and a perfectly good evening is wasted. All because Chet and Sabrina did not take on the proper level of responsibility in establishing “The Code.”
Meet our English Bulldog, Clementine.
The joy of Christmas is alive and well. I love creating new traditions with Lightening and the Bolts. The great thing about being married to Lightening is the memories we will be creating as a family. Lightening has given me so much to be thankful for, but as we were decorating the tree, Lightening pulled out some of the ornaments from her childhood. When I first saw this ornament I screamed out, “What the hell is that?” Lightening started to laugh, she is so cute when she laughs. But seriously, what the hell is this ornament? Here, see for yourself:
This scary ass ornament looks like it found out it had herpes of the mouth then set itself on fire. I’m afraid the rest of the ornaments on the tree are going to catch a disease from this thing. Merry Christmas.
For those of you who can’t get enough of the Twilight Saga, I thought it would be kind to continue the story line until the next movie. For those of you who have not seen New Moon, I will give you just a little background. Edward loves Bella so deeply that a ghost of Edward appears to Bella if she is in danger and whispers very heartfelt utterances to his one true love Bella. Let me just say, I really studied the magnificent dialogue between these two glorious actors. Hope you enjoy.
Edward: My…love…is…deep…my….heart…
Bella: You…love…deep…live…I’m…older…love…
Edward: I must leave, you will forget about me. I left, but then the second time I came back because of my love, but my love can’t be kept away from you. I would never leave a fourth time, but if you added up the love I had for you the third time I left, plus the second time I came back, and the first time altogether…When you breathe, and your breath makes me love…It also has to be about job creation?
Bella: You…hurt…please…love…Full…sentences…are…too…much
Two weeks pass, and Bella can’t get over the fact Edward is gone. She has turned to adrenaline laced activities and putting herself in harms way, because then she can see Edward’s ghost which keeps their love alive. After a day of cliff diving, Bella is hungry and thinks nothing of a quick trip to McDonald’s.
Bella: Eat…I…quarter-pounder…cheese…drink…fry…
Ghost Edward: Bella, don’t. You don’t want to do this.
Bella keeps ordering to continue seeing a vision of her one true love.
Ghost Edward: Bella, stop.
Bella orders a milkshake.
Ghost Edward: Dammit woman, I’m serious. I’m not going to turn some fat ass into a vampire. You must be straight out your mind.
Dear Santa,
All I want for Christmas is orthodontic mouth reduction. The majority of people find me extremely good-looking and I have made a fortune off my acting. To top it off, they think my smile is my calling card. Little do they know I fear my smile. You see Santa, I have the world’s biggest mouth. No , seriously, I was concerned so much about the size of my mouth I called up Ripley’s Believe it or Not and Guinness Book of World Records. Unfortunately, they both confirmed my fears. The size of my mouth measured larger than any other human. The runner-up was a double-headed Slovakian woman and they counted both of her mouths in the measurement. My fears turned into reality when I was posing for a family picture last month and I almost swallowed my own head. Please help my Christmas wish come true. Thanks Santa.
Sincerely,
Julia Roberts
There are no words to describe the joys of being a father. I know many of you reading this post can agree. The love I have for my boys (the bolts) is completely unconditional. Being a father has also made me extremely paranoid and overprotective. My youngest bolt, Jack, has caused me an unbelievable amount of worry.
When Jack was younger he looked like an orange on a toothpick. Don’t get me wrong, he was the cutest frickin’ orange I had ever seen, but his head was just so damn big. This caused him some serious navigational problems. No matter what he was doing he always managed to hit, bump, or scrape his head. I didn’t know what to do.
You know how cats use their whiskers to determine if their head can fit into tight places. Well, Jack was like a cat with severe depth perception problems that picked out all of its’ whiskers and just started running into things. Granted, if you had a cat like this it would be fun to watch for a while, but then you would start wondering “Should I do something about this?”
Lightening said I was being ridiculous when in all seriousness I told her to ask the doctor on his next check up if he needed to wear a helmet to prevent any serious or sustainable damage.
Well, Jack is almost 3 now, and he is going strong. We decided to get the boys bikes this year for Christmas. Needless to say, I am going to make the helmet seem like the coolest present in the whole world. Maybe, I can persuade Jack to wear it in the house.
For any of you who are married, or in a long-term relationship, you know how simple disagreements can turn into one or both partners saying the most asinine statements the world has ever heard. One such statement was made by my loving wife over a cigar. Now I am able to write this post with confidence only by first saying I have been the one who is guilty of this the majority of the time. Also, because I received my wife’s permission to write the post in the first place.
My wife and I were having a discussion about something irrelevant and ended up in a disagreement. My wife became extremely irritated with me. You know, the type of irritated where no matter what I did next it was going to piss off my wife to the point of no return.
After our disagreement my wife went outside to get the mail. When she came back inside she was holding a lighter. Now I know I had left the lighter outside on our patio couch, but here is the exchange.
Wife (Lightening): “Do you know where your lighter is?”
Me (Thunder): “In your hand.”
Lightening: “Do you know where I found it?”
Thunder: “I left it outside last night after having my cigar?”
Lightening: “Do you think that was smart?”
Thunder: “Okay, Babe, I have no idea where you are going with this.”
Lightening: “You need to be more careful, somebody could have set the house on fire.”
(What Thunder thought to himself): “What the eff did she just say?”
After thinking about my response, I tried to use logic. I told Lightening. “Babe I don’t think arson is a crime of convenience. I don’t think Chet McMasterson would be walking his dog, see a lighter sitting on our patio couch and think to himself, ‘This is too easy. These stupid sonsabitches just made it too easy.’
The great thing about Lightening is she knows when she is guilty of the asinine statement. We were able to share a laugh and move on. We try to resolve disagreements quickly, and if both parties are willing they can often be resolved with a laugh, a kiss, or “business time.”
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