Tag…I’m It!

Happy New Year, Everyone!

I was recently “tagged” in a blogger game by my friend, Adie over at From Adie, With Love so as I promised her, here is my contribution to the game.

The rules are simple. The blogger who tagged me (in this case, Adie) gives me three questions and I have to answer them. Then, I have to pose my own three questions and tag three other bloggers. So here are the questions Adie posed to me and my responses:

What has been the happiest moment of your life so far?

Look, I’m forty-seven years old. I can’t pick just one moment out of all those years. Graduating college. Getting proposed to. Getting married. Finding out I was pregnant after doing a round of IVF. Finding out I didn’t lose the baby when I thought I did. His birth. Getting married again. Our older kids’ weddings. The births of our grandkids. 

You see my dilemma?

I had a great uncle who used to say, “THESE are the good ol’ days.” What he meant was, people spend too much time thinking about the “good ol’ days” instead of living in the moment and being thankful. My Mom used to joke that any day she woke up and her name wasn’t in the obituaries was a good day. 

The older I get, the more I understand them. My life is a culmination of great moments, and shitty moments, and boring moments. They all have their place. They’ve all made me who I am.

My greatest moments are the quiet ones that happen when I least expect it. When The Husband Dude looks over at me and we laugh without saying anything because we both know what the other is thinking. When I’m doing something stupid like unrolling a dozen tamales with my daughter because I lost an acrylic fingernail somewhere and we can’t find it. When my teenager walks up and gives me a spontaneous hug and tells me he “loves me a lot”. When a total stranger comments on my blog and tells me they actually laughed out loud at something I wrote. 

That’s the stuff right there.

If you hadn’t decided on the career choice you’ve found yourself in, what would you have done instead?

First of all, nobody grows up saying they want to work at Satan’s Butthole for a living. This wasn’t a career choice. This was a “I can’t make a living teaching school in Oklahoma so I sort of fell into this” choice. I’m still doing the same thing I was doing at Satan’s Butthole but in a much better working environment. The bullshit is still the bullshit, though, and I wouldn’t have chosen this for myself.

With that being said, you can probably guess that I would’ve chosen writing as a career. I’m still dreaming the dream. I’m not going to win any Pulitzers, but if I can make a living making people laugh at stuff I write, then I feel like I’ve accomplished my dream. Publishing a book and having it be a “bestseller” would be awesome, but at this stage in my life, I would take “living comfortably” on what I make from writing as a huge success.

What do you do to keep yourself motivated?

Honey, nothing will motivate you more than knowing a mini-me that you grew in your belly is now counting on you to keep them alive. That’ll pretty much motivate you to do whatever the hell you have to do to keep your head above water.

Prior to that, it didn’t take much for me, really. I’ve never thought the idea of the starving artist was romantic. I like stuff. Stuff like air conditioning. Gas in my car is nice too. And if I’m really feeling crazy, a new coat every twenty years is fun.

No joke. I had a coat for twenty years and the only reason I bought a new one is that I lost a ton of weight and my coat was way too big.

So what motivates me is my love of stuff and the dependence of a very hairy almost-man who relies on me to provide food, shelter and keep the internet on so he can play Xbox.

I never said I was a deep thinker. I’m just practical.

I’m not tagging anyone with questions, because I believe all my blogger buddies have been tagged. Hope you enjoyed and we’ll see you next time!

 Stay weird, my friends. Normal is boring.