Category: Family

Five years ago, I was messaged on eHarmony. The latest date I’d gone on the week before ended with the lady messaging me saying we weren’t compatible. I was seriously thinking about putting a halt on my searching, but I decided I’d give it at least one more try. It wasn’t like I couldn’t go be a hermit if this one went down in flames as well.

Except that didn’t happen. We exchanged messages for more than a month. I think those were important. We really got to know each other before we actually met.

Then our first date. I had fun, but was nervous as hell. Honestly, I couldn’t tell if she thought it went well or not until she texted me the next morning. Then both of us were getting ready for Irma, which was scheduled to hit a few days later. During said preps, I discovered I’d left my debit card at the restaurant. I guess I was having a good time. The night of the hurricane, we were texting back and forth. The. Entire. Night.

More dates, which was difficult because we lived fifty miles away. Which felt longer because the main highway linking us liked to clog up at the most inopportune time. Then trading weekends. Neither of us can agree when we decided that our relationship was heading to marriage. All I know was that by May or June of 2018, I was hunting up wedding rings. She was sending me enough links to ones she liked that my FB feed had ads for rings for six months.

Five years ago, that message has upended my life. In so many good ways. I’d never thought I’d leave northern Hillsborough County. Now, that part of the state I’d spent almost all of my life in seems like a distant place. I’ve felt more at home in Parrish than I remember feeling since I was a child.

It’s been an amazing five years, and I can’t wait for many, many more.

This past weekend, The Wife and I got the bug to do some major rearranging. Major rearranging. Mostly between the upstairs living room, her office, and my office. These kinds of endeavors can be trying because we have very different opinions – more to the point, how to decide on things. She is much more deliberative than me. It’s very frustrating. We’ve gotten things to the “this is our experimental phase”.

After adventures in shuffling on Saturday, we went over to BIL’s and SIL’s house for family dinner. When we got there, BIL was watch How It’s Made: Dream Car Edition. He and I watched a few episodes. The one that kinda fascinated me was the Bugatti Veyron. Particularly how they put together the front end and the back end. Watch the first part of this video. Watch the floor. They have a rail with these metal slats that move like a wave. It’s nifty.

I tried to post this last week, but the WordPress app is for shit. Worse, it will work for a bit, and then look like it will work, but in actuality it’s eating the posts. Enough bitching – on to the story.

The wet food we’ve been using for the cats for as long as we’ve merged herds changed their formulation. Enough that even our normal ”garbage disposal” cats wouldn’t eat it. Grumble.

The Wife and MIL remedy this by experimenting with a variety of new wet foods. In true Ward family tradition, The Wife made up a spreadsheet to track who likes what food.

We now have a few varieties the cats like, but the experimentation continues. The Wife wants a wider variety. Just in case.

Now to figure out how to get rid of the flat of wet food the cats won’t eat. Grumble.

Since this week is The Wife’s birthday, I decided to reach back into the wayback machine.

I posted these as OOCQOTD’s on the Book of Face:

“Is “Scythian Raiders” referring to raiders from Scythia or raiding Scythia? Because I can see the former being an interesting board game, but the Romans learned the latter was a bad idea.”

“Yeah, but when you go to the store by yourself, I usually get flowers.”