Frankenstorm

No school today and likely no school tomorrow.  And we are the lucky ones - only heavy rain so far.  All my kids are safe and warm in the house.  Hopefully our biggest concern will be whether the direct tv loses signal.  I see a lot of complaining from folks about over reaction and it is just a little rain, I say just relax and do your best to get through what hopefully passes us by without incident.

For those of you on the coast and to the north - stay safe!

Had a great weekend, starting with getting to spend great time with a childhood friend and attending my 25th HS reunion.  I am from what used to be a very small town and most of the people I graduated with were also in my kindergarten class.  It is always good to catch up with those folks.  Then there are the few that I was very close with.  I lived at the local beach with a group of friends during the summers when I was 16 and 17.  I am not sure what my dad was thinking - a bunch of teenagers totally unsupervised - we had such a good time.  I got to spend the night with these guys and it was like I was 17 again.  These are the people that you don't need to maintain contact with - you can't just go right back to where you left off.  Hopefully we don't wait another 5 years to connect again.

I spent the night there and woke up bright and early to get home for my youngest son's football game at 9:00 am.  They won!!!  He played every down, got very dirty and I could see him actually skipping around out there between downs.  I knew he was having a really good time.   It was a very exciting overtime win and a great way to end his season.  

That afternoon I got to help my daughter get ready for the homecoming dance.  She looked absolutely beautiful and went with a group of 21 of her closest friends!  I was allowed to take the pictures and then they went out to dinner and the dance.  She spent the night out with some of the group that went to the dance.

My 10 year old also won his game - they ended the season with only 1 overtime loss.  In this game he made 3 tackles in the backfield on the last 3 plays of the game.  He was very excited. 

My husband worked his ass off this weekend.  He had the kids on Friday night while I was out with my HS friends.  He got my son to the game and stayed for the first half.  Then he had to leave to officiate 4 football games that my oldest usually works, the oldest was doing his official college visit.  He had a break that happened to be at the same time as the 10 year old's game so he got to watch that.  Then he went back to officiate 2 more games that night.  He basically worked from 10 until 10.

He was up and out the door by 8:00 on Sunday to officiate 4 more games.  Then when he got home he got up on the roof to make sure that the gutters were clean and ready for the rain that Frankenstorm would bring.

No complaints from him - except his knee is a little sore.  He just silently picked up the slack for me and my oldest this weekend so we could go have fun.  He was rewarded with sex on Sunday morning - with a little special treat thrown in, and more sex on Monday morning.  Although he may have been rewarded with that even if he hadn't been such a team player this weekend.

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Out of the Slump

So you will be pleased to know that I feel like we have officially broken out of the boring, maintenance sex slump.  Which has me of course spending much more time thinking about and anticipating sex.  It all goes together.  When in the slump you might think about sex but not in a great way.  The thoughts run more to how long has it been, I'm too tired for it, blah blah blah.

When sex is good the thoughts are - what we will do, how often, can we fit some in before work?

So nice to be in a good sex place right now.

Tonight is my 25th High School reunion.  It is not a big event, we are hitting the homecoming game and then the local bar.  My husband is staying home with the kids and I will leave this afternoon to make the 2 hour trip.  My former neighbor and one of my closest friends is going with me - she is 2 years behind me but we spent our teenage years hanging out so she is the perfect date.

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Paying for College

There was a comment on my previous post about paying for college and what our plan was.  Did we do any education savings accounts - did we expect the kids to help pay.  I started to reply and it got rather long winded so I decided to make it a post instead.

First of all - I am no wizard with my money.  If I have it I spend it - so I only keep what I absolutely need to pay bills and survive available to me.  All the rest gets stocked away into retirement or stocks.  I use the stocks when I need to pay for a large purchase.  As I mentioned in an earlier post we are off credit cards so only real money gets used.  The last of the credit cards will be paid off in February.  So we have payments on the house and one car (which will be paid off next September).

As far as school, my father offered to pay for mine, but at the time I was engaged and had been working full time for 2 years and I decided I should pay myself.  Now this was easier at the time.  I started at East Carolina University in 1990 and paid $365 a semester, I think books were more expensive than tuition.  So I was able to get through school without any loans.

When I graduated I got a job and my husband went to school.  It was more expensive, I think about $2000 a year by then (1994) but we again were able to do it without loans.

We are so fortunate to live in the great state of Virginia - there are so many really good state schools, they range in cost from $13,000 to 21,000 a year.  Which when you look around is a pretty good bargain.  We always told our kids that they had to pick one of these.

When it came time for my son to head off to college he applied to 9 schools and was accepted at 7.  Then he decided to stay home at community college.  He didn't know what he wanted to study so this seemed like the better plan.  Tuition is abut $1600 and books about 800 - so again no loans as we paid this out of pocket.  He is graduating after 3 semesters and a summer class.  We figure this saved us about $30,000.

So when it came time for him to choose the next school we allowed him to choose one out of state.  It is slightly more expensive about $26,000 a year but he got a small scholarship that will basically pay for housing.  He will take out as much as he is allowed in subsidized loans and then we will take out loans to make up the difference.  When all is said and done we will look at how much he has in loans and depending on his situation at the time we may help him pay them back.

My daughter got an offer to play at a division two private school.  The tuition is much higher but her scholarship has our cost at $16,000 a year the first year with the opportunity to increase her athletic scholarship next year and moving forward.  Again she will take out as much as allowed in subsidized and we will take the same path with her on loans.  She is also going to try to be an RA which will save an additional $9,000 a year after her freshman year.

Bottom line is we didn't do any educational savings accounts, we couldn't afford to save for both retirement and college.  We decided to start building our retirement accounts.  After 20 years for me and 10 for my husband we both have amassed pretty good retirement accounts.  It just made more sense to us to save for retirement instead of education because we can use the retirement money for education if needed.

When the kids graduate and the loans become due we can decide if we want to take a loan against our 401k to pay off the loans.  The 401k loans get paid back to us at 8%.  So while we lose the interest against that money while we borrow it - we pay the 108% back in.

By the way - the kids are both going straight on to graduate school.  The plan is to have them get a Graduate Assistant position somewhere so that they can get free tuition.

And I will have a 3 year break from when my daughter graduates and my next set of kids heads off to school.

Random Thoughts

Just a stream of thoughts and highlights from my day:

Woke up to my oldeest getting ready for work - he and his new girlfriend have been splitting time between our house and hers, so when I got up to help him find something I found myself sneaking around in my underwear and tank top.  We are a family that walks around in underwear, I'm not sure she is ready for that!  Unlike any of the past girlfriends they seem to spend every minute possible together.  It is odd because they share some interest but have settled into a very comfortable give and take.  He goes with her to see her brother in the hospital (he is recovering from a very serious accident that has him in ICU with a brain injury - he is doing very well and will be released to rehab soon) and she sits with him while he watches sports non-stop, sleeping or reading - just being near him.  Odd to hear him call her sweetheart - but fun to watch the relationship grow, and proud of the way he treats her.  They are both finishing up at community college this December and are headed off to a 4 year school together in January.

Crawled back into bed and had a little morning conversation and good morning sex with my husband - he invited me to shower - but I really wasn't quite ready to officially start the day.  So I lounged in bed until the youngest woke up and came in with all his football equipment to force me into starting the day.

Got my youngest and my husband out the door for his football game, only to find that we had a chicken on the roof of the house.  Took some pictures and had some laughs with a few of the neighbors as we watched the clumsy bird fly down.  Headed off to watch the football game and although my husband is a coach we both agree that it is nice that we can just be happy to see our son out there at 8 years old enjoying himself.  Some of the other parents spend the entire time yelling when a hit isn't made or a ball is fumbled.    It is amazingly sad to watch these 8 and 9 year old kids go out there and try to play a very confusing very hard game only to turn around and see crazy football parents yelling at them.  He lost again - they have only won once - but he smiled, had a great time and at least at this point doesn't walk away feeling like a loser - that is what counts. Bonus is that my nephews are also on the team and we get to visit with them and their sisters as we watch.  I am so thankful that my kids have the opportunity to basically grow up with their cousins.  Seeing my kids love/hate/hug/play/fight with my brother's kids is something that makes me so happy.

Home for some lunch and homework - then the 10 year old is off to a birthday party.  He only gets to go because a great friend is willing to take 30 minutes out of her very busy Saturday to pick him up for me.  Her son isn't going to the party but she volunteered so my son could attend.

Now I am sitting in a Panera 90 minutes from home - having dropped off my daughter and 5 of her closest friends at an amusement park for a few hours of "Halloween Haunt".  I sit here and people watch and think about how lucky and blessed I am to have a great home, great friends, great kids, great marriage, great family, great health and pretty good finances.  Hard to top that.

Side note on finances.  With two off to 4 year colleges in the next year my husband and I stopped all use of credit cards a few month ago.  I had noticed less and less disposable income the last two months and just realized it is from the use of only real money and no credit.  So while it has been harder and we have been living more hand to mouth - I like that it is because we are only using 'real' money.  That said - it is time to look at our budget and see if we need to adjust our savings.  Right now we see only about 1/2 of my husbands earnings - the rest go into retirement funds.  In order to survive the next two years we will need to cut back on saving.

I think I might move that hot sex up a night and see what I can do to get some tonight when I get home.  It will be late - but a girl can hope.

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Real life

I have been away for a while for a few reasons. Real life has been keeping me busy, I love the new job but getting up to speed is never easy.  Fall sports for the kids and coaching for my husband has us running in different directions, but the seasons will be ending shortly and that will mean a lot more free time.  My lungs have been in bad shape as they are every October/November with the change of weather.  My lungs never function at 100% due to the radiation they endured as part of my cancer treatments, in October and November I function at about 50% which makes life much more difficult.

That said - I have missed posting and catching up on my blogs but I have also had a bit of writers block.  I am in a bit of a sex slump and writing about it makes it more real and also puts the pressure on me to break out of it.  While I want to break out of it I am also a little comfortable in it.  That comes from the old married me.  There is sex, so it isn't a dry spell.  The sex is there but it is not very exciting.  I crave some good hot sex, but life has gotten in the way.  

I'm thinking Sunday is the next good opportunity for not just sex but Great Sex!  I know it is only Tuesday and that seems a long time to wait, I'm sure there will be sex between now and then but with our schedules this week it will be more 'maintenance' sex.  Our last encounter was literally a quickie while I was waiting for the oven to warm up - he had until the magic beep occurred.  I think he appreciated fitting him in (pun intended) while trying to get snacks ready for a day of football watching with the family.  I also think the challenge of the time constraint was fun for him.  The sex wasn't mind blowing - but for me part of the high is the fact that he threw a playful - 'want some of this' my way never expecting me to call him into the bedroom and give him 3 minutes to get it done.  I did enjoy myself but I got more enjoyment out of knowing that he watched the games in a much better mood!

So there you have it - sex has been happening but it has been nothing to write about.  I have avoided writing because then I would have to admit to the slump and own up to being comfortable with that.  Then I am forced to deal with the fact that I hate being comfortable with it because I deserve GREAT sex.  So my promise to you - great sex on Sunday and hey if there is some great sex thrown in before that I'll take it!

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A little appreciation

I thought I would list some of the finer qualities of my better half - then I can come back and read it when some of his not so fine qualities make me crazy.

• He loves me, now this isn't always easy.  I am bossy, I whine, I yell and I am very obnoxious.  But he loves me and I do appreciate that and realize how lucky I am to have that love.
• He is great at his job.  He is a middle school guidance counselor and he makes a real effort to know the kids, he loves his job and that means that when he comes home there is no stress or baggage that makes its way to our home life.
• He is a great dad, funny, playful, always available to coach whatever team the kids are on and not afraid to be a kid himself.
• He is a very good cook, whatever mess he makes is usually worth it.
• He takes care of all the assorted creatures dead or alive that wander into our house or yard.
• He is really funny.
• He still makes me feel like the hottest person on earth, he still chases me after 25 years.
• He is unselfish in bed, this is key to a happy healthy relationship.
• He is always willing to let me go for a girls weekend without complaint, he realizes that this time away is important for my sanity.
• He trust me, even if I tell him that someone was hitting on me he will just laugh it off, he knows there is no danger there
• He isn't afraid to stand up to anyone, if I asked him to confront a guy that hit on me he would, and I have seen him get out and defend others that are being bullied or are in trouble.
• He still asks me out on dates.
• He picks up side work when we need money without complaining about it.
• He loves my family as if it was his own.  When my father was sick he was right there with the rest of us.  In the end my father needed 24 hour care, and couldn't do anything for himself, my husband did everything and anything to make sure my father had what he needed.
• He lets me be me.

That is a pretty good list to start with.   One day when he totally annoys me I will come back and read this.

By the way - we had a good night last night, took things slowly which isn't our norm but is good to throw in every once and a while.

Go O's!

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