"Man, that's a pretty tree!" he said about the fifty foot Japanese Pine that stands in our backyard.

"Uh uh," I reply.

"Let's climb it?!" my husband looks at me questioningly.

"What?" I giggle.

"Come on," he says no longer waiting for me to answer.

"How are we going to get to the branches?" I look up to where the first branch starts a good two feet over my head.

Already my husband has run down to the basement door to grab the ladder. He walks back over to the tree with it and props it against the trunk.

"Oh my god I haven't done this since I was like 13," I say.

"Come on," he says again.

I start to climb the rickety little ladder and my heart already starts to race about being a measly ten feet off the ground. Chris is already about five feet up over my head. I hustle up to the branches. I want to stay close behind him so I can watch where he puts his feet. As I put my foot on the first branch I notice that it is sturdier than the ladder was. My heart starts to calm down. I bend and twist around the poky pine needle limbs. Wow I didn't know I could still do this. We get about thirty foot up and we sit on two limbs across from each other. We look out past the green needles in front of us.

"This is nice," I smile at Chris.

"Yeah, we should do stuff like this more often."


 

Just in time for Mother's Day, my daughter said her first whole sentence. When I came home from work yesterday, in loud, chiming voice I said, "Hello!" My two year old then looked up at me and said, "Hello Mama!" just as plain as day. It's so amazing to witness things like that. Just last week I wasn't sure if she really understood me sometimes. Now I know for sure that she does. She is just waiting for the right moment to respond.
 

On the drive up there I was trying not to think about what I had just gotten myself into.
"We are all the way in Alabama now. There's no way I can back out of this," I thought to myself.

So, I just tried to shut my mind off. We rode in complete silence the rest of the way. As we pulled into the dusty turn off I spotted several mud holes up ahead.
"We're not going to make it through that in the van!" my nerves made me snap out.

My husband kept driving and turned down a smaller path with a smaller mud hole. We were really going to do this. There was Le Bron's car sitting at the edge of the cliff. Chris threw the van in park. We got out and walked close out by the edge.

"Howdy," called Le Bron in his goofy little voice. "I was just about to go over when you guys pulled up."

I walked up a little farther. My eyes followed the rope from the harness around Le Bron's waist over the cliff and down to the ground. There about a hundred feet down, in the middle of the brush lay a white SUV on it's top.

"Um, there's a truck on it's lid down there," I exclaimed.

"Yeah, that's why they call it Insurance Bluff," explained LeBron.

The boys chit chatted a while and I walked back to the van. I got the kids out. I gripped Ashlyn's hand as tight as possible. Her little fingers were wriggling to get free.

"DAH-DEE!," she whined and looked at Chris. Chris walked back over to me and picked up our daughter.

"So what do you think?"

"Not one that big"

So I sat at the top with the kids for a while. Then the boys took me down to the fifty footer. Chris helped me put the harness on.

"Just listen to Le Bron. Do what ever he says."

Le Bron hooked me up to the rope. He then hooked him self up and walked backward to the edge of the cliff. Not once did he look back behind himself. He rested the arches of his feet just on the edge so that he was leaning backward.

"Okay, just lift up the lever with your left hand and hold the rope back behind your butt bone with the other."

I did as I was instructed.

"Now just walk backwards."

I walked all the way to the edge and stopped. There was an achy feeling in my stomach. My feet turned into boulders. They were letting me know this was not natural. I am not made to do things like this.

"Just kind of roll your feet back over the edge."

I complied. The boulders now became a set of hands; trying with all their might to cling to the tip of rock in front of them. I held my breath and rolled back into a 45 degree angle from the rock. I then felt gravity's attempts to kill me weighing on my chest. I instantly let go of the lever that allowed me movement down the rope.

My right hand was clenched so tight around the rope behind me it was starting to get cold from poor circulation.

"Now pull down on the lever again and slowly loosen your grip on the rope behind you."

I started to walk down the wall. I looked down to see there was a cave in the wall just below me. There was no where for my feet.

"Okay now kick off the wall hard and slide down."

I kicked and swung out a foot away from the wall. I was dead silent. My mind could not process words right then. I was petrified. If I didn't kick out far enough, when I slid down I would slam against those rocks.

I hung out at the top of the cave for about fifteen minutes talking my feet into another kick off. I finally mustered up the courage and gave the wall a hard kick. I went way out and slid halfway down into the cave. I was hanging in mid air now because I let go too soon. At least I was past the rock, though. Le Bron pulled me in and I slid down until my feet touched the ground.

"Congratulations, you just went repelling!"








 

The more I am around the same people day in and day out, the more other people make me nervous. I've always been a shy person but I've always had a few friends I somehow was forced to associate with and end up close to. Here lately I feel like I don't even have that.

I moved around a lot after I moved out of my parents house and ended up losing touch with a lot of people. Now that I have moved back to the area I went to school in, I find that most of the people I hung out with before are on drugs or have moved away from this little town. I don't want that around my kids so I've just let those people go.

I have a few friends, about 45 minutes away, that I go visit every now and then but I really don't think that's enough sometimes. I've got to change something. I need an adult life. It's amazing how your life can take so many turns and change you into a completely different person. Someone who you never thought you would be and don't know really know how to be. Does that make sense?
 

I owe many thanks to an anonymous person who gave to me an upgraded membership. So to whoever you are thank you, thank you, thank you. You have made it possible for me to start this "blog".

Well enough said about that. There's more to say about this week. The main event...THE KNOCK DOWN DRAG OUT OF MARITAL BLISS. Okay so there was no knocking down or even dragging out involved but there definitely was a huge blow out (and possibly a black eye) between me and my husband yesterday. Sometimes I swear I've been around that man so long that I no longer think sanely. The subject of the feud money. Sounds so petty, right?

It started because my husband at age 31 still does not see the importance of paying his bills on time or even at all in some cases. I am in charge of all bill paying. So when he told me yesterday he was going to pay the rent late this month because if he paid it on time he would not have money to go camping with his brother over the weekend, naturally I was pissed. We squabble over it a few minutes and finally I tell him, " Look! If your not going to pay your rent on time, I will not be living with you!" That is one of my husband's triggers. He blows up at me "Don't you threaten me! I'm tired of it! If you're going to leave just leave!" At that point I throw my cell phone at him which hits him in the eye. We scream and cuss and grit our teeth at each other for an hour or so while our two year old runs around underneath us. This just fuels the fire. We are both angry at each other and ourselves for doing this in front of her. What is wrong with us? I blame it on postpartum. We then rap it up and become the best of friends again after some civil talk and tears.

Can two bombs live with each other without destroying the home around it?