Don't tell my hubby!

This post is secretly dedicated to my hubby. (Ooh la la!)

Since he doesn't get on facebook (and since I have banned him from the blog for six weeks), this will be safe with you, right?

So, many of you know that the past few years (since my hubby and I uprooted our family and moved to South Carolina and smack-dab in the middle of turmoil), we've had a really rough time.
We were hanging on, you know. But, you can only do that for so long. And you can only layer so many things before there is no more room to push them down.

That was me. I had so many layers: my sister's untimely death; bad relationships with men; pain from the past. I mean, I could go on and on and on--just as the layers did. I got to a point where I couldn't quite figure out how to remove the layers and so, instead, I numbed myself. I didn't want to feel them. They were too heavy and I was too fragile.

If I couldn't remove them, I certainly did not want to feel them. And so, I reached out for whatever was around me ... and those things, while a good temporary anesthetic, actually created additional layers.

Today, I find myself finally chipping away at the layers. God is revealing something so beautiful beneath the build-up of the many different layers. But, this time it's different, because I am feeling it. And it hurts and I hate it at times and I've cried more than I have in a long time. Just because I feel it.

I feel her gone, but with a clarity I didn't really have before. I feel the pain that I have caused in my own marriage. And I feel the bitterness and anger that I have allowed to build up in my life during the past few years. But, that pain is also somewhat peaceful. Because I know it is a cleansing, healing, powerful pain.

Pain can be powerful.

So, I said all of that to say this: I have decided to renew my vows with my husband. But, here is the crazy part: he knows nothing about it. It's going to be a surprise. Yes, as in he is going to walk in and bam: let the renewal of the vows begin.

I honestly have no idea how he's going to react. He might run, lol. He might cry; He might blush. Okay, he won't do that because you know, he's a little too dark for that, heh.

But, I am determined to start over; and to do it right. I am determined to fight for what is mine; for this amazing gift that God has laid before me. But, you know, I am also determined to make it really complicated, because that is what I do.

So, can you help?

I don't know what the heck I am doing. I'll actually incorporate any ideas I get into this ceremony, which is going to turn into a dream date. After the ceremony, I am going to whisk him away. I don't have the details ironed out in my head yet. But, I have about six weeks to make it all happen.

Again: Me=complicated.

But, what is a dream date for a man? How can I make this special for him? Any suggestions? At all? Any suggestions for the renewal of the vows ceremony? Come on, give me something to work with.

I know there are, like, 11 people who read this blog. Heh. I like to amuse myself with that number. For those of you who don't know, I once had about 500 followers on my old blog. Yeah, those were good times.

Cinderella's little black dress

Forget the glass slipper that fits just right. This past weekend, I got the little black dress that fit just right. Okay, it wasn't black. I had to write that just for affect. But, it fit just right; and just in time for me to go to "the ball," as my daughter and I called it.

If you read the last post, you know that I had signed myself up to help clean my church on Saturdays. I mean, I'm just a crazy woman who hates to clean. So, I decided that it would probably really mean a lot to God if I did the one thing that I absolutely despise. Yeah, me and God are cool like that.

My cleaning day, however, just happened to fall on the day of the married couples' black-tie event (the ball.) And since I had to give my ticket away in the name of being dressless, I decided to embrace the Cinderella theme.

Although in my mind, it meant that I would be on my knees scrubbing floors. And even though it was a catchy blog title, it kind of ended there. There really was no way to romanticize it.

I was kind of heartbroken over the whole thing. My life is not a cartoon, where Fairy Godmother shows up and waves a wand. If I had one of those, I'd ask her to wave a toilet-scrubbing wand.

Speaking of toilets, on Saturday morning, I found out that I would be cleaning two things and there would be no Fairy Godmother to wave a toilet wand. I would be cleaning bathrooms--as in the mens and womens bathrooms. That's not two things; that's like a whole bunch of things in two different rooms.

And the men's bathroom--Yuck. Ick. Men are, you know, stinky and stuff. And they pee in those icky stalls.

I promised myself I would not pout about cleaning or about missing the ball. I honestly couldn't believe how it had worked itself out. I'd be cleaning bathrooms instead of getting ready for the ball.

Or, would I?

Well, sometime around noon, hubby handed me a ticket and some cash. "This is for you," he said. "And this is for your dress."

"Is it enough?" he asked as he handed me three crisp twenty-dollar bills.

"Oh, are you serious?! This is more than enough!"

I was beyond thrilled. I'd be going to the ball, afterall, and I had money for a new dress. And oh yeah, I still had that little chore on my to-do list. I still had the cleaning of the bathrooms to do. So, at 2 sharp, my daughter and I headed to the church, where we bumped into a little friend of hers.

His father was apparently setting up for the big ball, and he wanted to help. "Oh, I have something that you guys can do!" I said, just before handing the toilet brushes over. "You have to make sure they are crystal clean."

It took us 30 minutes to clean everything. And to think, I had my own version of the Fairy Godmother toilet-cleaning wands. Nice.

A few hours later and I had stepped out of a super-hot shower and into a beautiful dress that fit just right. And a few hours after that, hubby was feeding me chocolate-covered strawberries under the stars. (The entire room was decked out for our theme, "A Night Under the Stars.")

With rose in hand, he walked me out to the car that night, and I truly felt like Cinderella with her Prince Charming.

Sidenote: I just want some props for calling it in my last post. I said that by story's end, Cinderella gets her little black dress. Although, I figured that would come a few weeks down the road. I really had no idea.