A special Mothers Day post for my mom

Today May 13th 2018 is the day that we celebrate mothers in the United States.  I am not currently in the states.  I am in the Dominican Republic where mothers day is celebrated on May 30th.  So there won't be anything special happening here for me today.  I can't remember the last time that I wasn't with my mom on mother's day or able to see my children.  I think my mom and my children all think that I've forgotten about them or that not being there today doesn't affect me but they are wrong.  The truth is I did search for flights to see if I could make it home and surprise everyone but it just simply wasn't in my budget right now.  I'm dedicating this post to my mom, Patricia Lynn Gadsden because she is the best mom anyone could ever have.  We don't get to choose our mothers but if I had a choice I would still choose you mom.  I once sang a song to you, The Wind Beneath my Wings and you truly are that for me.  You are always there for me, no matter what and even if you don't agree with me we can still get along.  It's  because of you that I am not in jail right now for physically harming one of my children (It doesn't matter which one LOL).  I know you think that I don't always listen to you, but I do and I also watch you.  I've learned so many things from you over the years, too many to count or list here.


You might not believe or understand this but you're the reason I'm here now.  You've always encouraged me to go after the things I want so here I am.  Don't fret, I'm coming back.  This message isn't to let you know that I've decided to stay here or anything.  I know you'd be on the first thing smoking to come get me if I tried that LOL.  I know this past year has  been hard for you in so many ways and I haven't made it any easier being away so much.  Just know that as much as you miss me, just triple that and that's about half as much I miss you.  I miss our daily talks even though sometimes they are very brief.  I miss your random drop ins to use the bathroom at my house.  I miss our movie dates where you insist on bringing Mr Nate.  LOL.  I miss our brainstorming sessions when one of us, usually you has a great idea about something new.

I'm at a point in my life where I can really say that I've had a great life.  Sometimes as parents I think we think we could have done better for our children and if you've ever had that thought, I'm telling you now that my life was exactly what I needed.  Life is a series of lessons and I had some serious lessons to learn along the way, in fact I'm still learning every day.  If there is such as thing as the perfect mom you would definitely win that award.  You had just the right mixture of love, discipline, structure and fun. 

On  your 60th birthday I sang a non traditional song to you.  It's supposed to be a love song from a woman to a man but I think the words perfectly describe how I feel about you and what you've meant to me in my life.  Just replace the word baby with mommy and it will make sense LOL.
Here it is:
Because you loved me

Happy Mothers Day Mom
I love you

Dominican Housewife Chronicles - Glass half empty or half full

Hello everyone.  Since my last post I've been busy with the usual, cooking cleaning and washing clothes.  Each day I learn more about my husband and this culture here in the Dominican Republic which is very different than what I am accustomed to.  There are days where it's a breeze and then there are days where I'm constantly asking myself what in the world?  Trust me my husband asks himself the same question sometimes LOL.

This past week I had the pleasure of having a visit from a friend who lives in Pennsylvania who is married to a Dominican man.  I swear we didn't plan this LOL.  It's just an interesting coincidence.  Like me she's working her way through the process of getting her husband's visa so that he can come to the United States.  They have a place here in a town named Higuey which is about six hours away from Puerto Plata.  My husband and I had a great time showing them around the city of Puerto Plata. I thoroughly enjoyed having someone to talk English to or maybe it was more like Spanglish LOL.  We are both learning more and more Spanish so we tried to talk in Spanish as much as possible but many times we just had to resort to our English words.  I know if anyone who understood English was listening to us they would have been rolling on the floor laughing.  Many times our conversations started off in Spanish but when we didn't know the word we wanted in Spanish we just threw in the English word.  So trust me there were lots of laughs along the way.  Here is a picture of all of us together before they left on Sunday.

Some of the challenges I've face recently are how my husband and I perceive things differently hence the title glass half empty or half full.  I occurred to me the other day that of course I'm the spoiled American who is used to having things readily available to me and it's true.  For example there's just two of us, my husband and I living in this house.  Why do I have a mini panic attack is we have less than four rolls of toilet paper in the house?  I can't let us run out of anything or it's a major problem for me.  For my husband it's very different.  If we have any toilet paper at all in the house he's cool.  This difference in attitude doesn't cause problems with toilet paper, that was just an example.  It does cause problems with our drinking water supply and the propane gas that I use for cooking.

Let's tackle the drinking water first.  We keep two bottles on hand.  When the second bottle gets down to half which is approximately 2 1/2 gallons I get antsy.  I start telling my husband that we need water.  He looks at the water bottle and says, "Mucho aqua."  At this point I've given up arguing with him about it and I'm satisfied that I've made him aware that soon we will need water.  What I've learned is that he is not going to buy water until we are completely out of water.  I'm a survivor so after that halfway empty marker I start stock piling water.  I fill up as many of my cups with water as possible.  I also fill up the pitcher that I use to make his lemonade.  Of course my fear is that we will run out of water in the middle of the night when there's absolutely nowhere to buy it and I will die of thirst until the following morning.   I'm not sure if he's figured out yet why there are so many cups of water in the refrigerator and freezer LOL but once the jug is completely empty he will go  buy us water.  Once we are back to being fully stocked with water I can return to normal water usage and consumption.

The propane tank that is connected to the gas stove is a little more tricky for me.  I can't actually see when it's almost empty.  It does have a gauge on it but of course that thing stopped working a very long time ago.  I'm not accustomed to cooking on a gas stove but I'm learning that when the gas is low when the burners are on they sometimes make a popping sound.  About a week and a half ago I noticed my favorite burner  making some unusual noise.  My sister wife happened to be here and I asked her about it.  We go outside and she lifts the propane tank up and tells me that it's low on gas.  I can make it through the day cooking but by the next day I will run out of gas.  I finished cooking dinner for the day and when my husband came home from work I told him that we were going to need gas.  Of course he goes over to the stove and turns it on and there is gas.  He then walks outside and lifts up the tank and says that there is plenty of gas.  I know that there is gas in the tank right now but my fear is that I will be in the middle of cooking and it will run out and I won't be able to finish cooking.  I don't understand why he can't take the tank to fill it up even if it isn't completely empty.  He tells me that it's better this way to let it run completely out then go get more gas.  For the next few days I have anxiety every time I begin to cook.  I think to myself is this the meal that will be ruined because I run out of gas partway through the cooking process?  Fortunately it didn't happen for a few days.  My friend was coming to visit and I was cooking dinner and I worried the entire time that I would run out but I didn't.  One day my husband asked me to make him fried plantains for dinner.  The previous day I had made a beef roast in the crockpot but we didn't end up eating it because we had a BBQ instead here at the house.  My plan was to warm up the beef and the other side dishes I already had and then make his fried Plantains.  Well as I began warming up the side dishes lo and behold I ran out of gas.  I texted my husband to let him know that we were now officially out of gas.  I was able to finish warming the side dishes up in the microwave but you can't make fried plantains that way.  When he arrived he had a panicked look on his face as he walked in the door.  He had received my message and assumed the worse that there was no food to eat.  He was pleasantly surprised to find that there was food.  I resisted the urge to point out to him that if he had gotten the gas earlier, he would have had his fried plantains also.  There was no point in rubbing salt into that wound.

This gas thing seems to also apply to putting gas in the car.  I am accustomed to filling up my car when it gets low on gas.  It seems that filling up your car here is absurd.  I mean why would you do that when you can just stop by the gas station every time you need to drive somewhere?  Makes perfect sense right?  Well maybe it does since the price of gas here is so crazy.  Right now it cost almost $5 per gallon of regular gas.  The other day the tank was low but the gas light hasn't come on yet.  I put $40 worth of gas in the car which is a Toyota Camry by the way not a Hummer and that only took it to just slightly over half a tank.  Insane right?  I make every trip I make in the car count.  No useless trips in the car just because.  It's too expensive to go joy riding around here.

I've also finished my book, gone back through it at least three times and now it's off to the editor.  I'me very excited about it.  It's a memoir told straight from my personal journals about how I met my husband and became a Passport Wife.  In case you missed it in my last post here is the book cover again. 

Dominican Housewife Chronicles - Mosquitoes and other pests

Well folks since we last talked some great things have happened in my life.  The first and most important I think is that my husband and I have been married for 6 months.  YAY.  Okay maybe you're thinking that's nothing right but for me the one who swore she would never get married again.  This is huge.  I'm usually done and packing up my things after 3 months of dating so I think this one might stick LOL.  Here's a picture that we took on our 6 month wedding anniversary while at a party.

No my husband isn't in jail (notice the barbed wire in the background).  I posted this picture on Instagram and one of my friends commented about it so I thought I should explain here in case anyone else wondered.  It's just what they do here in the Dominican Republic.  For the most part all of the houses here are surrounded by barbed wire fences.

The second fairly significant thing this week was that I finally realized my purpose.  For the past few years I have been struggling to identify my purpose.  I believe that we are all here on this earth to fulfill at least one purpose if not more.  So here it goes.  I have realized that I am here to feed the mosquitoes.  Yep I'm mosquito food.  That's why I'm  here it seems.  I have spent hours researching, buying and concocting homemade potions to get rid of these little blood suckers.  I've studied them.  I know how they think now.  So I'm pretty sure the ones around my house have organized into a little union or maybe it's a gang (definitely the bloods LOL) I'm not sure what's going on but they are working together.  It is no longer a solo attack.  At least one if not multiple mosquitoes fly at my face while others attack my legs or back.  I have mosquito bites in places I cannot mention here.  My daughter saw some homemade concoction on Facebook and sent it to me.  It was easy enough to make, you use mouthwash, stale beer (there's no such thing as stale beer in this country by the way so I had to improvise) and Epsom Salt.  You mix this together and spray your yard and it's supposed to last for months.  Hmm well I made my batch and after trying to explain to my husband why I used three bottles of perfectly good beer I went outside and sprayed the yard.  I see a gang of them in my laundry area every time I go to wash clothes so I started there.  I was so proud of myself because the next day it seemed to have worked.  There were very few mosquitoes in the house.  It was very strange but nice.  Apparently those little buggers were just somewhere having a convention and planning their retaliation because the following day they returned with a vengeance and they brought their friends the flies too.  I felt like I was fighting for my life in here that day.  I'm here alone during the day while my husband works and I'm sure the neighbors must think I'm crazy because I talk to them, the bugs. I say things like, I see you.  Oh yeah it's on now buddy.  Just wait until I catch you you little blood sucker.  They are mocking me by landing on the bug spray bottle.  I'm in the kitchen trying to cook and I see mosquitoes land on my arm while a fly dive bombs my head. 
A few days after I sprayed the outside laundry area I went outside to wash clothes.  I'm pretty sure that homemade concoction caused them to grow because I was greeted by a swarm of some of the biggest mosquitoes I've ever seen in my life.  So after spending money on bug spray, repellent and making the homemade concoction I was sitting in my bedroom applying after bite to 90% of my body when a mosquito decided to attack.  I was at my wits end and I reached for the closest thing I could find which happen to be a bottle of Febreze.  I sprayed the mosquito mid flight and low and behold he fell straight down to the floor.  Could I have possibly found the answer to my mosquito problems?  It sure seems that way.  I carry the bottle around the house with me and spray them and they drop dead right there.  The best part about it is that my house smells great all the time now. 

The next exciting thing that happened this week was I made a decision on my book cover for my book that I'm finishing up now.  It's called Passport Wife and it's a compilation of my journal entries from the time I met my husband up until two months after our wedding.  Many of my Facebook friends have remarked that my wedding pictures and some of my pictures I post from time to time remind them of a fairy tale.  Well I'm here to tell you that it's not quite a fairy tale at least not all the time.  This book will take you behind the scenes or shall I say behind the smiles as I navigated my way through this surprise of a lifetime relationship with my husband.  Always asking myself how did I get here?


Release date still TBD in 2018.

Dominican Housewife Chronicles - Swiffer vs Broom War

This week I got the green light to walk along the waterfront in the mornings.  My husband is comfortable with my ability to communicate with others in Spanish now and it's a safe place to walk as it's very heavily patrolled by the police.  I've missed walking so this new morning routine has made me very happy.  I made a short video of the sights along my walk one morning.

I can finally say that I am settled into the new house.  The water issues have somewhat been resolved.  There was an issue preventing the water tank from holding the water.  Now that it has been fixed things are much better.  The kitchen is still small but I'm learning how to navigate my way through cooking with limited counter space.  Speaking of cooking this has been an interesting week for me.  Just when I had gotten comfortable in the kitchen my husband throws me a curve ball.  There are several other dishes that he likes that he wants me to learn how to make.  Pinterest is my new best friend.  I found several variations of the dishes he wants and printed them out.  We sat down and reviewed the ingredients together and he gave me the yay or nay on them.  When all was said and done I had my own version of Locrio de Pollo (Rice and chicken) the first of the new dishes I tried.  I was nervous but I've learned his taste so I was able to add some seasonings along the way as I tasted it so it turned out well.  He enjoyed it and now I am moving onto other recipes that are on his list.

Washing clothes here in the new house is so much better.  The outside laundry area is perfect.  There is a utility sink and a small covered area as well as a nice area outside to hang the clothes to dry.  My biggest challenge now with laundry is getting my husband to actually put his dirty clothes in the hamper.  I know that many others struggle with this issue but it is quite annoying.  When my husband is looking for something to wear he literally unfolds everything on the shelf in the closet and/or takes everything off the hangers. Once he has found something he throws everything in the closet on the shelf.  This also applies to clothes that have been worn that may or may not be considered dirty.  I was losing my mind trying to sift through his closet to find what might be dirty so I gave up.  I told him if it's not in the hamper, near the hamper or visibly dirty and somewhere between the hamper and the wash area outside I'm not including it in the wash.  I refuse to play hide and go seek for his dirty clothes. I even give him a twelve hour warning that laundry will be washed the following day and to make sure that everything that he wants washed is in the hamper.  Thus far we've had one little mishap with this rule.  He neglected to put his dirty baseball pants in the pile to be washed.  He came home from work frantically looking for his uniform for his game that night.  He found his pants right where he left them in his baseball bag.  The other issue with laundry is that I was so happy to find my favorite detergent here, Woolite dark but it's a little pricey so I don't use it for all of the dark clothes only the special ones.  While I was in PA the last time my husband discovered this new cleaner and decided it was great to use to clean EVERYTHING including the car that he washes at least once a day even in the rain. 

Now let's talk about cleaning the house.  This house is bigger than our previous house and there's ceramic tile floors throughout the entire house.  On one of my recent trips back to PA I decided to purchase a swiffer vacuum and put it in my checked back to use here to clean the floors.  Who knew that this little device could cause such a ruckus in my house.  My husband absolutely hates the swiffer.  I think it's the vacuum noise that he doesn't like but I cannot use the swiffer in his presence.  He becomes very annoyed and one time he told me to turn it off and that he would clean the floors as he grabbed the broom.  The first time I used it I was so proud of myself and I showed him the dirty swiffer pad and he said that I should have swept and mopped the floor first LOL.  Um that's kinda the point of using the swiffer to not have to sweep the tile floors every five minutes.  I'm only exaggerating a little bit.  The doors are usually open at least when my husband is home and all types of dust blows in.  The floors need to be swept at least 2 to 3 times a day.  I've hidden the swiffer and when my husband is at work I use it.  When he's here I use the old fashion method, the broom. 

Speaking of brooms let me tell you about something else that happened this week.  In case you haven't figured it out by now I'm pretty sure that I have at least a mild case of OCD.  Here at the new house we have a car port, driveway and front porch to sweep and keep clean.  I didn't like using the same broom for inside the house and outside.  Maybe I'm a nut case but it's my preference to have different brooms.  I bought a new broom for use inside the house.  I knew I was going to have to explain this to my husband and made sure that I got a different type of color so as not to confuse him.  He actually understood perfectly and uses the red broom for outside cleaning and the blue broom is for inside cleaning.  Enter in his niece.  At least once every two weeks his niece comes to the house to "assist" me with deep cleaning the house.  According to my husband this is way too much work for me to do alone so this week his niece came to "assist" me with cleaning.  I'm using the quotes around assist because she actually does everything.  I'm not allowed to do anything while she's here.  Anyway the first thing she did was bring the red broom inside and start sweeping the living room.  As soon as I became aware of what was happening I attempted to explain to her about the two brooms.  I should mention that she doesn't speak English at all so we have to rely on my Spanish or try to google translate it.  As I explained I handed her the blue broom to use in the house and she nodded and said she understood.  About thirty minutes later she was outside on the porch sweeping up the leaves with the blue broom.  So now I have two outside brooms and a swiffer hiding in the closet. 



This week was the one year anniversary of me retiring from my job as an IT Director.  If someone had told me a year ago that I would be married again and living in the Dominican Republic as a housewife I would have called them crazy but here I am.  I am putting the finishing touches on my journey from there to here in my book titled Passport Wife which will be released later this year.

Make every moment count

Since my last post I’ve spent time jotting down notes about the things I wanted to talk about in my next post.  On March 21st a friend who I’ve known for over 25 years died suddenly.  He was only 44 years old and he had a heart attack while shoveling snow.  Everything that I thought I wanted to talk about went out the window.  Since his death I’ve been unable to focus enough to write anything.  I’ve spent a lot of time just thinking.  I’ve literally been sitting and remembering everything I could about my friend. We had a very long history.  I thought about our last conversation which was about a year ago. I thought about his last everything.  I prayed to God that he didn’t suffer.  I prayed for his wife and their two boys.  What happened to my friend is very sad and I realize that things like this happen all the time. The point for me is that we all must remember that our time here is brief and for some it’s briefer than others.  The unfortunate part is that we don’t know when our time here will be up.  Sure, we can take really good care of our bodies and take extra precautions in every aspect of our lives but at the end of the day we have very little say as to when our time will be up.  We have to try to make every breath we take and minute we get here count. Live life to its fullest with no regrets.  All of this reminded me of a poem I wrote a few years ago.  It’s titled “If I died today”

If I died today

What would people say?

Would they talk about my work?

How well I did my job?

Would they talk about my love for music, my angelic voice?

Would they talk about the books I’ve written and published?

If I died today

What would people say?

Would they talk about me the person?

Would they talk about how my life meant something?

How my life changed the lives of others

If I died today what would people say?

Would people sit and wonder

What the purpose of my life was

Or would it be clear for everyone to see

That I came

I lived

I fulfilled my purpose

And now I’ve gone on

If I died today

I wonder what people would say

*****

When someone passes suddenly people always say I just saw him or her or something like that.  I wish I could say that I Just saw you or I just talked to you but it’s not true.  I can’t remember exactly the last time we spoke, but it’s probably been almost a year now, and I’m so sad about that now because now I can’t hear your voice or laugh anymore.  When the news about your passing came through to me it took a few seconds for it to really sink in.  Immediately all the memories that we shared came back to me.  I remember your smile and your laugh.  I remember the shy young man I met when you first came to work at Health America and the more confident man you became. I have literally watched you grow up over the years.  Your marriage, your kids, your losses, your challenges and your successes. All of it came flooding back to my memory in what felt like an instant.  I’ve shed so many tears today for you and my heart aches for your wife, Laurie and children.  RIP my friend you will be missed.

Scott when I attended your funeral service I was in awe at the turnout and felt honored to have known you, a man who touched the lives of so many people in such a short period of time.  Everyone loved you differently, but it was all love, nonetheless.  Although we shed tears, and many thought, and some said aloud how tragic it was that your life was cut short, you made a difference.  It was evident to me buy what I observed at your service.  I felt sad that it took your death to make us all realize just how special you were to us all. 

I implore all of you to take a moment after you read this post and think about your life. Are you making every breath and minute count?  Are you being the absolute best you that you can be?  We only get this one brief life to live.   Tell everyone now how you feel about them, what they mean to you.  You might blink and miss the opportunity to do so.  Do everything you can to make it count, make a difference. 

Dominican Housewife Chronicles - Sometimes we just have to wait

I'm back ya'll.  I had a great time in Pennsylvania but it is soooooo good to be back with my hubby and the warm climate.  I'm getting too old for the cold ya'll.  While I was gone my husband found a new house and moved two days before I returned.  I have to say I was very nervous about the move and all things considered he did a great job moving and getting the new house ready for me and my daughter.  I'll talk more about the new house a little later. 

So when I came back on Monday March 5th  my daughter Jennifer was with me.  I was really anxious about it  because my daughter hasn't really been happy about my relationship and marriage to my husband, for a whole bunch of reasons that I won't get into here, Ya'll going to have to read the book for more details on that (seriously stay tuned for Passport Wife coming later this year).   Everything turned out great while she was here for her visit.  As I thought about what I wanted to write about this week I thought about the fact that sometimes we just have to wait.  You know we want things always to be on our time.  When we want something we want it.  This even applies to those of us who pray.  We go to God and ask him for something and we get mad when we don't get it right away.  We have to realize that things are done not always on our time.This past year has been very difficult for me because as my relationship with my husband grew, mature and got deeper and stronger and eventually led to us getting married my relationship with my daughter began to deteriorate a bit.  So this was a really good week. I was so happy to see her smiling and laughing.  She made some new friends while she was here also.  When she left from the airport she actually gave my husband a hug.  Jenni doesn't just give out hugs to anybody so that was huge.  The night before she left she told me that she can actually see that he does love me.  So right now I think we are in a good place.  I am so happy because I honestly never thought we'd get here.  That's why I said that sometimes we just need to wait on things and not give up.  For example today was a rough day for me.  I was here at the house all by myself and today is actually the first day that I've been here by myself since I got back.  I did my usual chores, washed clothes, cooked dinner and I felt myself getting irritated because my husband didn't get home right after four as I expected..  I sat in that irritated space for awhile, thinking about where he was and why he didn't tell where he was and all kinds of crazy things. When he finally did get home.  I didn't have a chance to get angry or say anything to him about how I felt because when he came in he immediately let me know that he had been taking care of the issue with the electricity so that my air conditioning can be installed.  Since the move last weekend my air conditioning hasn't been installed.  It was fine up until yesterday because it really hasn't been that hot.  Yesterday it got up to 90 degrees and I was ready for some air conditioning.  I could have acted a fool and did all kinds of crazy stuff but he was actually out taking care of that so he got a pass and I need to learn to be more patient.  I still don't have my air conditioning installed though, but I'm patiently waiting :-)

Back to the new house, it's nice but there are a few things that I don’t like.  I’m torn between the kitchen being too small and the intermittent water issues being the most irritating for me right now.  The kitchen is really small but I am figuring it out.  The water thing is very annoying.  We are back to sharing water with the house next door and there have been a couple of times where we didn't have water or the water pressure is very low.  But his car port for the car is awesome, which I guess is all that matters since that is what this move was about.  It is really nice carport and the front porch is also nice although right now it’s home to my air conditioning unit which has yet to be installed.  One big plus with this house is that we have electricity 24/7 so no more scheduling the use of the crock pot or microwave.   It’s also nice to always have the fridge on so hopefully food will keep longer now.  The outside laundry area is nice and there’s ample space to hang clothes without me having to step in grass.  We have two bedrooms and two bathrooms now.  Each bedroom has it’s own bathroom which is nice however the 2^nd bathroom’s toilet has been leaking but we are working with the owner to resolve that issue as well as the issue with not having any water.  This house is older or at least it hasn’t been upgraded like the old house but again I think overall it was a good move.  The neighborhood seems very quiet, except for the Dominican house party yesterday where the neighbors blasted their music for several hours.  Oh and there was the karaoke concert one morning last week also that woke both Jennifer and I up.    Our house is next to an empty lot but for the most part it’s much cleaner here also.  There’s still some trash but nothing like the old house.  There are stray dogs but not as many but we do seem to have a cat.  The cat has walked into our house uninvited twice now and it stands outside the side door meowing in the morning.  I'm pretty sure that it belonged to whoever lived here before us and the poor thing is trying to figure out what is going on.  I'm sorry cat lovers but I don't do cats.  I'm actually allergic to them so I will not be taking over the car of this cat.

I'm back to my usual housewife duties but I'm also putting the finishing touches on my next novel, Passport Wife which I plan to release later this year.  Here's a pic of the front of the new house and the wonderful car port for the car.  Did I mention that this move was all about having a carport for the car?  LOL.

Stay tuned until next week.  I'll have more for you all on the new house and neighborhood. 

No matter where I am, I'm missing someone that I love

I left the Dominican Republic on Friday Feb 9^th to return home for a few weeks.  I’d been gone almost two months and there were many things I needed to attend to, taxes, doctor appointments, mail (OMG you should have seen the piles of mail that were here waiting for me).  As soon as that cold air hit me when I got off the plane I wondered to myself what were you thinking returning to Pennsylvania in February?  The actual temperature difference is obvious, and I expected the cold.  What I wasn’t prepared for was the effect that the gray, overcast skies would have on me.  Of course, I was sad to leave my husband but the combination of the cold and the gray skies caused me to really fall into a funk.  No matter where I am, Dominican Republic or Pennsylvania I’m missing someone who is very special to me. 

So, I’m home and I have all the things available to me that used to be so important to me.  I have my dishwasher, hot water, electricity 24/7 and my Swiffer just to name a few.  Here’s the funny thing.  I hand washed dishes most of the time instead of using the dishwasher.  I didn’t reach for my fancy egg separator I just did it manually.  I did attempt to cook a few times, but I quickly became annoyed because here I have an electric stove and I had become accustomed to cooking on gas stove.  Now I must admit I really enjoyed my hot water and many hot showers and long soaks in the tub.  I love to take baths and there is no bathtub in the Dominican Republic.  I also really enjoyed my Swiffer, so much so that I brought one to take back with me to the Dominican Republic.  My friends and family do not understand how I can give up all the conveniences of life here in the United States to live in the Dominican Republic.  It’s easy to say and harder to do but I assure you that all those things you are accustomed to are not necessities and you do adapt.  Take it from me, the woman who does not handle change well at all. If I could do it most of you could as well if you had to or wanted to.  Okay so that’s the point.  I didn’t have to make these changes or sacrifices but I choose to.

Although I have been busy most days while I’ve been here I have gotten some quiet time alone in the evenings to think, reflect on some of my prior blog posts and write. I’ve been blogging about my experiences with learning the new culture, how to cook,  and how to wash clothes.    For this blog post I decided to focus more on my relationships with my husband and those in my inner circle.  I was inspired to do this because of everything that is happening around me and all of us in the world right now.  Too much negativity, racism, and violence.  The senseless violence continues with more school shootings, murders, sexual harassment claims, you name it.  I have a variety of connections on social media.  Some that I grew up with, some from work, others from the book industry, fellow authors etc.  The point is that all of those unique relationships come together on social media and sometimes it creates the perfect storm.  I've been saddened by some of the online arguments I've seen recently.  We spend so much time arguing with everyone these days.  I wanted to focus on love. 

I’ve mentioned before that communication between my husband and I is at times very challenging since we are both still learning the others language.  There is also a 16-year age difference.  The age difference and the fact that he’s from the Dominican Republic has painted a very negative picture for many people in my circle about my husband.  Many of my friends and family have been concerned that my husband is only with me for money or to get his green card.  We’ve been together now for 15 months and we’ve been married for almost 4 months.  I’m sharing all of this with you all because it’s important because I want to focus on how I’ve allowed the thoughts of others to negatively influence my relationship with my husband. 

I got to spend some quality time with my BFF over the past few weeks.  We had a heart to heart conversation. She’s been my biggest supporter throughout this entire journey, but I now realize that she too has had some concerns along the way.  I asked her why she hadn’t been honest with me before and she said because I am happy.  She said it’s not her place to ruin my happiness.  I don’t have a large circle of friends but the ones I have are awesome.  I wouldn’t trade any of them for anything.  Although it was shocking to hear some of her true feelings it was also encouraging to hear this woman who has known me for almost thirty years who has been with me through some of my toughest days in my life telling me that she can see my happiness now.  

It’s human nature to have doubts and questions at times.  Especially if you’ve been through as many bad relationships as I have over the years.   I’m not saying that they were all bad because I think they were all necessary for me to learn lessons that I needed to learn.  In some cases, I wish those lessons weren’t so painful but that’s life.  Those prior relationships weren’t all bad because of the other person either.  I fully accept my part in those failed marriages and relationships.  Before I met my husband, I swore that I would never get married again.  I honestly cannot tell you how or why I changed and decided to marry him, but I can tell you that I am in this for the long haul.  Even though we struggle with when to eat together, what to eat or how to dry the clothes.  At the end of each day I still smile and have love in my heart for him.  After having been with him everyday for so long over the past two months being away from him now is unbearable.  Everywhere I go this week I’m seeing subtle reminders that although I feel somewhat silly, irresponsible or reckless for how I am living my life right now.  Life is short, it’s not just about work, or money and the things you can buy or obtain.  The things you can see and feel.  It’s mostly about the things you cannot see.  My devotion today came from 1 Corinthians 13:7 and it said,

“Love never stops being patient, never stops believing, never stops hoping, never gives up.”

I needed this reminder today because I tend to be a little impatient at times.  In the past I have been too quick to give up hope.

It breaks it down even further by saying this:

“Love never stops being patient.” That means love extends grace.  You need to offer grace to others.

“Love never stops believing.” That means it expresses faith.  You tell someone, “even though we’re having a tough time, I will never stop believing in you.”

“Love never stops hoping.” That means love expects the best.  Are you expecting the best in your marriage, or have you settled for less than the best?

“Love never gives up.” That means love endures the worst. It means you can look at the other person and say, “You can throw everything at me, but I’m going to keep on loving you, no matter what.”

This is how God loves us all.  God never loses his patience with us as we often lose patience with each other.  God never stops believing in us as we often stop believing in ourselves or those closest to us.  God never stops hoping for the best for us in our lives.  He never gives up on us.  This is what God wants us to do with everyone else.  Why is it that we so often hurt those the closest to us the most? 

The best part of my visit here this time was the outpouring of love that I received from everyone.  I have had more breakfast, lunch and dinner dates in the past 21 days than I’ve had in the prior six months.  I am so tired of eating out at restaurants. I cannot wait to get back to cooking for and arguing with my husband about dinner LOL.  I have also been very pleasantly surprised by the response you all have given me about this blog.  Several people have reached out to me because I haven’t posted since I’ve been home.  It’s been busy scheduling time with all my friends and family and getting all my personal business done in such a short period of time.  Now I only have two more days here before I head back for an undetermined amount of time and the closer it gets to my departure the busier I am.  When I get back I will continue with my weekly blog post as well as put the finishing touches on my book that I plan to release later this year.

When I return to the Dominican Republic next week I will be going to a new house, yes that's right while I've been gone my husband found a new place and he's moving two days before I return.  This is going to be good ya'll.

Stay tuned.