Ask Me Anything Answers {part 3}

Kari asked a very easy and LIGHT question: What books have you read that changed your life? If you don’t have any, what movies or tv shows? I love a life-altering something or other. 

LIFE ALTERING? I honestly don’t know of anything that I’ve read or watched that altered my life. Perhaps back in the day I watched a documentary about recycling and it struck a chord with me as I’ve been a stringent recycler since the early 90’s. Of course, now you can watch a documentary of HOW recycling isn’t doing anything and that will just crush my soul, so I’m not going there. One of my favorite books is The Red Tent. I read it perhaps three times. Not sure if it altered my life, but it certainly made me ponder the days long before my ancestors. Also when I read Jeanette Walls The Glass Castle, it made me realize my messed up family life as a child was pretty idyllic in comparison.

Christine asked: Who do you look up to the most, and what qualities do you love about that person?!

Goodness gracious, way to make me dig deep. This will sound very cheesy, but if I had to choose one person I admire the most, it would be my husband. Did someone just gag? I also don’t want people to think I’m some sort of kept woman who idolizes her husband because He Is Man, I Am Little No Brain Woman. You didn’t think that, did you? He is the epitome of self made, he’s just so incredibly smart and intuitive. But the qualities that I wish I had as he does is his selflessness, his giving spirit and the fact that he doesn’t let anyone get to him. He takes nothing personally and isn’t worried about what anyone thinks of him, well, aside from me. He’s always put family first in everything and I’m so thankful for that.

Maddie-My question (if you don’t mind sharing) – do you have a favorite “name story”? Like how did you pick your kids’ names? Or if that’s too personal (I totally understand), is there a story behind one of your dogs’ names?

The girls were born back when you only got a sonogram if they thought there was something wrong. But, I knew in my heart each time that they were going to be girls. I did have some boys names as a backup just in case my intuition was trying to deceive me. When Lolo was born, I was in love with the name Lindsay. I’d only known of a handful of Lindsays and I thought the name was SO pretty. But, the only other family we knew where we were living in TX at the time, had a daughter named Lindsay. And the Mom of that Lindsay was going to watch our new baby when I went back to work. So, the Coach nixed the name. My next favorite name was Lauren; I’d ONLY known ONE Lauren and that was when I was in 7th grade. I also toyed with the name Laurel, because, trees. When she arrived we decided on Lauren. Fast forward to the playground a few years later and there were eleventy hundred Laurens. *sigh* When Linds was born, we were now living in Arizona and had no babysitter planned with a child named Lindsay. btw: we laugh at people who spell Lindsay any other way than the correct way. 😉

The Coach and baby Lolo. Those cheeks!

Ally Bean: My question is: why do you live where you live? Deets please. Hmmmm…how to answer this without being too wordy?

We’re both Florida natives. When were got married the Coach had a great job as a Tech Representative for a particular type of airplane engine and I was a hair stylist. His job had him traveling all.over.the place at a moments notice. He loved it and the company loved him. Not too long after he started, they moved us to the Dallas area in 1992; we left our hometown and everyone we knew. We loved the Dallas area, we built a house, had a baby and life was good. A few years later the Company wanted Coach to run his own turbine engine repair shop which was awesome because: Less world traveling at a moments notice. He had a few choices of where to set up the shop west of Dallas; we settled on Scottsdale, AZ. Again, we sold the house and moved to the Phoenix area in 1995; I was 8 months pregnant with Linds. LIFE was good. We LOVED it there too. We didn’t know a soul, but we had a nice life. A year and a half into our AZ life Coach’s dad came for a visit and was saying how he wanted to retire and sell his cabinet business as It was a lot of work for him. Suz pipes up: “Hey, we can move back to Florida, buy your business and you can retire.” As much as we loved AZ, we had NO family ties and we had two young girls who only saw grandparents a few times a year. So, in 1997 Coach said goodbye to his awesome job, we sold the house and made our way to SW Florida. (we grew up on the East coast) He knew nothing about making or selling cabinets, but he’s an entrepreneur at heart. The company has grown exponentially over the past 24 years and has afforded us a great life and that of our 70 employees. And here we are, living a dream life in hot as heck Florida.

A pic of the day we pulled out of Coach’s Moms house headed to TX in 1992. We had my Saturn on a trailer behind his truck and two drugged cats in the front seat with us.

I have two more questions to answer. *whew, wipes brow from exhaustion*

KIDDING.

XOXO

28 thoughts on “Ask Me Anything Answers {part 3}”

    1. I feel like I watched the Mini-Series, but of course, it wasn’t as good as the book. Isn’t that how it always is?

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  2. There’s nothing wrong with admiring your significant other the most. I think if you’re willing to spend what you’re assuming will be your life with another person, you’re going to think they’re pretty special!

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  4. LOOK AT THAT TRUUUUUCK.

    Also, we really are on the same brain schedule because just look at what I published today. Booksies. The same day you shared your booksies. Adding those two to my list. I think my mom has The Red Tent in a box in her basement.

    I’m enjoying learning about you and your family. These questions and answers are exactly what a blog should be. Love, love, love.

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    1. That truck. Oh my. Because of how far Coach drove to work compared to how far I drove to work, I ended up driving that daily for a while. AND PREGNANT. You should have seen me climbing in and out with a big ole belly. I really need to do a post about the truck because it was his favorite and it is AGAIN residing in our garage. (It’s reincarnated, not the exact one)

      The Red Tent was eye-opening. I know it’s fiction, but still kind of based on biblical stories.

      Thank you for the compliments and encouragement. YOU are the bomb.com.

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        1. There’s a good chance That the red tent was an Oprah book club book. Oh my goodness do you remember her book club? She put so many authors on the map!

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          1. I loved that book club. I was telling Maddie in my comment section that Oprah’s book club is the reason I fell in love with reading. She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb was the first book I loved. SO good.

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  5. I sure enjoyed reading this and learning more about you Suz. We should do things like this more often. I’m so glad you took that last jump and came back to Florida and the business you are still in today. It sounds like it all worked out perfectly!

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  6. This is so fun. I grew up moving to different states in the Midwest. I feel like moving out of state is more rare nowadays with telecommuting, etc. That must’ve been such an adventure. Sometimes I wish we’d experienced that – making your own way, meeting new people, etc. Oh my gosh, the size of that truck. Yowza. I love the youthful photo. So fun.

    Although I laughed at your ‘HE IS MAN, I AM LITTLE BRAIN . . . ‘ joke, I didn’t think that for a minute. It’s a beautiful thing when you find a guy who you love AND who you admire for who he is.

    I’ve never heard of the Red Tent book. I’ll have to look into that. Jeanette Walls is my favorite. Oh my gosh, her story is something else. Put my ‘woe is me middle child’ stuff in perspective.

    Our naming stories were more ‘aggressive’ as we jockey for position to snag our favorite names as we competed with siblings for Irish names on our list. Coach was also fussy about boy names and I kept pointing out that it didn’t really matter, any boy we would birth would eventually be called by our ultra cool last name. 😉

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    1. It was an adventure for both of us to leave our ‘comfort zone. Of course, we were pregnant shortly after moving, so you know, we really leaned into each other. 😉
      You DO have the best last name!!

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  7. I never guessed you would say your hubby is your hero and why not? Great answer he sounds Amazing. Often we take the ones closest to us for granted and it’s too bad. I often think of my mom’s good qualities years after her death.

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  8. Thanks for answering my question. I didn’t know you’d lived in as many places as you have. It’s great that you got to move back to where you wanted to live. It’s always amazing how at the right time the right option will appear, if you pay attention.

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  10. I am loving these answer posts! Folks asked such great questions and also you were clearly born to tell stories. The story of how you met your husband! So good! Extra points for using “suck face”. Also Ferris Bueller rules! And big Thank You for answering my name q (your post and also your comment a few posts back)! That was a sweet story about your girls’ names. How considerate is your Coach… not wanting to offend your sitter? He must have a big heart. Love all the old photos too. You guys look like babies! Totally adorable, in-love babies pictured with also adorable actual baby and also a huge truck that cannot possibly be real. 🙂 Seriously though – how the heck did you climb into that truck?

    Also – when I read your answer to my pet name q I realized 2 things: 1) My friend with the horse had no real choice about kids’ names (she was old money & “acceptable” kid names was a short list). That might explain the importance of naming that horse, huh? And 2) like you, my family and even now…. we don’t rename pets like rescue dogs, etc. So I’ve never named a dog, horse, and several cats. But I didn’t realize it was a policy? habit? of mine until I read your answer. I guess if they show up with a name then that’s their name. Suz, you’re not only an entertaining, delightful blogger, you have sparked personal insight over here! 🙂

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    1. I’m going to have to do an entire post about Coach’s truck as it is again residing in our current garage so many years later.
      Yes, we were babies who were left unattended and did what we pleased.

      Funny about your friend and the fact that her name choices were limited because of old money; I’d never given that any thought….probably because: NO OLD MONEY.

      I remember when we adopted our boxer Ozzie the foster Mom asked what we were going to name him. ME: Huh? Why would I change his name since you’ve been calling him Ozzie for 6 months? Who knows what his name was in his previous life, but this kind woman named him Ozzie, tended to his medical needs and loved him back to health. I can’t imagine changing his name.

      Well, now you need to share the names of your dogs, cats, and horses. YOU HAVE HORSES?
      I had a dream this morning about a horse in my front yard; my friend Stacy came down and put the horse in her car, opened up the sun roof, his head popped out and she drove away.
      WTH does that mean?

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      1. I love that your husband got his truck back! I read your Kari response too. How hysterical that both of us were focused on the truck? There is *def* a story or 2 there but u seem a lil busy right now (lol) so no pressure!

        No horses now. *sad face* Horses were my childhood thing. You meet a lot of old money folks in horses lemme tell you. And yes! What you wrote about Ozzie is just how a I feel. All my horses knew their names so….

        I once bought a tree at a garden center. I drove a coupe. Tree was too tall for me to carry it home in the car’s trunk (canopy would drag). GC Guy starts telling me about delivery options. I listened politely then opened the sun roof, popped the tree out the opening and drove home. I think your dream is telling you that you (and Stacy) are solution finders. No problem is too big. You got this!

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  11. Look at you two 90’s kids! It’s nice that you’ve lived in a few different places, but wow, all hot weather ones. I’ve only lived in cold weather spots.

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  12. Oh, I loved reading this! Reading your answer to Ally’s question confirmed that you, Suz, truly bloom where you are planted!
    I loved The Red Tent – the Glass Castle was a well-written book but I didn’t love it as I loathed the parents in it. Such a sad but ultimately empowering story.

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  13. Oh, I loved reading this! Reading your answer to Ally’s question confirmed that you, Suz, truly bloom where you are planted!
    I loved The Red Tent – the Glass Castle was a well-written book but I didn’t love it as I loathed the parents in it. Such a sad but ultimately empowering story.

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  14. It is fun to re@d your answers and learn more about you. Love these pics. Looking forward to more questions and answers, love you guys

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