Tag: On Blogging

The End Of The Questions {Part four}

On By SuzIn As blogged by Suz21 Comments

I’m at the end of your interrogation questions. This really was fun and I would advise for you to also pose an open question and answer if you feel so obliged. NOT one person asked an inappropriate question which does make me wonder: are we even friends?

My friend Dawn sent this to me the other day and said I really needed to have it; it had my name all over it.

Not sure if any of you remember but in one of my posts several years ago I quoted my youngest child when she said to me: “Are you ever appropriate?”

To know me is to love me.

Anyhoo, I have two unanswered questions:

Mark (Swinged Cat) asked: What is the best concert you ever attended? Why? And is there one artist or band, living or dead, you wish you could (or could have) seen?

This is such an awesome question; Mark and I are both big fans of live music. Well, if I had to pick ONE concert that was the best, it would have to be that one I saw on a blind date with a certain someone in August of 1985. That was a LIFE Changing concert to say the least. But I honestly didn’t remember the music as much as my date. We’ve seen some amazing artists in various places all of the country, but one that stands out as Super is when the Coach surprised me (and several friends) by booking a trip to NYC for my 40th birthday and while there we had VIP tickets to Farm Aid. Ya’ll know I’m obsessed with Dave Matthews, right? We’ve seen him at least 20 times, but this time there was also John Mellencamp, Willie Nelson, The Counting Crows, Neil Young, Mere Haggard, The Allman Brothers, Montgomery Gentry and many more. It was an all day affair with some of my dearest friends. *sigh* to be Forty again.

One person I would have LOVED to have seen in concert is Prince. I was always a big fan; he was an amazing artist.

Ernie screamed asked: DO AUNT AND UNCLE HAVE CHILDREN? IF NOT, DO YOU HAVE OTHER COUSINS? IF YOU DO, DO YOU SEE THEM MUCH?

I can HEAR YOU! Kidding. I really can’t, this damn tinnitus….

AT and UJ have two sons; Patrick and Christopher. {Aunt Trisha is one of my Mom’s younger sisters} I believe Patrick reads my blog, or at least he tells me he reads my blog.

I have seven cousins in total between both sides, some of them live within a few hours of us, but I rarely see them which makes me sad. My paternal Grandma told me that when she was gone I would have to be the Matriarch and keep everyone in touch, but damn, it’s been hard with these guys; I finally threw in the towel after so many failed attempts.

But, I do see Patrick as he lives in GA; we always get together for Thanksgiving and sometimes we would see each other during the summer in either FL or GA. But, now that we have a place in GA we will see him more. He just came up and spent a week with Coach in I back in May in GA.

UJ, AT and Patrick at our house a few Thanksgiving’s ago. Patrick is a fan of any holiday that is ‘food centered’, so I know we don’t need a DNA test to prove we’re blood related.

Since Patrick is the only one I see and he *reads* my blog, he is my absolute favorite cousin.

So that’s all I know about that.

*Suz takes a bow and thanks the audience for their applause*

What artist you like to see alive or dead? I mean, I don’t want to see a DEAD artist, you know what I mean.

XOXO

Ask Me Anything Answers {part 3}

On By SuzIn As blogged by Suz28 Comments

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

Suz & Coach Are Hot and Dirty & One Answer

On By SuzIn As blogged by Suz24 Comments

You guys. It’s been a week. Our floor demo guys were supposed to show up Thursday morning with the possibility of coming a day early, but we never heard from them until they were in the driveway at 8:15 on Wednesday morning. A DAY EARLY. The Coach and I scrambled to move items out of the laundry/craft room since I thought I had another day.

The noise. The mess. The noise.

The noise went on for 8 hours and that little piece of plastic didn’t keep the dirt out from the front of the house. I could write in the dirt on the kitchen countertop and you know I did: “this place is a dump”

And for fun because it’s July in Florida, the a/c in the front of the house went out Tuesday and my a/c guy has been here 5 times with no luck. I’m really Not here to complain and I kept telling myself: “This is only temporary, this is only temporary” as I wipe sweat from my brow while doing absolutely nothing to bring on the sweat.

The a/c works in the back of the house, but the back of the house looks like a bomb went off. The irony.

The good news is our tile installer started bright and early on Thursday morning, is making headway and we’re thrilled with our tile choice/transition from what we had. We wanted the same tile that we installed in the front of the house when we did our HUGE Reno 6 years ago, but they stopped making that color/style when I started searching TWO years ago. (of course they did!) Why didn’t we have the forethought to order all the tile for the back of the house six years ago? Probably because we were overwhelmed with the six month long Reno and just wanted it to be over.

This is only temporary. This is only temporary. *wiping dirty sweat from my brow*

I was working on answering some questions before things heated up here.

Gigi Rambles–How did you and Coach meet? Love at first sight? I’m fairly certain it was love at first sight for him.

Nicole also asked: Okay, here is my question: how did you and Coach meet and start dating? I know you were both at the same Santa when you were kids…but when did the MAGIC start?

Scene set: 1985, Suz just graduated from HS and was a mere 17. The Coach and I were living in the same town just a few blocks away from each other; I had just moved from GA and in with my Dad a little more than a year when we met. His best friend Don (the same one we see ALL the time who is married to my bestie Kelly) was dating Melissa who was a good friend of mine from HS; they dated all through high school. Anyhoo, Melissa said to me on one fateful afternoon: “Hey, do you want to go to a concert with us tonight? Coach has an extra ticket and no date? Two other good friends were also going.

Sure.

At the time, I didn’t have a clue who he was and when they showed up, I was all, OK, this might be fun, he’s cute. Ya’ll I didn’t even know what concert we were going to, but no big deal we went to concerts all the time. {Robert Plant} We had a great time that night, we sucked face, enjoyed the tunes, he got my number. Also, a few days later I remembered that I HAD seen him twice before; recently at a party at the beach and he had a girl with him and I remembered I had been to a party at his apartment a while back. Yes, I was proficient at having blonde moments early on.

He didn’t call.

Me: That’s the last time I’ll kiss a boy on a first date! {Lies, all lies!}

About three weeks later I was hanging out with Don and Melissa and they wanted to stop by Coach’s house; he was having a party. I was reluctant, they insisted. There I was, at his house and his freaking girlfriend was also there. Apparently when we had our blind date, They Were On A Break. She must have smelled him on me because she was giving me side eye and couldn’t keep her hands off him. The minute she wasn’t around he was flirting with me, a few hours later they got into a fight, she left and I went in for the KILL with my cuteness.

I wants, what I wants.

So, essentially we met on a blind date 36 years ago. We dated for six years before we got married. There you have it. Serendipity. Being at the right place at the right time, kissing well and biding my time. Isn’t he a lucky guy?

Happy Friday

XOXO