Who gets me?

I have a friend...a really great friend. She gets me. We can say things to each other and not hurt one another's feelings. Things like...tonight....she says, "Do you know that the first time we hung out, after listening to you and Stewart, I said to B, those two will NEVER make it." Ha ha.

Who else has said that to me? Um, let's see...my mom, my sisters, my dad, EVERYONE!

But let me let you all in on a little secret. We're making it. We really are. Want to know why? 'Cause Stew gets me. He really, really gets me. He knows when to push me and when to let me withdraw. He know when to hug me and hold me and when to leave me alone. We lie in bed together lots of nights and talk about how lucky we are. We have each other. Life gets hard sometimes. It really does. But we are lucky.

2008 was a special year for the Peay family. It was the first year, since Hadley was born in 2001, that we did not MAX OUT our medical benefits. Yes, you heard me right. Shoulder surgery, Miscarriage, premature baby, cochlear implant surgery, cochlear implant surgery extraction and replacement, cochlear implant surgery #3, speech therapy, lazy eye, premature baby #2. I could go on. I won't.

The important thing....I have people who get me. I wish I could say that about MORE people in the world but I'm happy to say that the MOST IMPORTANT people in the world get me. My husband gets me. He has me. He's got me.

So...thanks to friend who gets me, too, who makes me smile, makes me laugh, and tells me that she never thought my marriage would make it. Now that she gets me, she knows what all of that verbal sparring between Stewart and I really is....flirting. Yeah, whatever works. And, mostly, thanks to my man of eleven years. Thanks for getting me.

I'm trying here, People!

Thanks, Mara. I know...when you look up these days (see last post), all you can see is white. Hello, Utah Winter. Hello, Inversion. Hello, my own personal purgatory. Can I just say one more time...I hate Utah winter!

Don't forget to look up

The other day in church, the speaker was talking about living in Utah and how a friend, while visiting, asked him if he went outside every morning and stared in awe at the beauty of the mountains. I sat there, overwhelmed with guilt, because just that morning I had been thinking about how much I HATE Utah in the winter. I am a Florida girl. I like going to the beach on Christmas vacation. I don't like dirty snow. I don't like to shovel my walkway. I don't like drying out my kids' snow clothes five times a day or making endless mugs of hot chocolate. Oh, sure, it all sounds so romantic. Sitting by a fire, coming in from the snow. But, when it comes down to being SCARED to drive your kids someplace because the snow drift in front of your driveway is five feet tall, believe me, there's NOTHING romantic about it. Here's what it really looks like....

Until you look up....
Maddox and I were driving home the other evening just as the sun was setting over the snow capped mountains. "Wow," he said. "I think Jesus painted that sky just for me."

Thanks, Maddox, for the reminder to look up instead of down. One of the many life lessons that you can learn from a day with a three year old.