What I’m Wearing and 20 Years!!

20 years ago today my husband and I started dating! I was 16, he was 17. We have been through so much in 20 years. Not a lot of people can say they’ve been with the same person for 20 years, even less can say they have been through the things we have and still be together. But here we are!

This is us back in 1992 heading to Alex’s High School Graduation, we had been dating about 7 or 8 months at that point. He was 18 here and I was just about to turn 17.  Yes, he had a mullet LOL, it was 1992, everyone was blind and thought they looked good back then, most of the guys had at least some resemblance of one LOL.

Life isn’t always perfect, life is hard. We’ve had a lot of hard times, or one continuous hard time, depends how you look at it lol. I hear people complain when their perfect life has one little hiccup, I laugh and think if they only knew what a truly stressful and hard life really is. We do, it could have been worse and I’m grateful it wasn’t. I don’t credit anyone else for it not being worse, we worked too hard ourselves to improve our lives to give anyone else credit for what we did. We did have a bit of help in a couple of ways from our parents, and we’re grateful for that as it was the only kind of help we got. We were lucky enough to always be healthy, I’m grateful we never had to endure that part of a hard life(and hope we never will). Even those closest to us(ok, don’t think I really have anyone that “close”) don’t know the extent of it, they think they do, but they don’t. We never blamed anyone else for our hard times, while there wasn’t a whole lot we could have done to prevent them(6 layoffs in 12 years, how could it be anything but just bad luck?) I still don’t blame anyone(ok, there may be a few specific employers who’s bad business management cause the layoffs that I would love to give a nice swift kick in the ass). But we made it through. Life still isn’t easy, but compared to the past it’s like a bed of roses!

I wish we had more at this point in our lives, but we have what we need and that’s all that matters. We haven’t owned our own home in years and since unless you want to live in a small box you can forget about getting anything decent under about $350,000(even most apartments are over $200,000), owning a home here is probably never going to happen. But we rent a house I love in a community I love, and fortunately we don’t have to see our landlords very often(I believe landlords come from another planet, they all surely must because they are all the same lol).

I wish my kids were more responsible, better behaved and took more interest in doing what they should instead of just what they want. But they are kids, one a teenager. They behave just like you expect kids their age to behave. They are the most polite kids to other people, they only have bad behavior toward Mom and Dad. I expect a lot, but only because I know they’re capable. They still want to be with us all the time, my 11 year old calls and complains we’re gone too long if we’ve gone out for more than an hour, he misses us already. His favorite place to be is still cuddling with us on the couch. I wish they could be more mature in a lot of ways, but they aren’t trying to grow up too fast in most ways and I’m ok with that(I just won’t let them know, shhhh).

Life isn’t perfect, but life is good. It’s hard to live off a single income, it’s not a large single income, but it’s the highest one we’ve ever had. I know people who live off twice as much and can’t make ends meet, but when you’ve lived off far less your entire life you just know how to make a dollar go farther and know what is important and what isn’t. We don’t HAVE to live off a single income, but life was actually harder when we had 2 incomes. Our 2 incomes at that time combined were far less than the single one coming in now. I’m where I’m meant to be, home to take care of my family. Not out of laziness, but because while we’re not religious people, we have very strong family values, I guess we’re a little old fashioned in some ways.

I’m hopeful that the hard days are behind us. Life will always throw difficult things into the mix, but the constant daily struggle we had for years has finally left us to enjoy life. My husband has a great job, maybe even a chance for a great new position in the New Year, we’ll see, but even if he doesn’t get that, the job is still great, and the company he works for is great. I’m finally a lot less depressed than I was for so many years, I like me and I don’t think I’ve ever truly felt that way before. The kids still have a lot of raising and growing up left to do, but with one already in his teens and the other not too far away we are finally able to focus on not just being parents, but being a couple too. I’m looking forward to the next 20 years and beyond and I honestly believe we have our best years ahead of us!

And here we are today! We took this picture just before heading out to eat today . The skinny bodies turned to fat, his mullet replaced by no hair(not because he’s balding LOL, he has such a thick head of hair It’s disgusting, he just likes the clean feeling of a shaved head and I think it suits him), a few gray hairs….ok actually a lot, but all on his head! Not a word of a lie I haven’t had a single gray yet(and not because of coloring LOL, I have plenty of dark roots between coloring)! And a few wrinkles here and there LOL.

We don’t usually go out on a day that hubby works, but he didn’t have to go in until later tonight so he and I went out for nice lunch/dinner together….we went for Vietnamese, our favorite! So that means I actually got to get dressed up nice to leave the house!

Jeans: Forever 21+, $15(2011)

Cardigan: Addition-Elle, $10ish(2009)

Layered top: 121Avenue(eBay store), $11(2011)

Lace trimmed tank: Warehouse One, $10 (2011)

Boots: Payless Shoes, $40 (2011)

Cuff(you can see it better in pic above with hubby): F21, $5(2011)

Necklace(see better in above pic): Warehouse One, $10ish (2011)

Earrings(sorry, can’t really see them ): Avon, don’t recall price (2009)

A kiss to hubby hehe!

Jolene