Me to Jon: “Honey, does this pregnancy makes my ass look big?”

His response: Dead silence.

Can Presbyterians become sainted? Because if so, I have a candidate I’d like to nominate. Find out who it is over at my latest Babble blog post.

Jon, as captured by Emily.

(Isn’t he cute?)

Jon with my grandmother.

As I have no doubt mentioned before, we live in a very large, 100 year old, wooden house. It has been clear since we first moved in that we have the occasional rodent lurking about. This was mostly clear because our two cats, Mingus and Moses would find mice, and then leave them – bloody and gutted in our front hallway. As disgusting as this was, I found it gratifying to think that the cats were doing their jobs, and keeping the nasty, disgusting rodents at bay.

Fast forward to fall, 2009, Mingus and Moses are now outdoor cats (actually, Mngus is indoor/outdoor) due to intractable bladder control issues (yes, we did try the $40 special Web-order only cat pheremones. Yes, we did take them to the vet. Yes, we did have enough litter boxes…blah, blah, blah) It came down to my furniture and rugs…or the cats enjoying the sunny outdoors. My rugs won out.

So now that the cats live mostly outdoors, the rodents have moved mostly indoors. We have mice. The evidence is overwhelming…and disgusting. Jon has been setting traps in the basement, but he didn’t believe me that he needed to set them on the top floor of the house as well, He apparently held the belief that all rodents who needed to be killed would happily migrate to the basement to do so. It is my opinion, however, that the rats and mice who are CLEARLY living on the top floor – where H, J and E have their bedrooms – have never and will never visit our basement, which is located approximately one MILE below them.

Tonight J cleaned her room and closets better than she has in a year. And suffice it to say that this thorough cleaning made it oh-so-apparent that my daughter has a family of rodents visiting her room on a not-infrequent basis. I was horrified. In fact, I am so grossed out – even after even more cleaning took place – that I know for certain I will have dreams tonight where I am old and alone, and rats are gnawing off my face.

We will certainly be putting lots of traps and poison on the top floor tomorrow, but maybe we need an exterminator? Or those electronic repellents from As Seen on TV commercials? Anyone have any fantastic ideas for eradicating rats and mice in a multistory, still half un-renovated, giant old Victorian house?

Because I don’t want to have my face gnawed off …in my dreams…or in my actual sleep.

Today is our third wedding anniversary, and I can honestly say that it’s been the best three years of my life. Jon is the finest man I’ve ever known, and I am honored to be his wife. I have no idea how I came to be lucky enough to end up with a husband like Jon, but I am grateful every single day. I am a better person with Jon as my husband. He makes me better.

Happy anniversary, honey!

And now, my annual photographic homage to our fantastic wedding, which was exactly what we wanted it to be. Thanks to good friends and family all pitching in, we were able to plan our lovely Bell Buckle wedding and post-wedding party in only about 6-8 weeks. It turned out wonderfully. Thanks to everyone who shared our special day with us. We love all of you, and feel lucky to have you in our lives.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

It all had to do with this guy I was dating, and you can read about it my latest Babble blog post.

No, I don’t actually Twitter for a living…although that’s something Jon has been known to say when teasing me. But here’s how I really ended up doing what I do in my (relatively) new job.

So the term “cougar” is everywhere these days, referring to women of a certain age (30s and older, it seems) who date or marry younger men. The media would have us believe that this “cougar” phenomenon is a trend. Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t, but the way the issue is being defined is definitely sexist.

I say this as a woman who is 12 years older than her husband. Yep, I am 41 and my husband is 29. I don’t think either one of us intended to end up married to someone of a very different age, but here we are. We are both adults. We love and are committed to each other. We have created a family together. It is what it is. And except for my occasional concerns that Jon will end up taking care of me if I become feeble in my old age long before he does, we really never even think about our age difference. Like I said, we’re both grownups, which is really all that matters.

But then this “cougar” garbage keeps popping up all over the place, and I find myself increasingly irritated by it. I understand that the label is a bit tongue in cheek – I get that – but even the humor sends a negative message to girls, I think. First of all, the word implies some sort of predator-prey paradigm, conjuring up visions of desperate middle aged women stalking their reluctant targets, a la Mrs. Robinson. It assumes that no man would willingly choose to be in a relationship with a woman older than he is because women are only attractive or valuable when they are young, based on their appearance or perceived sexuality. Media interest in this “trend” also ignores the fact that we all know many, many examples of happy couples in which the man is older – sometimes significantly older – than his girlfriend or wife. No one has ever bothered to give the guys in these relationships any sort of negative label. The sexism here is pretty obvious.

So please don’t call me that. Instead, I humbly propose that I be labeled a Bushbaby, Meerkat…or perhaps a Platypus