As I have mentioned before, I am a diehard romantic. I knew early on what I desired in a mate. He’d be kind, considerate, romantic and funny. He would literally sweep me off my feet with a kiss, and I would know right away he was my Prince. Of course, I would be his princess, and we would sail off into the sunset, happily ever after. Ambitious—I know.
When I met my husband, I hoped he was the one. After our first date, I knew he was. The clues were obvious and hard to ignore.
#1 He showed up in a smokin’ hot Jeep. I say smokin’ because huge gray clouds puffed out of the muffler, and I say hot because it was red. He took me on a picnic in Cades Cove–a beautiful prairie-like valley in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park, TN. So romantic.
#2 He brought with him a blanket, a foot long Subway sandwich, and a roll of toilet paper, just in case I had to pee in the woods. Seriously kind and considerate.
#3 It felt like we were the only two people in the world as we soaked up the unusually warm December day when out of nowhere, a doe arrived to graze a few feet away. Destiny, right?
#4 When he took off his jean jacket, he was wearing this t-shirt and posed for these pictures. Funny.
Mike Householder/Cades Cove
Mike Householder/Cades Cove
I had to marry him.
Call me old fashioned but I was never one of those career type girls. We always knew once the babies came, I would be a stay-at-home Mom. As an Air Force pilot, my hubby sometimes deployed for 30 to 60 days at a time so he depended on me to be the primary caretaker of our three children. In return, I depended on him to handle the “manly” chores around the house.
It didn’t take long for us to realize if anything was going to go disastrously wrong, it would happen while he was gone. Nonetheless, I managed to remain helpless enough as to not lose my princess status. Military families tend to help each other when a spouse is deployed so I usually had a surrogate to repair a broken swing, jump-start a dead battery, or snake the toilet when my toddler drops a batman figurine in order to see whether it will flush. Yes, it does!
When my husband left the Air Force to be a FedEx pilot, we moved to his hometown of Knoxville, TN, and that is when the tiara began to slip from my head. It all started with a faulty alternator in my Chevy Suburban that bit the dust the day before my hubby left town. I sat in the driveway and watched as he replaced the old one with a shiny new one—my prince. However, shortly after he was gone, the battery began to lose its charge. Stranded in a dead vehicle at Wal Mart, I marched into the store, bought a wrench and a new battery, and replaced it right there in the parking lot.
Within a day or two, the battery was not holding a charge and it became apparent the shiny new alternator was really a dud. I could do this, I had seen it done. How hard could it be? Armed with a ratchet and another shiny new alternator, I bashed and bloodied my knuckles until I accomplished the task. That was one of my proudest moments.
Over the next several years, I learned to embrace the strong, independent woman I always knew I could be. I challenged myself. And if something needed to be done or a crisis arose, I may have whined a little, but I handled it. (I’m tooting my own horn.)
A year and a half ago, my hubby had a minor heart attack that grounded him from flying. That meant he was home from work with plenty of time to do the “manly” chores around the house. One day, I noticed a light bulb was burned-out upstairs and the towel rack was pulling from the wall. I used the helpless, damsel in distress card.
“Honey, it’s dark upstairs. Can you fix that?”
“Since when do you need help changing a light bulb?” he snickered.
That was when I discovered somewhere between stitches, stomach viruses, and dead batteries, my tiara had disappeared.
My hubby has been back at work for two weeks, and if you’re anything like me, you can’t help but wonder what will go wrong.
In a previous post–Sick September—I might have griped mentioned that I have been under the weather. Now, after seven weeks of being unable to clear my sinuses, the ENT is going to do it for me. Oh yay!
On Monday, I will be having sinus surgery. On Tuesday, my hubby will be coming home.
I want my tiara back!
Karen Householder
Savannah Householder
Karen Householder 