25 YEARS...

Today, April 30, 2013, Luis G. Lobo and I are married 25 years! WOW, I can barely believe it myself…the fact that 25 years flew by so quickly, and in comparison to many friends and loved ones who threw in the towel on their marriage many moons ago, that our marriage has actually survived that long.
 

Marriage - The most wonderful thing in the world…finding your true love and spending the rest of your life with them. Well, LAUGH OUT LOUD!!! Let’s be honest here; marriage is work!!! You must work it daily, like a job. And if you are doing your job well, nothing is EVER all about you. With everything you do, every decision you make, you must always take someone else’s thoughts and feelings into consideration. That’s work people!!! And in a marriage as you live as “one”, you simply cannot lose yourself. You are part of the equation and you must remain true to you. Oh, and throw in a few kids and you have jumped on the roller coaster of life. All you can do is hold on tight…and pray…a lot! You are now the juggler, trying to keep all the balls in the air as you zoom up one hill and down the next. But wait, oh yeah, as the balls are now bouncing off your head, you still have to do your job…not that job, the one that provides the finances for the family, but the job of remembering, and nurturing your marriage to the "true love" of your life, if you can even remember their name in the CHAOS.

I think most people who get married are totally in love when they walk down the aisle and say the vows. Then life takes over. The truth is, we are not perfect, life is not perfect. We grow, we learn, we change. I want to believe, in mind and spirit, forget body, haha, that the 27 year old me that married Luis G. Lobo (second marriage for me, first for him), is still the same person at 53. In many ways, my thoughts, opinions, goals and dreams are the same. However, in 25 years of marriage, I have lived life, I have raised children, I have seen friends and relatives die. Life changes you in many ways. Mostly for the better, I think, but if you are not careful, life can harden you, and your marriage. So your job - marriage, must be nurtured and cared for like an infant, even after 25 years.  

YES, of course, a marriage will ebb and flow, like the tide, as has ours. I have slept next to a man for 25 years that most nights I lay there thinking, WOW, thank you Lord…and not going to lie, on occasion I lay there thinking, OMG, what the hell was I thinking when I married him?!?!? But on those rare occasions when the negative tries to creep in, I wake up the next morning, refreshed, grateful, and no matter what, I know without a doubt, we do love each other; a love that has grown over 25 years, a love that has withstood the trials and error of life in general. We have moved 7 times, raised 3 beautiful children who we are so proud of we burst with pride and we have started all over again with our now 10 year old nephew. Yes, that’s right, Luis and I are trying to remember how to do 5^th grade math. Now that’s a real challenge right there, LOL.

So as we fly around the next bend on the mighty roller coaster of life, we hold on tight, sometimes with our eyes closed, sometimes wide open. We keep working for our marriage. We nurture, we love, and sometimes we take off our juggler hat and we snatch those balls right out of the air and throw them at each other… metaphorically speaking, haha. But no matter what life throws our way, we love each other and we will ride this ride together on LOVE!

Luis G. Lobo, God willing, here’s to the next 25 years!!!

 

 

 

LORD HELP ME...BUT SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE TO GET ON YOUR SOAPBOX AND SHOUT IT OUT!

Hello CNN,

I am watching your segment on Black Prom/White Prom and understand it will be on Anderson Cooper tonight. The segment I am watching says it is legal because they are having "private" proms, not held on the school campus, vs school sponsored proms. However, it is my understanding from my cousins that went to school in Mt. Vernon, Ga. that prom tickets for both proms were allowed to be sold at school, posters and advertisement were allowed in the school and decorations, etc. were allowed to be purchased through the school and/or PTSA. I am not a lawyer, but there has to be something illegal about this!!! In this case the school was promoting and supporting segregation on the school campus, even if the event was held somewhere else. Also there was a black Homecoming Queen and a white Homecoming Queen who each had a page in the yearbook. There has to be something illegal about that as well. Every year around prom time this issue comes up and it is always justified by saying it is legal because they are called "private' Proms. However, I never hear anyone get down to the nitty-gritty of asking how the proms are promoted, how/where tickets are sold, are decorations allowed to be purchased through the school or PTSA? I also never hear any mention of the Homecoming Queen issue. Is the voting done at school? How can they clearly have a segregated Homecoming event that ends up in the school yearbook and there not be something illegal about that! Can someone please ask the real questions? Seriously is there a good lawyer out there somewhere, worth his grain of salt, that will look for "a" law, "any" law, that is being broken in these schools?!?!? …or how about a full-fledged Federal Investigation!!! Surely there is a federal law somewhere on the books being broken when schools are supporting/promoting segregation on the school premises, in the yearbook, etc. Can someone please find it so this can be stopped once and for all?!?!?

DEAR BLOG, IT'S BEEN A WHILE!

Dear Blog,
You have not seen me in a while! Not since Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2011 to be exact. I had such good intentions when I started you. Life flies by and I really want to keep you going. One day when I am old and gray (well OK, I'm not far from that now), my children can have fun reading my blogs. Yes, I realize they will be busy and reality is they probably will not take the time to read them all. But at this point, my blogs are so few, it wouldn't take long. I would really like to at least have enough blog entries to make them feel just a little guilty if they bypass a few. HAHA!

So here, today, I will start with a little catch up from time gone by. Then I will fill in with a few things I missed writing about along the way later.

When Felicia left for NYU in August 2011, Luis and I had barely begun to settle in to empty nesting. Then in mid October, 2011 we found out BB&T was transferring Luis/us to Winston Salem, NC. At that point, Luis had been with BB&T 29 years. We had moved 6 times in our 23, almost 24 years of marriage, but we had somehow managed to stay put in MD/DC area for 10 years. Needless to say there was no time to sit around with empty nest syndrome, because the nest  quickly got turned inside out/upside down. Let's just say getting a house ready to go on the market is really not what I consider to be fun, but in the 2011 market, everything that could be done to a 10 year old house to spruce it up was done. A lot of hard work, but it paid off. We listed in Jan 2012 and sold the house in 2 1/2 weeks. We moved in our new home in Winston Salem, NC on March 9, 2012.

From there, let's just say you NEVER know what God has in store for you. Two weeks after moving in, we get a call and I'll spare you all the details, but we find out our 9 year old nephew, Andres Arce Lobo, needs a new place to live. Even though we had tried for many years, we had not seen him since he was 1 year old. So in less than a 10 minute conversation, Luis and I said yes, arrange his flight (from TX) and we will take him. We picked him up in Charlotte on Monday, March 26, 2012. He had flown from TX to Charlotte and spent a night with his grandparents, saw his Dad, and met his Uncle, Aunt and two cousins that he had never known.

So as you can imagine, just as I was trying to figure out what I would do with myself in a new town, as an empty nester, etc., my life sped into reverse at 110 miles per hour and I started all over again with a 9 year old 4th grader. Dear reader, this is where I'll leave you...for now.       

Easter 2011 - Andres Arce had just come to live with us. The Easter Bunny even found him with nooo problem!