My real life hero makes my day

I wrote earlier this week about my movie star action hero making my day. Well fast forward to last night. I was on 2 nights of little sleep and had a few events happen in my week that really pissed me off. I got home and was exhausted, over it all, and ready to curl up and let out a good cry. Brad was already in bed so I changed into my pajamas and got on the computer to do some mindless stuff in order to wind down. The dogs had to go out so Brad got up and saw that I wasn’t having a good night. He asked what was wrong and I broke down. I was so exhausted and frustrated, I just let it all out. The poor guy sat there for 30 minutes when he should be sleeping and was listening to all of my crap. He gave me a hug and guided me to bed.

Tonight as I was coming home from work, I was surfing radio stations when a song caught my ear. It was song that I had sung at our wedding. It made me think about why I picked that song back then. It truly describes how I feel about Bradley. He is my real life hero and he is all of these things to me. He listens when stress gets to be too much and I meltdown; he has sacrificed for my career; he is always my biggest fan, even when I try to convince him I’m not doing a very good job; he does all of the things that this song talks about. It’s all the reasons I married him.   

Because You Loved Me (Celine Dion)

For all those times you stood by me
For all the truth that you made me see
For all the joy you brought to my life
For all the wrong that you made right

For every dream you made come true
For all the love I found in you
I’ll be forever thankful, baby

You’re the one who held me up
Never let me fall
You’re the one who saw me through
Through it all

You were my strength when I was weak
You were my voice when I couldn’t speak
You were my eyes when I couldn’t see
You saw the best there was in me

Lifted me up when I couldn’t reach
You gave me faith ’cause you believed
I’m everything I am
Because you loved me, ooh, baby

You gave me wings and made me fly
You touched my hand I could touch the sky
I lost my faith, you gave it back to me
You said no star was out of reach

You stood by me and I stood tall
I had your love, I had it all
I’m grateful for each day you gave me

Maybe, I don’t know that much
But I know this much is true
I was blessed because
I was loved by you

You were my strength when I was weak
You were my voice when I couldn’t speak
You were my eyes when I couldn’t see
You saw the best there was in me

Lifted me up when I couldn’t reach
You gave me faith ’cause you believed
I’m everything I am
Because you loved me

You were always there for me, the tender wind that carried me
The light in the dark shining your love into my life
You’ve been my inspiration through the lies you were the truth
My world is a better place because of you

You were my strength when I was weak
You were my voice when I couldn’t speak
You were my eyes when I couldn’t see
You saw the best there was in me

Lifted me up when I couldn’t reach
You gave me faith ’cause you believed
I’m everything I am
Because you loved me

You were my strength when I was weak
You were my voice when I couldn’t speak
You were my eyes when I couldn’t see
You saw the best there was in me

Lifted me up when I couldn’t reach
You gave me faith ’cause you believed
I’m everything I am
Because you loved me

I’m everything I am
Because you loved me

Posted by dredellie in thoughts. Tagged: Bradley. 2 Comments

My action hero makes my day

Ok. If you know me, you know that I love Tom Cruise. No really. LOVE Tom Cruise. I feel in love with Maverick, er, Tom when he was in Top Gun. (Come on Tiff, here we go….I feel the need. The need, for speed! OW!).  Ever since, I have tried to dislike even one of his movies. Not possible. (To be honest, I do think I have 3 more to watch). 

I turned on Friday’s Oprah while making breakfast this morning. And guess who was on? You guessed it. He has a new movie coming out – sweet. Could the start to the summer be better? I need mindless fun to keep my non-serious side pumped up.  This is why I love movies. For that 2 hours, I just get engrossed in the story and believe that whatever I am watching is possible. If it’s a true story, I watch like it’s the first time I have heard the story.

So let’s be real. I started drooling over him as Maverick, because let’s face it, he was smoking hot in that movie. So why do I keep that lovin’ feeling? So, obviously I don’t actually know him, but you get an idea of how people in the public eye actually are as people. Sure, is there a pubic image that they craft, of course. But people you work with talk. And people talk about him.  And interviews do tell a lot about people. He is passionate about his family, his work, people in general and he’s funny.  This was clear again in the interview I just watched.

Also. I am a very loyal person. When he started talking about Scientology, everyone thought he was weird and people started bailing off the Tom bus. So I don’t agree with everything Scientology, but he was still my favorite actor. He has opinions and convictions and he doesn’t waver. That is one of things I value most in people.  When he was couch jumping about his new love. Weird? May a little. But he’s funny and passionate. And I though it was great. More people bailing off the Tom bus. Not me. After people got off the bus, I moved closer to the front. 

The  interview I just watched made me smile, made me laugh, made me want to watch his movies all afternoon. It made my day.

I always say that I am entertained by little things. I hope I always am. I love giggling like a little kid.  What a fun start to a Monday.

Posted by dredellie in thoughts. Tagged: loyalty, movies, passion, Tom, Top Gun. 1 Comment

General Update

Nearly every day in the past 10 I have wanted to sit down and blog. Not only to update the 3 (maybe 4 readers I might have) but to just get my crap off my mind. It has been a roller coaster 2 weeks, and a bit exhausting. I really could use like a weeklong nap.  Look out. This ones a bit random.

I am trying to get back into my running groove, but my energy drains easily when I start out. I looked up some information on Runner’s World to help me with what I should eat and when, so we’ll see how it goes. I learned a lot of new things and went shopping twice this week to pick up some things the articles suggested.

To say that I am unhappy with my weight/body at this point would be an understatement. I have gained 10 pounds since last summer and then made it through the holidays with no gain. Then January came and apparently so did 5 more pounds. It’s no much that I worry that I’m “fat”, it’s more about how my close fit. I gain 95% of my weight in my stomach. This causes me two problems. The first is my pants don’t, at all and the second is that any shirt that is not huge makes me look like I’m pregnant. And since I’m not, I don’t really feel like defending that I’m not. Ugh. I’m just more disappointed that I got myself  back to this point. So I’m adding more exercising and decreasing calorie intake.

I am able to function (kind of) on smaller amounts of sleep, however, at this point in my life, lack of sleep really negatively affects me. It makes me gain weight, makes me depressed, sleepy, cranky, and unmotivated. My priority above anything else right now, is getting enough sleep.

**Warning, this part of the blog contains references to girlie parts!** After a couple of months of consultation, testing, etc, it seems that I am going to have to resort to a low dose of fertility medicine in order to get my ovaries to obey my commands…ok kidding…But they are not giving up their eggs regularly, so….there is apparently nothing plant based or more natural I can try to regulate my cycle. So next month, off we go.

This week has been especially rough. On Friday night last week I saw a posting on Facebook to prayer my friend, Jamie’s mom & her family.  Her mom was also my middle school Language Arts teacher and ran a mentoring program when I was a senior in high school. Jamie’s dad fell last summer and broke his neck and I was worried when I saw the post that something happened to him. (He was my middle school science teacher). I couldn’t find any info about what happened and woke up Brad and asked him if he had heard anything. Nothing. I did not sleep well and had a bad dream about the situation. When I got up the next morning. I saw a text from my mom: Mrs. Lebo passed away last night. I was devastated. I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. I instantly felt sick for Jamie and her family. Brad and his family have embarked on the journey that her family was about to embark on, and frankly, it sucks.

I could hardly keep it together and called my best friend from high school, Laura. Jamie and Laura were best friends growing up and lived across the street from each other. When Laura answered the phone I really couldn’t hold back the tears. She filled me and told me that Mrs. Lebo had a heart attack, but that Jamie and her family were able to get to the hospital and say goodbye. I was so thankful for that, but my heart was breaking for what they must be going through.

On Sunday, Laura and I headed over to Jamie’s house after dinner. We stayed for 3.5 hours. We just sat and talked. Talked about Mrs. Lebo, decisions their family was going to have to make, about what we have been doing in life.  Jamie and I were not close during high school, but were what I would definitely call friends. We were in lots of sports and other things together. The last year or so, we have reconnected on FB and on blogs. It was the crappiest of circumstances to get caught up, but it was like we all were just catching up about last week. It was easy, there were tears, there was laughter. But two things were clear. Mrs. Lebo made more of an impact on my life that I had even realized and that I have two dear friends that I need to see more.

The biggest thing I realized about Mrs. Lebo is that she shaped the mentor that I am today. In several positions I have held, I have always tried to be the go to person, the person you could seek out if you needed help or guidance, a mentor. I realized that the mentoring program, called Trusted Readers, that Mrs. Lebo ran when we were seniors, taught me how to be that ear, that listener, that advisor.  She truly helped me become the person I am today. There are so many other things that have come up this week about her impact on my life. I’ll save those for later. 

I spent probably 2+ hours also just talking to Laura. Even when we were in Virginia, we never lost touch, always exchanged Christmas letters, saw each other about once a year. But the time we’ve spent this week was great. We caught up on so much, talked about the good ol days, and about our lives now.  I also expected to spend only a short time with Jamie, but I saw and talked to her 3 times this week.  If there is one ounce of good that can be taken from Mrs. Lebo’s passing, friends have reconnected. And not the “hey let’s get together” and then it nevers happens type…. But the real, we’ll be the ones to get together type. I didn’t even think about the fact that Laura and Jeremy are teachers and have the summer off (except for classes she’s taking). My schedule seems to jive with no one else’s on the planet. But I can definitely make the 2.5 hour trip to see her and her family on my days off during the summer! Brad and I also have plans to head to Des Moines a few times, so we will definitely make time to visit Jamie and her family, too. It’s so mind boggling how bittersweet a week can be.

I’m sure there’s more to catch up on – But I actually tired and it’s time to honor that sleeping thing I talked about. My blog posts need more pictures. I don’t have a ton of recent ones, but Kelly and I are trying to have more fun. Here is a picture from a few weeks ago on a trip that we took the metropolis of Dysart, IA.  It really was fun!

Posted by dredellie in thoughts. Tagged: blab, friends, my oxygen mask, running, sleep. 2 Comments