Nate and I...

have this thing. It's an agreement really. It's something like this...he makes the mistakes. lots of them. He makes mistakes all the time. Lots of little mistakes. But I...I make the BIG ONES. Not very often, actually. you might even say rarely do I make "mistakes". But when i do, wowsers, they are DOOSIES.

Nate makes the mistakes in marriage that are really just irritations. He leaves the toilet seat up. He loses his keys. He forgets to get his credit card out of the ATM and it eats it up. He leaves his wallet at the movie theatre. He throws away important papers. These are the mistakes in marriage that can really light some fires, but are relatively easily remedied. For instance (as if you dont already have enough instances to make my point) but for instance, three days ago I asked him to stop setting his dirty socks on the dining room table. Why, you might ask, is he setting his dirty socks on the dining room table? Because it is one of those mistakes Nate makes. I told him that he has been doing it forever and I just cant take it anymore. We eat there. The laundry room is less than 20 feet way. And he agreed it was ridiculous and could not even recall why he had set them there. Of course he would put them somewhere else. So yesterday morning I come out to make the girls breakfast and what to my wondering eyes did appear but Nate's smelly socks on the dining room table. I once again reminded him that we had an agreement....no stinky socks on the table. Of course he was mortified, and vowed never to do it again. Until today, that is. Yes, I once again awoke to two dirty white socks on the dining room table. I waited until he was wide awake, then kindly held them up in the air and simply said.."this is day three with stinky socks on the table. Is it ever gonna end??" "Really?" he asked. "I did it again??" These are Nate mistakes.

I feel comfortable relaying all of this to you because I am about to be very vulnerable here. Im ok with telling you all about my husbands "mistakes" because mine are SO MUCH BIGGER. Here's a little rundown to lead you into the point of this blog. I do a lot of "right" things. No, im not bragging, Im just admitting that I am a perfectionist. I am a control...freak, per se. I dont like to make mistakes and admitting I make them is even tougher than actually making them. But there's no hiding my mistakes. I do things like back into my friends car (2003) or lose a $1000 check (1999) or arrive too late to the bank to deposit an $80,000 check for my boss that I was told to "no matter what deposit before 5:00!"(1994) I also almost set our apartment on fire by forgetting I left something in the toaster (2001) (thank goodness Nate has great lungs and he blew out the billowing flames) and I left tater tots cooking in the oven at 400 degrees while we went grocery shopping at Walmart for two hours. Thank the Lord I remembered just before we hit the check out lines and Nate drove home like a maniac and got em out of the oven just before they caught fire. these are the kinds of mistakes I make. And today was no different.

The girls and I headed out to Lowes to buy a few flowers to add to our garden, and along the way we turned on the radio. One of my all time favorite songs came on. A song we sang in elementary school to honor the Veterans who had served our country. It still brings tears to my eyes when I hear it, and I was so excited the girls were getting to hear it too. As "Proud to Be An American" blasted through our car and out the windows to the general populations we arrived at Lowes and pulled into a parking spot. The song was still on, so we paused to let it finish. "Cause there aint no doubt I love this land.....God bless the U...S....A....!!!!!!" Yes, what a great song!! I hit the OFF button on the stereo and Luxie expressed her love for the song too. I stepped out of the car, got the girls, and headed inside for some shopping.

About 20-30 minutes later we emerged with our Petunias and headed towards the car. As I approached the passenger side I realized I could not find my keys! I searched my purse, looked in the cart, my pockets...they were nowhere to be found. I got over to the driver side and said, "Mommy must have left them in the car. Ive never done that before." (this is usually how my mistakes go...never been done before.) then it dawned on me...that "humm" I'd been hearing from the front of the car was not the car beside me, but my own car. I had left the car running in the Lowes parking lot with the windows down and the car unlocked!! Unbelievable!! I had been so caught up in the music that I completely forgot to turn off the car!!

And that, my friends, is a big mistake.