Dog days…

I have added another member to our household. Her name is Lucy.

She is some sort of hound mix. I am thinking maybe a black and tan hound with beagle.

Who knows? She might be just a mutt that looks like a hound. Either way, she is really sweet and I believe that she is going to make a really wonderful pet for our family.

She was stray that wandered up to a friends house and my friend unsuccessfully tried to find the puppy a home. After a month, she brought the puppy in to the office with the hopes that someone would take her. Someone else did for two days, but that situation did not work out. So, I brought her home with me.

I haven’t had a dog in years. I have never had a house dog.

She has something in common with everyone in the family, I think.

Lucy is house broken.  Most everyone in our home is, except for Samuel (he is still in diapers).

She is an older puppy. I have two older kids that would probably be the equivalent of older puppies.

She is a she. I have one daughter, so having another female in the house should be fun.

She likes her blanket. Sebastian does, too.

She likes going outside. My husband loves being outside. He claims that it is too hot, but he stays out there all the time so it can’t be too bad.

She sheds. I do, too. I think it is hormones, on my part at least. I seem to remember shedding hair after having each baby. That is not her problem, though.

My mother is staying with the kids and she sent me a text earlier that said “Lucy made a little sound. Sebastian said it was her first word.”

You got to love kids…

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Recovering Road Rager

I have really conquered my road rage. Really, I have.

Except when someone tries to run me off the road.

Which is what happened last night on my way back home from an evening of watching pee-wee baseball in 40 degree weather. Well, it was more like 60 degrees, but it felt colder than that.

Last night, I was driving along quite happily. There was this car that couldn’t quite decide if it wanted to go fast or my speed. It passed me once, but then it slowed down…in the fast lane.

Usually, when a car can’t make up its mind what speed it wants to maintain it is a good indicator that the driver of the car is somewhat distracted.

Well, I was cruising along in the slow lane and indecisive driver was driving along in the fast lane. I was in the process of passing the indecisive driver when the car begins to come over into my lane. Seriously.

I had to swerve off the road to avoid being hit by the indecisive driver.

I was not happy. Not one bit.

After being hit by a drunk driver less than a year ago, I was fed up and I began my venting tirade. I blew my horn. Called the woman an idiot. She didn’t see or hear any of my tirade because she was in another vehicle and the indecisive car decided to roll along at a slower pace than a snail.

Then came the red light. No other cars around at all. Just my car parked at the red light in the slow lane and her coming up (very slowly) to the red light in the fast lane. She stopped her car way back behind the little stop here now white line that is present at every red light. I could sense it–she was afraid.

And she should be.

Because she had just made a recovering road rager very angry and frightened because of what could have happened since my entire family was present in the vehicle with me. It didn’t occur to me that I might be frightening my children and my husband.

Yes, I yelled out the window at her. She looked like she was trying to text on her phone. I told her that she needed to pay attention to what she was doing. Then the light turned green and she took off like lightening. 

So, what does this recovering road rager do? I blow my horn and get behind her. I wasn’t doing anything wrong. It was the direction that I go home. I can’t help it if she thought that I was following her.

Then I turned and the entire episode was finished. My son told me that the decent thing to have done was not to yell at her. Well, of course the decent thing to have done would have been just that. Unfortunately, when something happens that makes me aware of how something as precious as the lives of my children can be taken away in a second because of the stupidity of someone not paying attention to what they are doing, decency happens to take a back seat and anger rears its ugly head. Along with the feeling of wanting to rip someones head off.

The good thing is that we are all fine and I am thankful for that. Jacob said he was glad no one from church was there to see it. 

Well, just because I am a Christian does not make me perfect. I am just forgiven and I did pray about it later. I feel like it probably scared that woman just as much as it scared me, but I wasn’t able to think that clearly at that moment. If nothing else, she will pay more attention to what she is doing so she doesn’t bring out the recovering road rager in someone else that is struggling with it more than I am.

So, here it is…

Hello, my name is Sonya. I am a recovering road rager. I have been road rage free for less than 24 hours now…however, I believe my anger was warranted last night…

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Time to play catch up…

I have missed blogging. It has been a week or so since I have written anything. Life just gets in the way sometimes.

Jacob is trying to wait patiently for his phone call from his Babe Ruth Coach. Asking every night if I have heard anything is as patient as any 13 year old boy can be, I guess. We have heard that they are drafting the players tonight. This news helped to ease Jacob’s anxiety that he just wasn’t going to be drafted at all and that his paperwork must have gotten lost somewhere. School is going well for him right now and I hope it continues. My sister-in-law helped tremendously in this area and I am very thankful for her.

Emily has started softball practice. Softball seems to be going well for her. Other than that, Emily is just Emily. She is so bubbly and happy. She occasionally suffers from school-girl drama-queen syndrome, but so far I have been able to reign in the drama and overcome the drama.

Sebastian has started his baseball practice. He is doing really well this year. I really think that he will really grow into the sport this year. He has been playing third base. School is going well for him. He still doesn’t want to read his AR book. He would rather read books that he has at home. I should say that he would rather me read the books to him that we have at home.

Samuel is four months now. He has gotten over the RSV. Thank goodness. He has tried carrots, squash, sweet peas, sweet potatoes, applesauce, and bananas. So far, sweet potatoes is the one thing that he does not like at all. I don’t know why. He really likes the sweet peas. He likes applesauce better than bananas. He has to have cereal in his bottles because he has a major case of acid reflux, but other than this he is doing really well. I will try the sweet potatoes later. He is sleeping through the night. He rolled over in his baby bed the other night. I was so proud that I woke Josh just to tell him that Samuel had rolled over. He is a quiet baby. He does coo some, but not often, and apparently it is really funny getting his diaper changed. Last night, Josh was rocking him so that I could go to bed. Samuel was laughing about something, but I don’t know what. I guess it was just a father and son moment. Whatever it was, it was sweet.

Josh is playing volleyball on Tuesday nights. He is still working the weekend shift, but he is trying to get back to first shift during the week. I will be so happy when he is working Monday through Friday again.

I am still working and still taking my kids everywhere they need to go. I am tired of rain and storms. I can’t wait to watch my kids play ball.

Oh, and the family went bowling last week. It was really fun and I hope that we can all go again soon.

That pretty much sums up the last couple of weeks in my family.

Be Blessed!

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You might not want to ignore the weird noise under the kitchen sink.

You don’t know how much you take your kitchen sink for granted until you can’t use it.

The other day I received a phone call from my husband. I didn’t get to the call in time so I had to call him right back.

The first thing he said when he answered the phone was that he couldn’t win from losing. This was not a good sign. I braced myself and asked “What’s wrong, now?” (Notice the ‘now’…there is always something wrong with the house.)

Jacob was washing dishes and noticed this strange sound every time he would turn on the water, but he didn’t try to figure out what the noise was because he just wanted to get the dishes done so he could go back and play his PlayStation 2. Josh walked through the kitchen and noticed the sound. My husband wasn’t as quick to dismiss the sound like Jacob, so he investigated to see where the noise was coming from. He opened the cabinet and the pipes under the sink was leaking.

It was about 4:15pm and the hardware store closes at 5pm so he had to go get the supplies to fix the sink. He gets back and fixes the sink.

Of course, it isn’t that simple.

There is another leak, but now it is after 5pm. So, he had to wait until the store opened up again.

Yesterday afternoon, he was able to fix the sink and now we are able to use the sink.

By the way, Jacob has been told that if he is doing anything and he hears a noise that is weird, not to ignore the noise.

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Would someone else in my family look at The Calendar besides me?

It is a sad day at my house when I am the only one that has it all together.

Let me explain. I am what some might call scatterbrained. I call myself that, too. I am forgetful and often to the point that someone might even think that I didn’t care about whatever it was that I was supposed to remember, but really and truly my mind is somewhere else–Sonya’s own little world. Sonya’s World also makes me run late quite often, too. I even forget to leave work when I am supposed to and then I run late getting home. Sad, huh?

I lose misplace items all the time: keys, check card, makeup bag, purse, cell phone, occasionally my car in Walmart parking lot, and other things. I have developed my own system for dealing with my habit of misplacing stuff, just because my mind is on something else at the time.

My keys: I always place them in the same place every day as I walk into my home. It is a cute little fish dish.

My Purse: I drop it into the same spot every day.

My Makeup bag is a little harder to keep up with. It stays in the same spot, but sometimes I don’t have time to put on makeup before I leave the house so I take it with me and then I forget that it is in the car until the next morning when I am ready to put on my makeup. It is a vicious cycle.

I always park in the area of the parking lot at Walmart. It just makes it easier to find that way.

I will put my cell phone down anywhere. I find it all over the house. I have even had to call it before so that I can hear it ring, but then half the time I realize that it is on vibrate. A quarter of the time, I have left the thing in the car. I will only realize this after calling it 5 times, realizing it must be on vibrate, and I have torn the house apart searching for it.

Knowing how I am, I have been determined to get organized. I have lists everywhere. Lists that I have forgotten about. I have lists for the kids. I have a huge desk calendar at work and at home with everything listed on it. I don’t know how much more I can do.

The other day, I was on my way home. I had just picked up baby Samuel from the sitter. It was 5pm. Jacob had a Chiropractor appointment at 5:15pm. I called Josh.

Me: Hey, I just picked up Samuel. I am on  my way. Tell Jacob to be ready when I get there.

Josh: Oh, Shoot.

Me: (I could tell this wasn’t going to be good.) What?

Josh: Jacob went to hit balls with Stanley. (Stanley was Jacob’s baseball coach last year and Jacob is really good friends with Stanley’s son.)

Me: Well, do you know where they are?

Josh: No, but he took the cell with him. (The cell that Jacob’s father bought him…not me.)

Me: OK. Well, I will be there in a minute. You know, I have it written on The Calendar.

Josh: I don’t look at The Calendar.

UGH! Can you feel my frustration? I thought that my husband was the one that had it all together. He is the neat freak in the family. I just assumed that neat freaks would be great at organizational stuff. Perhaps, I am wrong…or it is just him. Anyway, for me to be the one that has it all together in the family is sort of comical really. Since when is the most scatterbrained person in the family the one that seems to know what is going on and when it is happening. It all comes down to determination and constant vigilance on my part to have a routine for everything. Repetition is the key for me.

The Calendar is our command station. It is where I communicate to my family, as well as telling them, that this is what is on the agenda for our family. The Calendar and our lists are a way to remain organized. Having and maintaining a routine is crucial for my family. Apparently, I need to make some revisions to their lists.  

I need to add “Look at The Calendar” to my family’s lists–either that or stick a post-it note on their foreheads.

By the way, we did make it to Jacob’s appointment–barely.

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What are your family traditions?

I would think that traditions are important to a lot of people, especially around the holidays. Some traditions are complex while others are simple. Some involve religious beliefs while others do not. Who knows, you may have a tradition that you don’t even think of as a tradition.

I was thinking about the traditions in my own family. We have traditions such as doing crafts at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Even something as simple as having my Grandmother’s Chicken and Dumplings at every holiday could be viewed as a tradition.

I think about how my mother and I would go out to eat, then to the movies every Saturday when I was a teenager. That was sort of our mother and daughter time. Even now, I still go shopping (most of the time it is to Sam’s or the grocery store) with my mom on most Saturday’s. We don’t get to the movies much anymore, but I feel like we have continued the tradition of spending time together on Saturday’s.

Now that I have my own children, I am thinking about traditions that I celebrate with them. Sadly, I can’t think of anything really significant that we could call a “tradition” other than attending church, but I don’t know if this qualifies as a real tradition. I think that my family gets so caught up with life that we forget to stop every now and then and enjoy being together as a family.

So, I need some inspiration! I want to hear about your family traditions.   🙂

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I just have a few things to say…

There are several things that I want to post about today.

1. We had to have an electrician come out to our house yesterday to inspect our wiring in the addition on our house. Josh’s cousin’s husband built the room when they were living there and just didn’t finish it. When we took over the house (because they apparently had the money to start projects in the house, but not the money to actually pay for the house), we have to fix all of his screw ups. Now, this guy (Josh’s cousins husband) thinks that he knows it all, but I have news for him: a two year old knows more about electricity than he does. Anyway, I am glad that we had to tear out a 3ft x 15in. piece of wall because the electrician found a short where the know-it-all-who-knows squat connected a black wire to a red wire. Apparently, this is a major no-no. At first, I blamed it on the devil trying to make my life harder, but now I think God was looking out for us. Now, Josh just has to repair the wall and install our ceiling fan, then we can move into our brand new bedroom.

Lesson: Professionals are professionals for a reason. They know more about their profession than you do.

2. Sebastian received a blue sad face yesterday at school. This is as low as you can go. You have to pass through all the other colors before getting to blue: orange, yellow, green, red, blue. Usually he has orange or yellow. He has received one green, one red, and now one blue. He has started having more meltdowns at home, too. I think reality has set in that he is no longer the younger one in the house and everything has changed and he is not liking it one bit.

I spent extra time with him last night before bed. Maybe if I make it a habit to spend an extra 15 minutes with him a night will make him feel better.

3. This morning I contemplated dreads. That would be just one less thing I would have to do every morning. Well, it was just a thought. Josh, my employers, my kids (especially Jacob and Emily), and most of my friends would not like it.

Besides, I don’t know if I would be able to cover the gray. Then, I would just look like an old woman with dreads. Nope. Not happening.

4. Apparently, my mom and Josh’s parents will have nervous breakdowns if I were to become pregnant again.

The conversation with my mom yesterday went like this:

Me: well, I have some bad news.

Mom: oh, no! do I even want to know?

Me: What? Uh, what are you thinking? Mom…I am NOT pregnant if that is what you are thinking.

Mom: (sigh of relief) Oh, well, my heart just dropped when you said that. (little laugh) So, what is your bad news.

My mother is scared to death that I am going to have another baby. Why? She told me to stop while I am ahead with four healthy children.

Josh talked with his mom and during the conversation he was told that one of his cousins was expecting. She then started telling Josh how we need to be careful and mind our P’s and Q’s.

What?

He told her that he was a grown married man. I told him that wasn’t the problem. The problem is that they all think that having four kids is enough. He seems to think that they want his brother to have a baby before (if we do) have another baby.

I told Josh that this makes me want to have another baby just because. I know…that is real mature. Well, I would never do that and that is what makes me an adult that is fully capable of making my own decisions: including decisions about birth control.

I feel much better now.

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Who decided that if you have any dirty clothes that you are behind in washing your laundry?

I give up.

I am not superwoman and I am not supermom. I never will be and the sooner I accept this the sooner I can move on happily with my life.

I have realized this for a while, but I just didn’t want to give up the image I have in my mind of a mom and homemaker.

I was in denial.

I have four kids: one teenager who obviously is determined not to do homework, one drama queen that thinks she is grown at 11 years old, one 6 year old that is having multiple meltdowns a day, and one infant that is wreaking havoc with my sleeping schedule.

My husband is “remodeling” our house. I will be so happy when that is over and life can be a tad bit less hectic than it is now.

I work. Eight hours a day. Forty hours a week. I spend 2 hours a day driving to work and back home.

I try to keep my house clean. I have a schedule. I have charts. I have everything the kids are supposed to do broken down on their own charts. I am the queen of list making. I make lists all the time and 9 out of ten lists I never look at again. So, if I can follow a schedule and a chore list, then anyone can. Including my children.

I give up on the notion that I have to have a spotless house, have spotless children, have a spotless car, and have all my laundry completely washed up every day.

Just who says that if you have dirty clothes in your laundry room that this is a bad thing?

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What next? A giant sink hole?

I really expect a giant sink hole to come and swallow up my house any day now.

Just a quick background so that you know how we came to live in this house:

My husband (before we were married over a year ago) cosigned (co-bought) a house with his cousin because he had excellent credit. She didn’t. She defaulted and messed up my husband’s credit score. We have taken over the house and now are living in the house ourselves—without his cousin, her husband, and their three kids. And no, we did not put them out onto the street as they would like for everyone to believe.

Now, we are making much needed repairs to the house. Some of their screw ups and some that just needed to be done because the house wasn’t kept up very well over the years.

The house is just the right size for our 5, almost 6 member family. It has 3 bedrooms and one bath (wish it had two). There is a huge room that his cousin was in the process of adding on that we are finishing and it will be our room once it is finished. His cousin evidently thought adding on to the house was a bigger priority than actually paying the house payment, but I digress.

My husband (the perfectionist) keeps finding stuff wrong with the house. Major stuff, like insufficient insulation, not enough braces in the ceiling, not enough screws and nails holding the walls up, and just a minor little problem like a window that is not screwed into anything at the top. Here is the kicker…my husband (bless his heart) pulled back the vinyl siding and guess what? There isn’t anything there to nail the window to and you can actually see into our bedroom. Folks, this is not good.

My husband is beginning to get really disgusted with the whole situation and he decided to call it quits for the day last night about 9pm. I went on to bed. He decided to take a shower.

Suddenly, I wake up to the sound of something odd. Water swishing? What is that? Ok, sounds like a plunger.

My dear husband walks out of the bathroom and I can tell just by his walk that he is frustrated. I assumed that the toilet must be stopped up. I roll over.

Then, more plunging noises.

Ok, now it would not take that much plunging to unstop a toilet. Would it?

He comes out of the bathroom and I ask him what is wrong.

The tub is stopped up.

The tub is stopped up?

He walks off into the living room.

Then, I had this overwhelming sensation welling up inside of me. It was uncontrollable. I tried to stop it.

I giggled.

Nope, I can’t laugh. He would kill me. Every time he turns around something wrong goes on with the house. I told him the other day to just quit looking at stuff.

I suppress the laughter, but the more I tried not to laugh, the more hysterically funny the entire situation became.

I snorted a couple of times and then I just let it go. Just a little.

Then, I heard him walking back to the bedroom. Ok…I have to pull it together.

He comes in the room, calmly sits on the bed, and asks me what is wrong. I barely managed to say nothing.

He wanted to know why I was crying. This is when I lost it for real. I could no longer contain it. I was crying, but crying from laughing so hard. I even had the thought that maybe it would put me into labor.

He began telling me all about his ordeal with the tub and how he couldn’t get it to unstop. The more he talked, the more hysterically I laughed. He didn’t seem to appreciate it as much as I did.

I decided to go check the situation out.

I pulled back the shower curtain.

I couldn’t believe it.

The stopper was pulled up. (UP means it is not going to drain.)

I pushed it down and the water began to go down the drain.

I turned around and told him (still hysterically laughing) that it might help if he would push the stopper down.

He began telling me about his foot hitting something and he thought that it was the faucet. It didn’t even occur to him that it was the stopper thingy. He just figured it was screwed up like the rest of the house.

I kept imaging my dear sweet husband in the bathroom plunging the tub with the stopper in the no draining position.

He admitted that it was kind of funny.

It took me a while to stop laughing.

The morals to this story:

1.    Never cosign for anyone…not even family.

2.    Hysterical laughter evidently does not make you go in to labor.

3.    If your tub stops up and will not drain at all, at least check to make sure the stopper is down so that it will drain.

 

 

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Just take deep breaths and relax…compromise is a good thing.

Opposites attract.

 

No kidding.

 

Opposites attract and this means that if opposites marry then compromise in your marriage is an understatement.

 

Master the art of gracefully compromising and your marriage will only be stronger because of it.

 

The Bible does address how a man and a woman is supposed to conduct themselves in marriage and it does not say that the little woman bows to everything her husband wants because he is the Man of the House and what he says goes. No, it does not say that at all. I have experienced this firsthand in my first marriage and I know better now. Wish I had known that then, but that is another story. Ephesians 5 is a great place to begin reading if you want to learn what the Bible has to say about marriage.

 

Now, let’s get back to my original subject: Opposites attract.

 

Honestly, I don’t know why opposites are drawn to each other. My initial thought is that it would seem that the more people are alike, the better they would get along. After thinking about this a little deeper, maybe this would make a marriage boring. That could create a whole lot of problems. Just think about what your kids do when they get bored. If your kids are like mine, then that is when they do things like write on walls and have no earthly idea why they did it. I am sure that most husbands and wives are past the writing on walls stage, but surely you get my point.

 

Men and women are opposites to begin with, so I guess it would stand to reason that we would also be attracted to someone of the opposite sex that is our polar opposite in behavior, too. Of course, you have to have some things in common or else that would just create chaos in a marriage, too. Balance seems to be important and compromise is essential to striking a balance in marriage.

 

My husband and I are alike in some ways. We both have a great sense of humor. He likes the obvious comedies, where I am more of the type that finds the hidden humor in everyday situations. He laughs at some of the stupidest things (and movies) sometimes, but then he just sits there and looks bored when I laugh out loud at something. Every now and then, we do laugh at the same things.

 

We are both Christians and sometimes I think that we are in different places in our walk with Christ, but that is ok. We keep each other in check. When my temper flares, he calms me down and vice versa. Basically, our strengths and weaknesses don’t work against us, but works for us and keeps both of us grounded.

 

Now, to explain how my husband and I are opposite from each other and how this works for us.

 

My husband is a neat freak. He is a perfectionist. Now, I am not saying that I am messy, but I don’t freak out when one or two things are out of place.

 

I use a dishpan and a dish drainer and I allow some dishes to air dry. But, I always wipe down the counter, sink, table, and stove when I am done cleaning the kitchen. I just don’t stress over a few clean dishes drip drying in a dish drainer.

 

My husband hates the dishpan (he uses the sink). He hates the dish drainer. He takes the dish drainer and put it under the sink and lays out two towels on the counter to place clean, wet dishes on to dry. Then, he will dry all the dishes, put them away, wipe the sink, counter, stove, and table clean. Then and only then is the kitchen clean.

 

We have compromised on this issue. The dish drainer stays put on the counter and if there are dishes in the dish drainer then it is not the end of the world. Oh, and he does not have to use the dishpan to wash dishes. It still irks me that he fills one side of the sink with soapy water and the other sink with rinse water. His dad does this and I just try to ignore it when my husband does this. I just try to remind myself that at least I have a husband that does the dishes.

 

He hangs up everything he wears and wants everyone in the family to do the same. I grew up hanging only “good” clothes. I just don’t see the sense in hanging up everything I own.

 

He uses wire hangers. I like plastic hangers only. We use both kinds. I always think of Tyler Perry’s “Diary of a Mad Black Woman” when I think about using the wire hangers. If you haven’t seen that movie, then you need to rent it. It is hilarious.

 

He is the only man that I know of (besides his dad and brother) that closes the lid on the toilet. Not just the seat…the lid, too. This doesn’t really bother me, but I do find it amusing.

 

Oh, and another thing that my husband does that is weird that I am getting used to is what I like to call “organized mess.”

 

Organized mess is when I walk in the kitchen and on the table is a neat little pile of money, wallet, chap stick, and papers. It is all neat, but it is on the kitchen table. It drives me crazy.

 

Organized mess is what I am referring to when my husband is involved in a project, like painting the house, and everything he needs is stacked nice and neat in kitchen floor. It may be stacked neat, but it is still in the kitchen and it is still just organized mess.

 

Of course, my computer desk is a different story. My computer desk is messy. It is the one place in my house that I allow myself to have to just pile stuff on (other than in my bedroom beside my side of the bed).I know where I put things. It is my mess and it drives my husband crazy. I think it drives him crazy because it is not organized. He doesn’t see my mess as having order, but it really does.

 

The big thing we differ on is our bank account. He has to know down to the penny how much money is in the account. I can’t balance a checkbook to save my life. I just look online to find out my balance in my own personal account. So, we both compromise on this. He says that he can’t ever get the checkbook to balance since we got married. Of course, it is my fault that he can’t get it to balance out every month.

 

Basically, we all have our little quirks. We all do things that get on our spouses nerves. I am sure that there are days when my husband looks at me and thinks “What did I get myself into?” just like I look at him sometimes and wonder “What in the world is he thinking?” But, he is my husband and I love him and because I love him I will overlook the wire hangers and his organized mess.

 

God only knows what I do that my husband overlooks.

 

Trust me, just compromise. Just overlook the small stuff. If you don’t compromise then you might have to admit that you are not the perfect one because chances are you just think you are the normal one in the marriage.  

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