The Dad

I figured it was about time I shared the story of The Dad.  He is, after all, my better half.  I will attempt to make it short enough that you will actually read it.  I will then create a photo montage - you can pretend "Wind Beneath My Wings" is playing in the background.  (That was supposed to be funny.)

When I bought this house, I was 25 and single.  It needed A LOT of work before I could even bring myself to sleep here.  Thankfully it was October, because I could ignore the disaster that was the yard, and give all my attention to the inside.  But then spring rolled around and it was time to get outside and tear into the nightmare.

There was a rickety old picket fence on both sides of the backyard that was in desperate need of going bye bye.  I like my neighbors and all, but I didn't want them in my business every time I decided to walk out there.  Plus, I wanted a dog and needed the backyard to be enclosed.  Time to look into having a 6 foot fence put in.  I'm handy, but not that handy.

My mom had used a company to build her deck, so she recommended I call them.  I got a quote I could live with and they put me on the schedule.  And then I waited.  And waited.  And then I would call.  And then they would reschedule.  And then I would wait some more.  At this point, I was fired up irritated, so I made one of those phone calls.  You know, where I very politely asked what the &$%# was going on and why I still didn't have a single %*@!&%# post set yet.  They promised to be out the next weekend.  I was going to be out of town, but they didn't need me here to set posts.

Behind the scenes, the owner of the fence company had called a friend who used to work for him and told him he had a crazy very nice girl who needed her fence built and he was overbooked.  He asked the friend if he would like to do the job on the side for some extra money.  The friend said yes.

I came home that Sunday to find posts.  Hooray!  The friend ended up coming back three or four times to finish the job.  And while he was here working, we chatted a bit.  You know, friendly homeowner/worker bee banter.  On two of the occasions that he was here, friends of mine had come by.  They were both buggin' me to ask him out.  Ask him out?!  I can't ASK SOMEONE OUT!  I'm a girl!  And I'm horribly shy!  And there's no WAY I'd ever ask him out!

Well, the work was done, I had a fence, and that was that.  Until about a week later when I sucked it up, picked up the phone and dialed...PRAYING for his voice mail.  A human answered.  He answered.  Uh, stutter stutter, this is Mindy, the fence girl.  Would you like to go get a beer sometime?  I was sweating profusely at this point and it wasn't because it was August.  He said yeah, how about tomorrow?

We ended up hanging out pretty much every night after that.  After about two weeks, he had a duffel bag at my house and he's been here ever since.  That was the summer of 2002.  We were married two years later, in the summer of 2004.  Here it is almost 7 years of marriage and two kids later.  Crazy.

So there it is folks.  I married the hired help.  Or, "The Fence Guy", as we affectionately like to call him.  Thank you Pauline and Nathan for riding me until I picked up the phone.  I ended up with an amazing husband.  How could he not be to put up with the likes of me?!

If I had put down on paper what kind of dad I wanted for my kids, I wouldn't have even scraped the surface of perfection that he has turned out to be.  Our kids are the luckiest kids in the world to have him as their dad.  He truly is what little girls dream of when they're imagining riding off into the sunset.  I'm the luckiest gal in the universe I tell ya.

I love you Chachi.

 Cue music.