preacher vs. coach

I have recently inherited the job description and title of a "preacher's wife." It is a whole new life in the lime light of leading the salvation of others. I have been forced to do things like attend church regularly, be on time for church, attend all funerals, wedding, birthday parties, anniversary parties, showers, etc. that a good woman attends and learn to buy items  cook items that may have to be served at a moments notice at a potluck. The other day Will and I had a discussion in the car. "What would you rather be...a preacher's wife or a coach's wife?" I promptly with out hesitations declared "a coach's wife." Then we began to compare the two jobs. I can only speak from fact on the side of the preacher's wife and from fantasy through Tammy Taylor on Friday Night Lights.

VS.

1. A coach's wife can wear fun bedazzled jerseys, big jewelry, heels, designer jeans and her newly highlighted and done up layered hairdo at the game. A preacher's wife must wear a sensibly modest outfit, hose and a hat to church on Sunday. 

2. A coach's wife can have out door bbq's for the team at her house. A preacher's wife must make pea salad and a jello mold for the pot luck on Sunday. 

3. For a coach's wife, Friday is game day, followed by a late night ice cream run with your kids and family friends and Sunday is family sleep in day. For a preacher's wife, Friday is going to the football games with church people to see the church kiddos play the game and Sunday is game day....all day. With no ice cream. 

4. A similarity: Saturday is film day for coach. Saturday is sermon working day for preacher. . 

5. A coach's wife can talk to friends while her husband is on the field. A preacher's wife can't talk to her friends while her husband is on the field. Texting is allowed only for the skilled. 

6. A coach's wife must be familiar with the game of football. A preacher's wife must recite scriptures in daily conversation. 

7. A coach's wife: Two words...HOMECOMING MUMS!!! A preacher's wife: easter corsages. 

8. A coach's wife needs to know all the plays in the book. A preacher's wife: all the recipes in the church cookbook. 

9. Half time verses no half time.

10. Both must be prepared to feed the five thousand with only sandwich meat and doritos on a moment's notice. 

11. Both can turn the water into wine koolaid. 

12. A coach's wife gets a mom suburban with the cool high school paw on the back. A preacher's wife gets a mini van with the christian fish on the back. 

13. A coach's wife has to give up Thanksgiving. A preacher's wife, Christmas and Easter. Sometimes New Years Eve. 

14. Both: The super bowl is a mandatory party in which you must cook for and/or host. 

15. A coach's wife needs to go to booster meetings. A preacher's wife: all baby and wedding showers, if you do not host them your self. 

16. A coach's wife can dress up her kids in cute football player and cheerleader outfits to take them to the games. If a preacher's wife dressed her children up in bible times costumes, she may be looked down upon for embarassing her children. Unless it is VBS in which the entire family will be sporting the sheet and rope outfit for an entire week during the summer. 

Moments

Why you no blog?
Well, to be frank, the school tech men figured me out I guess and the post page on my blog is blocked on the school network. And well, I'm too lazy at home. But strange things must have happened to you in the past month right? oh yes. Our lives have not been without blog worthy moments.

Moment 1: I filmed a wedding. I showed up in the same color and near style dress as the bridesmaids. awkward.

Moment 2: I am going to grad school this summer, it took me three starts and 7 days to read 197 pages of introduction to Othello. But good gracious I can tell you everything there is to know about the racial implications of Othello. Will is impressed with my new knowledge. Whatever.

Moment 3: This conversation happened over text. I nerded my self out thinking he knew who Ms. Hannigan was. He did not.

Moment 4: My alllll time favorite store is closing. Blessed Boutique on Grapevine Main. It was a sad day and I had a moment of silence for it. Will suggested maybe we buy the store. I asked him how he would answer when people asked what he did for a living. "Oh well... I own a women's boutique..." "oh, really..."

Moment 5: Unlike last year, I have had a summer. I have done such an excellent job at being a stay at home wife that Will considered getting a higher paying job so that I could continue this year round!

Moment 6: Will has been spending lots of time with his child, Copper. One evening a couple of my friends were over having dinner. Will decided to give us some girl time and hang out in the front yard with Copper. About 10 minutes later, Christin gets a text that says, "Tell Kelsie to come look at Copper" Seriously if it is like this every time the dog does something cute worthy it is going to be rediculous when we have a child. I go to the window and saw this. The dog and its' master just having some quality time together.

Moment 7: My brother graduated from UNT! Pretty exciting! Oh and the girl sitting in front of us at graduation definitely had a very fresh, and by fresh like late to graduation because she just came from the tattoo parlor fresh, tattoo on her back. I failed to get documentation. I apologize.

Moment 8: I stole Will away from his summer duties with the youth group for a week and my parents took us and my brother to Sanibel Island, Florida and it was amazing!!!! They have multiple tides each day. One day when we were there they had the lowest tide they had ever had. We got to walk the beach that evening and saw hundreds and thousands of beached sea life.

Tanner, Dad and Mom on the beach one evening. I missed the orange memo. 

 It was so cool! One day we rented bikes and biked around the island and another day we took a very long boat ride to Key West. It was pretty neat. Key West if full of history and for the Dunn family, vacations are for learning! Will disagrees. Ha.

Here we are at the southern most point of the USA.

And here are Will's thoughts on the key lime pie in Key West: 

It was DE-Licious! I would eat it again for sure. 

My favorite part of Key West, Will did not opt for the tour, my mom, tanner and I went to Earnest Hemmingway's house. We had a tour guide from Boston who was very informative of all information Hemmingway related. Here is his house. It was pretty cool inside. Very lush and beautiful. And lots of cats. I think there were like 54? All with literary and famous names. 

And we finished up with Father's day. Will's dad and his wife came down for weekend at pequeno hotel de Morris. They treated us to Reata, which was great and they got to hear Will preach!

Here we are at the stockyards

And here we are at Reata, the best place in the world. Excuse the sweaty look. I'm pretty sure it was either 100 degrees in that restaurant or I had an extreme hot flash a few moments before the picture. Nothing more classy that a girl dripping sweat down her brow at a very nice restaurant. 

Raising Godly Children

Sunday. This Sunday. The day I actually woke up and pulled my self out of bed for the early service at 9:00. I walk in and find Will running around doing his ministerial duties. We walk in to church together, way after it has started, just in time for the sermon.

We stand at the back of the auditorium scanning a good place to sit that is both out of the way, easy to exit but also near the teens. We spot one and our path to our seats is inturrupted by one of our students handing us a bulletin, pointed to the sermon title and said, "Why don't ya'll work on that for me." I look down and the the sermon is:

Raising Godly Children. 

Go sit down dude.


Will finds two seats near the teens and sits down. I sit across the aisle to avoid any touching that may lead me to raising Godly children. But this action made a few women (the church secretary) ask me if we were mad at each other and/or separated. So to not create rumors I sat over next to my husband. The sermon started without delay and immediately I felt the secretary's eyes point toward me, then the couple to the back of us and then all the kids down the row. I lean over to Will and whisper in my quiet "during sermon voice" "I feel like all the eyes in this auditorium are looking...no glaring at me." "Whatever." Will said and as I look up there are two eyes that belong to the worship minister's wife staring straight into mine.

If she was a baby, that would have been the look. So I gave her this one back. 

......

Then I gave this look to my self...

On another note, Will's dad got married a couple of weekends ago, here's a picky from the evening. Bad pose but cool picture. The photographer was kind of in a hurry so we only got one pose. He took three pics and every time I kept blinking my eyes. I tried to tell him but he was like, "oh its fine." And then it turned out like this....I look drunk. We both do. We were not. Just for the record. Just bad blink timing...three tries in a row. 

Diary of Anne Frank

First, I must start with something profound that Will said last night while watching TV.

Will: Hmmm, that is interesting.
Me: What?
Will: I'm watching a documentary on Nazi Scrapbooks....you know me and Helen Keller.

(a long pause)
(weird look and big laugh from me)

Will: I mean Anne Frank.
Me: I'm going to write that down so that I do not forget that.

In other news: 

Will has been gone to Honduras all week so I got to dog sit, shop, read and sleep at my parent's house. It was a nice Spring Break and ended too soon.

Sweet Maddie, Maggie and Will welcoming home their daddies.

Me and Will. He didn't have any kids that ran to
hug him when he came out of the gate, so I did. 

I got to do plenty of facebook stalking, 1. because it was my main source of information for what Will was doing and 2. I didn't have anything else to do. While facebooking, I found this group that my friends and I created on facebook our freshman year of college. It was in honor of a sweet old woman who worked in the Bean at ACU. It was called "Ruuuth!!" Apparently, it still exists on facebook and with this new timeline thing the page looks a little different. The admin's pictures are on the top of the page. This is what I found: 

Look, how sweet. All the girls and their significant other....then there is me. With a pig. REALLY??!?

Then I go to look at the members. There are only four. HA. Just the four of us. I promise there were more members 7 years ago.  

Our life in bullet points

Cause that is all the time and energy I have:

• Will and I have been co-habitating as college room mates these past couple of months. We are so busy, it is to the point that we have had people question our relationship. 
• We are doing just fine. He's even taking me on a date tonight...for the first time in...uh since the last post. 
• Yesterday I had a mid-twenties moment. Will had a small child sitting on his lap during worship last night at church and I could just FEEL the "when is she doing to have a kid" tension in the room. 
• The answer to that is............not any time soon. 
• I found a bird, dead, on my stoop. Apparently he ran into the glass door. And I took a picture. I was thinking about putting duct tape around its head like Dumb and Dumber but decided the germs living on a dead bird would send my anxiety over the edge. 

• Play number 2 of the year is almost done. So Will can reclaim his shoes and other house hold items I gather for props. 
• Play number 2 of the year is almost done so that means I have to start doing laundry and cleaning the house. 
• This conversation actually happened at our house last night: 
• We frequently joke about Will's "First Christmas as a Married Couple" gift to me. A little back ground information. The first year we were married he was a full time minister, I was a full and a half time 1st grade teacher at an awful school with a few tyrants as children, we bought a house, his parents were divorcing, we bought two new cars, oh and we were having senior high huddles at our house every Thursday night. To say the least, that first year was tough. I worked at a title one school. If you have ever been a first year teacher in a bad title one school, you know that there are ZERO resources. In order to have books for my kids to read, I had to make my own books from a website. This meant hours and hours of printing, folding, stapling, etc.  Now back to Christmas. I'm a big theme giver when it comes to gifts. I go out and buy Will some great coffee mugs, coffee, syrups and other stuff like that because he is always saying he wants to start drinking coffee.....btw, i think the coffee is still sitting in the pantry. But I digress. Back to Christmas. We sit down to open gifts. I'm so excited. Its a big thing! You, know! 1st present as a married couple! What is he going to get me? Something fun? Romantic? Jewelry? I open up the gift and it is........... an electric stapler. 

"Aww...oh." I reply. Thanks? It really was a thoughtful gift but a hillarious story. So months and months after that we have joked about the stapler. Last night it came up in conversation and he said, "I was really being very sincere when I bought that gift.  I knew it would help you and make your life less stressed." And then the line of the day was 

"I guess it speaks about the crap that first year was

 when your husband buys you an electric stapler because 

it will improve your quality of life."

Sorry, We are out of....

Last night, Will and I ventured to a new hibachi place for his birthday dinner. The guy turns 28 on Thursday. Man!

We went to a new place in Arlington, I will refer to it as Hibachi to protect the innocent. We had a little bit of trouble finding it because it was hidden away among the store fronts. We happened up on this place and went in. It was a tiny hibachi place with only four hibachi stove tables. We were greeted and seated at a table. The waitress came to take our order.

Waitress: What you drink?
Me: A glass of Chardonnay please.
Waitress: You?
Will: Water.

Waitress took the rest of the orders and slowly prepared the drinks.

The waitress comes back.

Waitress: Sorry, we out of Chardonnay.
Me: Ohhhh, that's fine. I'll just take a water.
Waitress: ok.

Waitress leaves and comes back to take our order:

Waitress: What you have?
Me: Sesame chicken with fried rice please.
Will: Number 14 with fried rice and a tuna roll.
Waitress: Ohhhh we out of sushi. (oddly points to the front of the restaurant) No sushi today.
Will: Oh ok, that's fine. Can I have double rice?
Waitress: Two orders of rice?
Will: Can I have double rice instead of vegetables?
Waitress: Uhh (confused) we no do that.
Will: oook. That's fine, I'll just take the vegetables.

Waitress continues the orders and leaves.

We joke under our breaths about the lack of food in this establishment. Maybe next they will come back and say, "Sorry, we out of rice." No wine, no sushi...what kind of place is this!?

I look to the front of the restaurant and see a lonely fish in a tank separating the eating area from the waiting area. I jokingly say, "Ha, That's why they were out of sushi. They only have one fish."

Then it hit both of us. Will said, "Surely she didn't mean that, but she did point to the front like she was implying something."  Hmmmm.

I guess we will never know.

Texas Hunting Forum...A man's pinterest.

The other day...during church, I received an email from Will with this link in it.

http://www.texashuntingforum.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/2883996/1

So I looked at it. The subject of this forum thread was very interesting. The title:

YOU MIGHT BE TOO SERIOUS OF A DEER HUNTER IF

These are some I found and I would like to comment on them from the perspective of your wife.

3. You have ever said to your significant other: "Oh honey, I couldn't possibly attend[wedding, family function, social event, fill in the blank] on that date; I will be deer hunting--and she doesn't object.

It is just an understood fact.

4. Your significant other announces that she has planned a vacation to Europe with her family, but she didn't bother to include you because she knew it would interfere with deer season.

Another just understood fact. Why even ask. If he's going somewhere, I'm going somewhere. Probably somewhere better than the ranch...like Grapevine Main or Europe. However, this Europe trip would only be possible if the funds from October to January were not devoted to hunting equipment.  

7. You feel a sense of impending depression as deer season comes to a close.

It is sad around our house these days. Lots of moping and xbox playing.

8. You have ever placed an urgent call to your spouse to inquire just how much space is still available in the deep freeze.

Or your wife comes home one day and there is an additional freezer full of deer.

You are at your inlaws which is 20 min from the lease and you mill around your wife and look at her aimlesly until she tells you to get out of here and go to the deer lease.

Every weekend. I call it the look. It begins like this:
"....pause... what are we doing this weekend?"
"uh I guess you are going hunting."

If u hunted the morning of ur wedding day, I did.

If you've called in sick to work and was really sick but managed to still sit in the blind with a 101 fever.

 He does it. Call in sick and decide to go hunting.

Your wife has to put Tinks 69 behind her ear to get your attention.

Somedays...yes.

Your wife tells you she has no intentions of sleeping alone that night and you tell her to be sure and lock the door after he leaves.

the guy that taught me how to shoot a bow told his wife/ girlfriend at the time "honey if you dont mind being a widow from oct. to feb.i would love it if you would be my wife

If only I knew...

I took my bride to the deer lease for our honeymoon.

Uh no. Not Never.

If your EX-wife tells you she's leaving you if you head out hunting again, but you do anyway because the rut's on.

If your wife has to take birth control between January and April each year. My daughter was born in September- not a coincidence.

We've had the conversations.

If you've ever gone shopping for a new laptop to view game cam pics-with a deer carcass in the bed of your truck. (Did it Sunday night).

With the recent purchase of a church computer, we now have a laptop devoted purely to game cameras.

If you make your daughters name "Rae" which means deer ....

hmmm....

You tell your wife that the wedding day has to be planned around deer season...

That is why we got married in September. He had said, " Honey, I can miss one deer season. I'll miss it for you." ME in response: "It is not just ONE deer seasons. It is every deer season for the rest of our lives!"

You still carried a rifle with you on the day you took down all the stands and feeders "just in case

If you plan your work vacation schedule to coincide around opening days for deer bow, rifle, and muzzle loader season and your wife knows instinctively not to plan any big family events during those times.........

The reason we don't go on vacations because all his days are gone by the time vacation time rolls around.

You carpet and heat your blind so your wife can go with you and you won't feel guilty leaving her in the trailer while you hunt.

Now you stick a lazyboy, a book shelf and a craft box in that blind too and I might go with you as well.

Boys at the ranch this weekend, I hope you are being safe and having fun.

Words with Friends...

I'm really bad at this game. I just finished a game with my mom. She whooped me. This is inappropriate for young children but highly funny.

Look at this screen shot of my phone. View my last two letters. 

Sums up the score on that one. 

I thought about texting the picture to my mother, but somehow sending her a picture of the letters F and U in that formation didn't seem very respectful at the moment. It still doesn't now, but felt like the coincidence of the score and my last two letters was just too funny not to share. 

Second of all, I grilled. I am on a roll with this domestic wife thing. Not that I enjoy it or anything...cooking that is. I love being a wife. But once again I had to document it. I immediately texted my dad. I do that when I accomplish something great that he would be proud of...like building something, grilling, cooking, climbing mount everest... you know the usual. 

It is like something off the Blue Mesa menu!

And to finish off, a little bragging. My cousin took family pictures of us at Christmas. Here are a few I just had to share! 

That's my family!! My brother Tanner, Mom, Dad and us! All together. Squeezed.
On one couch.

And for the prize: As I was looking at the final picture in this post, I thought to my self about all the pictures we have taken of our family and the cousins. So I researched. And the four cousins could have made our own akward family photo website. View these gems I found.

They begin with 1990ish.

And end... here. 

Consider yourselves lucky Kale and Gage (two new additions!) that you were not here to endure
those lovely pictures....and fashion.

Hey Good Lookin...Whatcha Got Cookin?

3 Meals to be exact. That is what I've been cooking.

Until Will got hungry and took it over again.

Oh and Fried Ravioli, Fried Pickles, Poppyseed Chicken AND cookies for the youth Christmas party that I failed to document before they devoured it. It looked pretty good and was not burnt.

I did not set off any fire alarms, only had one major emotional breakdown during the chimichanga and all were edible. I got the recipes from pinterest...which brings me to another point.

This is a complete disappointment every time I go to my pinterest app. Anybody with me?

Which brings me to another thing...I semi decorated our house this year. It was actually kind of an embarassment to my college degree, but you gotta live on a budget people! Crafty Pinterest decorations take money too and I have been banned from Hobby Lobby (Maybe banned is a strong term, more like discouraged by the husband to ever drive by the craft store) and I refuse to go to Joanns. While I'm on the subject, Joanns is the new Hobby Lobby. Has anyone noticed this? When you used to go to Hobby Lobby there would be one line open and it would be a checker that was going at sloth speed...no, slower than sloth speed. You could be buying 1 marker and be in there two hours just waiting behind the old retired woman buying out the 80% off home decor aisle. I had a game in college that I would play called "Guess the fastest checker." Now I'm pretty sure that Hobby Lobby fired all of their sloths and sent them over to Joanns. In particular they all work in the fabric cutting desk. I digress. Back to Christmas, we were not going to be around at the house much at Christmas so we opted to not put up the Christmas tree. I just decorated the mantle with our stockings and used the hearth as the place for our presents. It was kinda cute. But when I was taking down the picture frames that normally inhabit the mantle...I found this hidden behind a framed engagement picture.

I once discussed this scooby doo snack situation before. I'm not sure who should be more embarassed. Will - who is eating scooby doo snacks and leaving a hansel and gretel trail. OR

Me - I haven't bought these in like two months. This means, it has been approx. 2 months since I have cleaned that area of the house. 

That is all I got. Happy 2012 friends.