DID I TELL YOU...?

Pussy cat, pussy cat where have you been?
I've been to London to visit the queen.

Pussy cat, pussy cat what did you there?
I frightened a little mouse under the chair.

Guess where we're going in July.
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Yeah, we are taking a family trip to London this summer. After being married to a fly away husband for 22 years, I am flying away with him. The kids too.

In the years that Paul has traveled for business he has accumulated 900,000 frequent flier miles.

NINE. HUNDRED. THOUSAND. Oh so close to that million mile mark. I personally hope we do not hit the million mile mark.

We used every last one of the remaining miles in his account to book this family trip.

We've gone on a few other trips using his miles - Boston, Florida a couple of times, San Antonio. The boys went to New York. We've given some miles to a couple of families. But this is our first really big trip.

This may be our last summer together as a family (sob) so we decided to go for it and book the flight. We are blessed in that the frequent flier miles cover our tickets. We are further blessed that we get to stay with friends part of the time and in the company flat part of the time.

We are blessed that we get to go to Normandy and see the beaches on which my grandfather landed during World War II.

We are blessed.

And yet I am still selfish enough to say I've waited a long time for this.

Paul has traveled throughout most of our marriage and there were days,when the kids were little, when I thought I wouldn't make it through the next hour, let alone to the minute he'd return for his brief stay at home before leaving for the next foreign country. Those were hard years for me raising the little ones alone most of the time.

So when Paul jokingly said I don't need a new carry-on bag or that Kayla and I need to share a suitcase, I sort of went a little crazy on him.

Just a little.

Maybe it was the time of the month. Maybe I'm still battle scarred from those difficult years. But I kind of let loose on the poor man.

"Twenty two years. TWENTY. TWO. YEARS. I have stayed home and raised your kids, kept things from falling apart around here, while you traveled - for twenty two years. I've dealt with illness, broken bones, home repairs, car repairs, problems with our parents. I've lived in fear of the phone ringing. I've watched you leave for any imaginable foreign country with 12 hours notice. I've watched our child go into surgery while you were out of the country. I've battled depression while I virtually raised two little ones alone, not always knowing when you'd come home and when you'd leave again. And now that we get to finally take an overseas family trip for which the tickets and lodging are free, you tell me I can't buy a tote bag and I need to share a suitcase with Kayla? I DO NOT THINK SO."

Something like that.

I know.

I am evil. Bloody Mary had nothing on me, I guess.

I deserve to be put in one of those torture devices I'm sure we'll see in the towers of London.

The thing is, he forgives me so easily.

I'll buy my new carry-on bag (and another bag for all of our walking trips) -once I get recommendations from my readers for the best bags EVER. And Paul won't even remember my little selfish tirade. He's like that, you know.

Like I said, I'm blessed.