About

I’m Sheri.  I’m 41, I live in the midwest. I been married for almost 16 years, we have 2 handsome boys, ages 12 and 14.  Oh, and a big lunk of a dog, Coach.  Coach will not be doing tricks for you, he is too busy sleeping.

I grew up in a tiny town. My graduating high school class had 15 students. It was a great place to grow up.

I dated my husband for 5 years before marrying him. For those without a calculator handy, 5 years of dating, 15 years of marriage….. a long time. Basically I can’t imagine life without him. I know, I’m very lucky.

I love going to movies. My favorites are really good scary movies, like Silence of the Lambs. My husband and I actually go to a movie about once a year, usually on our anniversary. 

I’m a homebody, but I would like to go out a little more often than our once a year date. 

I’m a horrible housekeeper, a not so great cook, absent minded, completely unorganized goofball. The part about still being married after 15 years is really a miracle.  So I should probably forgive him for the once a year movie date.

So what do I do? Hmm, there’s baseball, piano lessons, Boy Scouts, band. Oh wait, that’s not me. I’m just the driver, but that keeps me pretty busy. I actually do have a job, I work at home for a great company, but I have to fit that job in around my chauffeuring gig. I went back to graduate school last year for a degree in Library Science. My dream is to be a middle school librarian. My goal is to finish the program with my sanity intact.

I love having boys, but sometimes living in a house with 3 guys and a  dog, it’s just too much. Then I have to watch Food Network to decompress. Even though I can’t cook.

 Why Unexpected Bliss?  

It feels like I’ve spent alot of time waiting for the next thing, like when our kids were babies and we were desperately waiting for them to sleep for more than two hours at time. Then we were waiting for them to walk, to talk, to feed themselves, always waiting for the next big thing to happen. Then one day I realized, big things have been happening all around me, all along, and I’ve been so busy waiting, I may have missed some of the good parts.

This blog is about finding the bliss, even the tiniest moments, in unexpected places, right now, today. It’s about looking for the happiness and the joy, even in the darkness. It’s about me finding my path, making my way, and keeping my faith.

I hope you’ll stay for awhile. I can’t offer you a homemade treat, but I’ve always got chocolate stashed somewhere, and you’ll never find me without my beloved chips and salsa. I might even share it with you :)

Some people do a list of 100 Things about themselves. I tried, but couldn’t even get close to 100. So this will have to do:

  1. I was born two months premature, and I weighed right around three pounds.
  2. I have one sibling, a brother.
  3. My brother is 9 months younger than me.
  4. When I was a teenager and could fully comprehend what “9 months younger than me” meant, it gave me many sleepless nights. What were they thinking??
  5. My dad had his first heart attack at 36.
  6. My parents both grew up in tiny towns.
  7. When I was 11, we moved back to the tiny town my mom grew up in.
  8. For me, moving to a tiny town in the fifth grade was devastating. My grandma literally saved my life, by opening her home to me while my parents worked practically 24/7 and I had no friends.
  9. From the time we moved until about 8th grade, I was the outcast/new kid, trying to fit into cliques that were formed long before I showed up. It was hard, but looking back it taught me how not to treat people. I’ve never forgotten how it felt to be the outcast.
  10. I am what you might call a “non-athlete”. I tried softball, basketball and track, and I think it was relief to everyone when I gave up and went back to my first love, reading.
  11. When I say I lived in a tiny town, picture dirt roads, no stop lights, no fast food. That tiny.
  12. While I was in college, I volunteered for CASA for several years. I did it until I had my first child, and I would love to do it again when I have the time to devote to it. If I didn’t have to work, I’d spend my time volunteering with kids.
  13. I met my future husband while in college. Our respective colleges were three hours apart, so we did the long distance relationship thing for four years. I guess absence does make the heart grow fonder
  14. Maybe the long distance relationship is why I never noticed how very different my husband and I are. Actually, I think I knew it, but it didn’t matter. Still doesn’t, in fact, I’m pretty sure we make each other better. I hope so anyway.
  15. When we first got married, we rented a teeny tiny house from my inlaws. Next door to my in-laws. Yep. But really, they are wonderful, so it was okay. And I don’t cook, so we managed to make our way over there for dinner quite often.
  16. I got pregnant with our first son three months after we got married. Shocking, but oh so joyful.
  17. The next few years after that were a sleep deprived blur, but I know we had fun.
  18. Baby boy #2 came along two years after his brother. More joy, less sleep.
  19. Our second son was born with two thumbnails on one of his hands. He had the extra one removed when he turned one. Who knew that removing a tiny thumbnail required a full cast from his shoulder to his hand?
  20. That little stinker wiggled out of his full arm cast the very first night.
  21. We tried to get pregnant again for about six years, but it apparently was not in the grand plan for us.
  22. We moved three hours away from our families about eleven years ago. No more free babysitting from the grandmas and aunts.
  23. Consequently, we did not go on a “date”, or go anywhere without our children for at least five years. I know, I know!
  24. We brought a new baby to our home about six years ago. We adopted our Labrador mix (Coach)  from a local lab rescue, and I’m not exaggerating when I say he is the best.dog.ever. I grew up with dogs, so I should know; I’m not just biased
  25. Let me get on my soapbox and say that if you want a dog, I highly recommend labs, especially if you have kids. Also, I highly, extremely, very much recommend adopting from a shelter or rescue organization. Our Coach’s mom was left tied to a fence in the backyard of an abandoned house; she was pregnant with Coach and his siblings. Luckily someone saved her, and the mama and several of the puppies ended up being trained as helpers for handicapped people.
  26. Coach is definitely smart enough to be a helper dog, but we are so glad we got to be his family instead.
  27. One of my sons is very talented musically and artistically, and the other one is a talented athlete. Because of that, many people question whether or not they are really my children. Luckily, I have the c-section scars to prove it.
  28. My favorite thing to do still is reading. I just need more time to actually do it.
  29. Some of my favorite authors are Stephen King, Anne Lamott, and Maeve Binchy.
  30. I’m not a big TV watcher at all. The only shows I watch are ”24″ and “The Middle”. (All you “Glee” lovers, don’t hate me)
  31. Right now I’m in graduate school, trying to get my master’s in library science. My dream is to be a librarian at a middle school. My goal is to make it through the program.
  32. I am very scatter brained. I have been known to put my car keys in the freezer and then forget what I did with them; leave the house without makeup on – not intentionally, I really thought I was ready, lock myself out of the house, lock myself out of my car, lose my cell phone then find it in the laundry hamper, and I often forget how to use my own remote. I am not proud of these things.
  33. My husband is completely the opposite of scatter brained, which is helpful. And he has finally stopped rolling his eyes at my absent mindedness.
  34. Our oldest child shows signs of taking after me in the scatter brained department. I hope he has a patient spouse.
  35. I believe we all have guardian angels. I think I must have a team of guardian angels. When I was 18, my car hit a patch of ice on a bridge and rolled several times before landing upside down in a ditch. I was so not hurt that I didn’t realize we were upside down and wanted to drive away before anyone saw me in the ditch. A few years ago I was driving in a rainstorm in heavy traffic on the highway. My car slid off into the median ditch and ended up on the other side of the median, facing the oncoming traffic. When I caught my breath, I pulled back over to the ditch, turned my car around and drove home, with only mud and grass all over my car to show for it. I don’t think anyone would have believed that actually happened, except I left deep tire tracks in the mud all the way across the grass, showing how close I came to hitting the concrete divider before my car stopped right beside it. It truly is a miracle that I’m still here.

Speaking of miracles, are you still here?? Whew, coming up with a list of things about me is hard, and I wasn’t even aiming for interesting things! Now you know a little more about me. I hope you’ll give me a chance to get to know you.

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