Do you remember the times of your life? Blog from last year this week

Good morning, yesterday
You wake up and time has slipped away
And suddenly it's hard to find
The memories you left behind
Remember, do you remember

The laughter and the tears
The shadows of misty yesteryears
The good times and the bad you've seen
And all the others in between
Remember, do you remember
The times of your life (do you remember)

Reach back for the joy and the sorrow
Put them away in your mind
The mem'ries are time that you borrow
To spend when you get to tomorrow

Here comes the saddest part (comes the saddest part)
The seasons are passing one by one
So gather moments while you may
Collect the dreams you dream today
Remember, will you remember
The times of your life

Gather moments while you may
Collect the dreams you dream today
Remember, will you remember
The times of your life
Of your life
Of your life

Do you remember, baby
Do you remember the times of your life
Do you remember, baby
Do you remember the times of your life

"I dont know if you guys understand how much I appreciate and respect you both. You are always there for me and I am so lucky for that....I'm glad youve never given me away and although you've probably thought about it many many times before I'm oober glad you didnt" D4

"You teach me how to be the person I want to be. You are wonderful amazing people and I could not ask for better parents ever....I hope you both know how amazing you are and how amazing you are together" D3

"I have so much respect for you two and appreciate the respect you always have for me to allow me to make my own mistakes and decisions and learn from them. I feel so sad for everyone who doesnt have you two as parents. No one can possibly understand the loyalty and love we share in our home." D2

"Twenty three years and for twenty one of those you two have been the greatest parents someone could ask for. The example you have set for all of us is amazing.I know I speak for all my sisters when I say that we all hope to one day have a relationship just as successful as yours....so much of what makes you good parents are the small things that most people dont even notice." D1

"I wish I had a blog so I could write all the great things about you...I did want to reply to "What makes a man husband worthy?" with "What makes a woman wife worthy?" but I realized just saying "Marry Nancy" would be weird and unattainable since I took you off the market" Hubby

These are excerpts from letters that my family wrote to me as a surprise for our anniversary. Hubby had each of the girls write us a letter and D4 printed them out on beautiful paper. they were presented to me at my favorite restaurant along with 2 dozen of the most beautiful flowers and our wedding candle.





Since we have been married, hubby has been buying me a rose for each year we were married. These roses were waiting on the table for me when we arrived at the restaurant, Paces Steakhouse in Port Jefferson. We have not been there in four years. I cant believe I have lived that long without cold crab cocktail and the best filet mignon I have ever had.

The candle was given to us by the reverand that married us when we eloped in December of 1985. His name was Reverand Wentz and he had a little chapel in Freeport. We have burned a little of it each year but we are thinking it might be like the chanukah oil and last forever, even though it is about halfway burned now.

So we arrive to this beautiful table right by the window overlooking Port Jefferson and all the holiday lights. After a little toasting ourselves and how amazing we are, the maitre d brings out these envelopes. And they each contain letters to us from our girls. I just included little bits and pieces here but all four letters were heartfelt and precious. I felt an overwhelming sense of pride(and not like John Mccain felt for Sarah Palin). I felt proud of the people they have become partly with our influence but also because of the paths they have chosen and the hard work it has taken to get there.

And the card from hubby was titled "I want to share life's journey with you".

I almost feel speechless about this whole thing.

I know you would be worried about me if I didnt have more to say, but really I am totally taken aback at how special of a night this was.

I said to Hubby, I love you every single day of my life. And he said Well not every single day. And I agreed that the snoring takes away about 5 % of my love for him. I know it seems like a lot but sleep is seriously important and without it I am starting to be more forgetful than usual.

When we eloped 23 years ago, we had no idea what this journey would be like. We each knew we loved each other, had a committment to each other and respected each others feelings. The things that happen over the years are the things that kill relationships and make them painful and miserable. We get comfortable, lazy, complacent and that breeds contempt and taking someone for granted.(Dont take New Hampshire for Granite)(Thats a private joke for hubby)

The thing that makes Hubby so special is how far he is willing to go for my happiness. For cheeseburgers at midnight to hugging the maitre d. He steps outside his comfort zone and wants only to make me happy.

I am having trouble finding the right words here.

We were 18 and 19 when we got married. No one could possible know enough about life at that point to get married. I knew he was cool, had gorgeous hair and was heading into the Navy. He knew I could be mean, was going to Stony Brook and drove a cool 1972 Cutlass.

I kid around here but how much can you know about a person when they are that age. Could you possibly know that they would stick up for an entire staff of people just because it was the right thing to do? And get fired for it? do you know he would ride miles and miles uphill both ways on a bike in San Diego only to have you pass out at a swap meet? Could you know that he would respect your religious beliefs even though they are completely wrong and out to lunch and buy you a perfect stained glass jewish star for your window on your first celebrated Chanukah?

Could you ever know the way his face looked the day you gave birth? Four times, he had the same look. It is indescribable. Joy and love and pride. He treasured each child and finds ways to connect with them individually. How could you know that he would be the perfect "girl daddy"? And I am sure he would have been the perfect boy daddy too but luckily for us we never had to find out.

He has held my hair when I threw up, watched me go from a tiny little teenager to a middle aged fat woman and he has looked at me with the same love in his eyes the whole time. (except when I ran over his foot)

It is beautiful and new at the beginning. You meet, fall in love, spend time together and it is all good. You dont get to see the bad stuff right away, like how he acts around his parents or his friends. You dont know if he will be a hard worker and work two or more jobs his whole life so you can stay home and raise your children. You dont know if he will love you after all the unpleasant things like bad breath, and onion skin, and stomach viruses. You dont know that at the beginning.

In the last 23 years I am not sure there is anything in this world that hasnt happened to our family. Well we havent won lotto, hey wait I didnt check my numbers this morning. I could be the winner of 207 million dollars.

And you know what...not much would change. We would have nicer possessions but the letters that came from my daughters and hubby, those are priceless and no stinkin lottery is going to change that.

We have live through life and death, more times than is humanly imagineable. We have witnessed marriages and divorces and births and illness. Each of us has had at least one life threatening surgery. Each one of us has dealt with dissapointment and regret.

On nights like last one, it is easy to love someone. there was wine and conversation and flowers.

It is the days that you wake up and there is no heat and it is 18 degrees in the house and you bundle up, make hot coffee and chat while you wait for the heating repair man that then you know.

He is it. The man of your dreams, keeper of your world, life partner and husband extrodinare. He is your prince charming, the lenny to your squiggy, the laverne to your shirley, the brad pitt to your angelina jolie.

Time has gone by and every moment we have had together, be it good, bad or ugly, has been what makes us a perfect team.


He loves me...


and I let him...


Its all good....

I Believe... My quest against the Unicorn Slayers.

I believe in true love, love at first sight and love for eternity.

I believe that you can be in love at any age and any time and even if the Unicorn Slayers try to tell you that you are too young, too old, too far away or too involved, it doesnt matter. True Love prevails.

I believe that love can conquer pain and suffering and that having love in your life eases the burden of lifes unfair moments.

I believe that my unicorn can carry me off to faraway places and even to my castle where I would have tea with the pegasus', the other unicorns and some of the ogres that need our help to learn to love.

I am aware that Unicorn Slayers dont understand my beliefs and I do not understand theirs. But I respect their right to believe it. As long as they stop slaying my unicorns.

There is so much ugliness in the world and also so much beauty. Sometimes it is easy to take the path of least resistance and watch the world go by dreary and dark. The harder part is to reach outside of that comfort and change and grow. And look for the beauty in ugly moments.

I have been through some enormous life changing unpleasant catastrophic events in my life. And yet on most days I look to my unicorn, my fantasy world to bring me some peace.

I believe that no one should ever tell you what to feel or how to think and when they dont agree they could say "Well i dont agree with that, why do you feel that way"

I believe that our life is a series of relationships, some for a reason, a season or a lifetime. You take away a piece of each of those relationships, you practice being different things and then when the time is right, whenever that is, you find the person that you are meant to be with.

I found that person when I was 16. I had dated a lot of boys and never felt the way I do about Hubby. Even after we found each other and people insisted that I could not possibly know what love is, I never met anyone who helped me become the person I wanted to be as much as Hubby.I met others, I looked, but always the love of my life was right in front of my eyes. And he loved me back.

It wasnt easy.We were far apart for a long time. Absence makes the heart grow fonder but then absence lets you forget how special that person is too.

"They said, I'll bet, they'll never make it but just look at us holding on, we're still together, still going strong"



I wish and hope that my girls find this kind of love. Magical love. Unicorn flying love. Eating lobster together at 2am love.

If they find it at 16, or 25 or 40, grab the opportunity, it wont matter if you wait for the right time, place, love doesnt wait and sometimes circumstances only give us a short amount of time to experience it. Time may not be kind, but we can cheat time by jumping in and grabbing hold of what we can when love presents itself.

You may not agree with me and that is find but stop slaying my unicorns, they exist for me and people like me and we dont want your angry, cynical, bitterness bringing us down. Go back to Ogreville and comiserate with your fellow ogres.

I am Superwoman

I am Superwoman

So my kids think I am Superwoman.

I learned this most recently when I was dying Daughter #4's hair pink. I said you know I don’t really know how to dye hair. Of course you do Mom you can do anything D4 said.

I think they may have gotten this idea from the fact that I spent most of the summer recruiting them to do home projects that I had never done before. We ceramic tiled the bathroom, painted vaulted ceilings that were about 15 feet high with a stepladder and landscaped the yard.

Maybe I have always led them and many others to believe I am Superwoman. It has been like my claim to fame. Oh sure Nancy can do that. A Belle or Jasmine Halloween costume? Sure I will whip it up on my sewing machine. Clouds painted on the ceiling? Absolutely. Cupcakes for 90? What color icing?

Daughter #3 often wants to play the game "Fix my problems". I always win.

Just this morning we were listening to a Sheryl Crow song about God. I don’t recall the words but they were like talk to the one you love, talk to the one who made you, talk to the one who can make it right... something like that. D3 thought the song was about Moms.

My girls have watched me simultaneously breastfeed an infant, help with homework and cook a 7-course meal, all while talking on the phone.

There’s no need to fear... Oh wait that’s Underdog, not superwoman.

In any case, maybe I have made it look too easy. When hubby was working full time and bartending on the weekends, I didn’t want him to be bothered with any of the lawn care. So I took out the ride on mower, put the smallest kid on my lap and mowed the back 40. Ok so we don’t have 40 acres, maybe just a half, but it was hard work.

Then I would get out the weedwacker and trim the bushes... blah blah blah the list went on and on.

Hubby has become so allergic to poison ivy in the last few years that the doctor actually wrote on the paperwork last time "No Gardening Ever". We hired a landscaper to cut the lawn but the weeds and the bushes, all me. I spent an entire day a few weeks ago taking small trees out, digging with worms, pulling out weeds, dragging it all to the curb. I actually sweated and smelled. And I am opposed to that stuff. Sweating and Smelling.

I used to give the best parties. We were reminiscing recently about some of them. A wizard of Oz party, complete with flying monkeys, an over the rainbow 7 layer cake, a house dropped on my sister (hahaha), a yellow brick road...

Another party I gave was a hungry caterpillar party based on the Eric Carle book. In the book, the hungry caterpillar eats so much stuff each day and then gets in his cocoon and becomes a butterfly. I had all the food cut into little pieces and then I drew all the pages of the book on poster board. I read the story as we served each piece of food and when they were all done I had them go into a tent I had set up in the backyard and I had one of my older daughters pin butterfly wings that I made out of tissue paper on their back.

Superwoman or Stupidwoman... I am not sure.

My kids have often told me the night before... I need posters to win student council. That means a creative idea and then me staying up until midnight making the posters. I think D4's Snapple facts one was pretty cool, although I do remember a Rugrats poster that put all the other posters to shame.

So was this helpful to them or detrimental? Should I have stayed the princess I always wanted to be and waited for a man to help me get it done? Um No!

I have sacrificed a lot being Superwoman. My hand was always the first raised to volunteer for everything, countless class mothers, coaching and of course girl scout leader to all 4 girls. I spent every waking moment doing stuff for other people.

Part of the problem was I didn’t know how to say no.

During my long years of therapy, my therapist wanted to know why? Why do I have every holiday at my house, cook everything from scratch and never let anyone do anything? I am really better at it than anyone else, I say. So, she says. What would happen if you didn’t make fudge this year? Oh My God, I scream. I don’t know what would happen. People would be devastated if they didn’t get to eat my fudge this year. Really would they she asks. Or would they be like Ok Nancy didn’t make fudge. Maybe this year she actually sat down and ate some store bought cake for dessert.

Let me tell you...it has taken me 5 years of therapy, lots and lots of dollars of therapy and lots of work...

And I still have trouble with it. I still want to have these super parties that people rave about and I still want people to talk about how amazing I am, and I still want to do everything for every holiday because I really do do it better.

But I did learn that the sacrifice I had been making for all these years was not necessarily a healthy one. There is a power to being great at everything, but there is also a power in saying today I am worrying about me and mine. Today I cannot participate in the bake sale or help with the craft fair. Today I am staying home and laying on the swing with my kids and laughing and joking.

So maybe I have hidden my cape in the closet. I may not need it for a while.