Guest Blogger - Deahl Rooks My Life in The Fast Lane

I met Patti in May 1999. We talked on the phone for almost 4 months before we actually met in person. The thing that struck me most about her was how much she did for her two girls. When she moved to Colorado with Kati, I knew she was the one that I needed to marry. We were married 5 months later. Patti was and is always on the go. Looking for a better job or better hours or just better. I always figured she just needed to do more, like she just needed to prove something to someone. Even now, she has completed trainings to become a parenting coach, an anger management trainer, and numerous other trainings so she can do her job better with post adoption services. Me, I just do what has to be done.  If it doesn't need fixing, don't mess with it. 

   I've learned thru these short 15 years of marriage, that Patti will do anything she wants to when she gets an idea. Like the time she figured out that if we took out our closet and made it into a hallway, we could become a group home as we would have the necessary access to 2 bathrooms without going thru the master bedroom. I was concerned what we would do without a closet. What an inconvenience it would be not having a closet. Her reply, how inconvenient would it be if a child didn't have a bed to sleep in that we had that was empty. Hard to argue with that kind of logic. 
  
I have learned that I should go with the flow. Occasionally I will say something that I believe she shouldn't do. I really have to be fully ready to argue/work to change her mind as to why I think that wouldn't be a good idea. What usually happens is she changes her mind, not because of anything I said, she just changed her mind.  
   
Patti has always had her kids well-being above her own.  She has never once thought to buy herself a new pair of pants or shoes, because one or more of the kids needs something and she doesn't have to have new things. Patti's mind is always working and that means her hands have to be working. I have been with her driving when we get to a stoplight, she stops, pulls out her crochet and stitches few rows til the light turns green, then off she goes again. She wakes up tired because her mind is still going even while she's sleeping. 

Patti has always been a giving person and I thought that if I gave her the things she needed that she wouldn't give herself I could make her life easier. My life with her is more like, get in, sit down, shut up, and hang on. I wouldn't have it any other way.