Really???  Today marks 12 years and 364 days that I have been married to my guy.  It also marks the last night that I spent at the home I knew for 22 years.  This was the only home I had ever known.  This was home to many of my friends.  I am sure to this day there are a few of our house keys floating around out there some place.  This was the house the we would gather at before home basketball games and Mother would make mini-corn dogs for all of us and then we would load up and head to The Rose to play ball.  This was the house that ONLY HAD ONE BATHROOM!!!  and it still only has one bathroom.  My niece, Sarah would always tell Pops and Grandma that they needed 2 bathrooms.  Christian even made that comment last night to mother.  This was the house that my friends (girls ONLY) crashed at.  Mother never knew who was going to be there for breakfast on Saturday morning.  People always felt comfortable there. Unless you were Jeff or Lil Jay and you were there at 2:00 when my Mother got up to go to the bathroom.  :)....  needless to say that only happened once.  This is the only house I had ever called home.  I had lived there everyday for my entire life.  The only move I ever made was bedrooms.  Both brothers were gone and I was finally back in a bedroom WITH A CLOSET!!!  Yep...  you read that right....  the only daughter in the house and I did not have a closet.  My Daddy stole my closet to put in a shower in the bathroom.  I understand that better now but then all I could focus on was....  how could I live without a closet....  somehow I managed to survive.

So in preparation of my wedding, we did the traditional rehearsal wedding and rehearsal dinner.  The show was being organized and ran by Aunt Theda so it was done right!  She had the ability to get and maintain everyone attention and if you dared to talk while she was talking......  you would be assaulted with a yellow legal pad.  After the rehearsal was over, now the decision was to made....  "What do I do to celebrate my last night as a single woman?"  The decision was easy for me.  I went home and spent my last night in my home with my Momma and Daddy before I started a new chapter in my life.

I was so excited about getting married.  From the moment I had that engagement ring on my finger, I never doubted for one moment that this was the man I wanted to marry.  Along with the excitement came fear.  Fear of leaving Momma and Daddy and that house.  That house was my safe place.

The night before my wedding I sat in the living room and watched TV with Momma and Daddy as I had for so many nights throughout my life.  I can't remember if we even spoke.  That did not matter.  It was the moment I remember not the conversation.    Then I went to bed.  I went to sleep in my bedroom for the last time.  I looked around my bedroom at all of the memories on the wall (and the floor thanks to Shanna and Janna).  I went to sleep knowing that this was it..... my final night living life as I have for 22 years.  To this day, I am thankful for that decision.... the choice to spend my last night at home doing the same stuff I had done all those years and thankful to the parents that made all of this possible.