Q and 001 Buymebarbies

A few questions have been submitted via the above “ask anything” button.
Just one answer on this post.

Question 001     From anonymous
"How long have you been married to buymebarbies, is she your first and only wife, how did you meet and how did she get her name (buymebarbies)? Maybe that's a subject for some more stories!"

Answer:
Although I do have plans for posts related to these subjects, I might as well dive right in now.  Buymebarbies (Paula is her real name) and I have been married for less than six years. However, we’ve been together for over 17 years. Between us we have five children.

At Sea World, many moons ago

Some of you know the girl on the far right.

The last time we were all together for group photo

Paula is not my first wife, but she is most certainly my last. We met at work when she was 19 years old. I thought she was pretty cute and she thought I was crazy and not her type. I thought I was everybody’s type. Hmmm, maybe that’s why she didn't like me very much. She was right; I was a mess in those days.  Although her soon to be husband was someone I knew, we never really became friends.

Age 20

Age 25 (yup, I'm a bit older)

Fast forward 15 years. We eventually married other people, had kids, and became divorced. We still worked at the same place, but our paths didn’t cross that much. I remember telling my friend that out of the 1000 or so people that worked in our plant, I thought she was the best looking. She never believes I really said that, but it’s true. The photo below was taken soon after we got together.

I know better than to insert her age

During that time period I was the Labor Relations Specialist for our plant.  One day she asked if I would come to her unit and help her with some union issues. I did so and there was clearly some chemistry during our meetings. The first outright flirting salvo was fired by me, a couple of days later. 

Paula was escorting an attractive (female) contractor to our maintenance department. The two of them were walking through a door just as I was about to walk out of it. Later Paula said “I saw you checking that lady out.” I responded with, “What makes you think she was the one I was checking out?” I then walked away. Darn slick, right?

It wasn’t long before we were dating and falling head over heels in love. I still am…

We both agreed that the “Brady Bunch” was pure fantasy and that raising a blended family together, seemed like a minefield. So we kept our own houses and raised our kids together, but lived separately. The seven of us went to all functions together, vacationed together, and spent a great deal of time together. We had a lot of fun on our trips, with the seven of us in one vehicle and hotel room. We agreed years earlier that when the youngest kid graduated from high school we’d get married and that’s what we did.

I’ve never known a couple that has so much fun, just being together as we do. In many ways we are not alike and we don’t always think the same way, but it doesn’t matter to us. We are now retired and loving it.

Paula got the nickname Buymebarbies because that is what she does. She has bought and sold tons of the stuff. I’m not into it at all, but I do have to admit that the vintage stuff is pretty cool. She needs to start selling a lot more of it, because it takes up a lot of space…

Vintage stuff

Designer and vintage stuff

In addition to these full cabinets, she has a large closet and several large plastic tubs full of the stuff.

Today

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