Mission Possible: my man with a plan

Ever heard the phrases: "from the skin of your teeth", "seat of your pants", "barely pulled it off" "by a shoe string" "in the nick of time" ?? Well I've heard them all too often. People think I am one lucky person to be able to procrastinate and still make things work. True confession: I am just used to doing it this way. If I don't push things off and plan last minute, I second guess myself and end up doing things in the nick of time anyway. My very best creations are the fruits of such adrenaline rushes.

So now's the part when I tell you one of my main attractions to Tim. I would say we compliment eachother well, like the gears on a watch, that cover eachothers holes and make the system operate. Before I go into it, let's give an example of how the two of our worlds collide yet co-exhist.

Here's the story: I am in the car with Georgie the driver, and nervously twiddling my thumbs for about 10 minutes. I'm going crazy b/c I know I need to meet some women for lunch, but didn't get cash out first. Finally, I vocalize my frustrations to Georgie. He starts laughing. The kind of laugh that makes you pinch your lips together and scowl. I didn't say something funny, so whatever he was laughing about had to be totally inappropriate, seeing as I was already frustrated with my lack of planning and having to go back home instead of lunch. He reaches for his wallet and says: "Here's 200 kuai. Tim said you'd be in this situation, and so he left money with me that I wasn't suppose to tell you about in advance". I scowl again, take the money and bolt, I was running too late to try to think of a cover up story for my lack of planning.

Tim is my polar opposite. He thinks my life is way too exciting and unbridled. At the same time, I think there's something about it that he finds incredibly attractive. The dude loves taking care of me, and balancing out my short-comings. He is truly a methodical guy and totally sees the end from the beginning. Hence, the reason he took a chance on me. Here's our crazy story...

His goal in life after having returned from a Chinese speaking mission for our church was to get a china focused BA, marry a Chinese speaking wife, then get a china focused MBA, do an internship with Citigroup (they are huge in China), work for GMAC, have two boys around the ages of 4 and 2, and get sent to China to work for GMAC there.

It was a point of humor when we first got married and moved to Hawaii for Tim to get his "china focused" MBA. Me, I was doing my PHT, "putting husband through". When SARS took hold of all possibilities for interns to go to China, let's just say I wasn't surprised when Tim had arranged to be the first student sent do do an internship with Citigroup in New York.

But when Tim got the job with GMAC (they offered it back in Sept '01, but there was a hiring freeze b/c of Sept 11th), almost two years after the initial job offer-- I was a bit creeped out. The dude I married was a man with a plan. At the time I even wondered if he even cared about any other attributes I had to offer other than my speaking Chinese!!

We had the hope to have two boys, and then adopt two Chinese girls (twins). I read the book about gender selection, half hearted (knowing God was the one who really made this choice), but somehow ended up with two boys. And the month before they turned two and four, we found ourselves in China.

Weird.

Well, at least you have a story to tell your jogging partner when you need a longer rest than what you would openly admit. But that's the story. There you have it Melinda Saxey Christiansen. Thanks for giving me a reason to write a little history. Better to write it now before it gets exaggerated. The story is so unreal, I have to blog it now so it stays pure.