“Multi-Purpose” Spaces?

Did you ever wonder how one area of your home slowly gets taken over by so much stuff that it eventually assumes the responsibility for the new stuff more than the old stuff?

 

And then one day, you realize that you don’t know what has happened to your house.  And you wonder how your sewing room became the exercise room, or your exercise room became the laundry/ironing room.  Or perhaps you had a great den where you used to snuggle up and watch movies and now it’s become the kid’s playroom and is constantly littered with toys.  I’m sure many of you can relate.  And, you probably think that this post is about to outline all the ways our house has been overcome by baby crap (which it has) or that my family room no longer resembles an adult space (which it doesn’t) or that my office has become the staging area for baby baths… and the permanent home of a bath tub (why wouldn’t you keep a bath tub in your office??).  Anyhow, this post is about none of those things.  And, it’s NOT about how the baby has impacted our space.  It’s all about how hubby likes to “re-locate” items to places where they don’t belong and leave them there so long that they adopt the new-found space as their permanent (inappropriate) home.

 

You may recall THIS POST where I first started talking about this phenomenon and how it impacts every-day life and the relocation of items around my kitchen .. over .. and over… and over… and over…  That post is worth a read if for no other reason than to commiserate, if you find yourself constantly wishing that items would be Put Away at your home.

 

Well, be careful what you wish for… because sometimes, Put Away, doesn’t necessarily solve the problem.

 

I present to you Exhibit A:

This is one of our closets.  In all honesty, it would probably be defined a “catch all” closet.  Hubby keeps some suits in here.  I keep extra purses, some hats, some of our travel items and other misc stuff.   It’s a closet filled with things we don’t really use regularly……………………including, apparently, a good deal of our “regular-use” tools.

 

Hmmmmm, you may be thinking……  Screwdrivers and drills in your suit closet……. Interesting use of space.

Ahhhhhhh, you may say…… easy access tools upstairs for quick repairs……. Smart storage.

Oooohhh, you may utter…. That’s a mighty nice vest hubby has…… He’s quite stylish.

Yikes, you may be judging…. They REALLY need some professional closest storage help…. That’s quite a disaster.

 

And to pretty much all of these…. I would say you are correct…………… well, sort of.

 

Until you think deeper about it.  And realize.. we have a full basement at our house.  We have a 2 car garage at the house.  Read this as:  MANY other, BETTER, permanent home locations for all the tools.  But alas, they are living happily in my upstairs closet.  I suppose there’s a part of me that’s happy they are not sitting in the hallway (which is likely where they started) … They were probably relocated to the closet when I forced hubby to pre-clean for the cleaning ladies, or maybe when we were having house guests, or quite possibly after I tripped over them with the baby so many times that I BEGGED him to move them out of a regular walking path.  To be totally honest, I don’t actually remember how they wound up in this closet…. Because it’s been THAT LONG that they’ve been living there.

 

Out of sight, out of mind for hubby…. So I’m pretty sure these items could stay in this closet until the baby leaves for college or until hubby needs his drill for something.  At which time, he will undoubtedly scour the house for tools that he cannot locate only to declare that he’s “looked everywhere” and they must be “gone” and he now needs to go buy everything new.   And, then of course, as we wives always do… I will ask him to re-confirm that he has indeed looked “everywhere” and then I will promptly go to this closet, pull them all out and remind him that the reason he cannot find anything, EVER, is because he never puts things back in their proper place…………   and the cycle will continues, as it always does………….

 

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Who The Heck Are You?

Well,  as you may have noticed, I’m not doing all that well managing my life AND my new baby.  This blog was like a distant memory of my past life, beckoning to me from a land far, far away.   I’ve missed you dear blog readers and now that I am getting the tiniest bit of sleep, I’m going to try to get back into the swing of things…..  Good Golly, it’s been 7 weeks!

 

Anywho… it’s been an insane 7 weeks that included 3 trips back to the hospital with our little one…. Very emotionally grueling but I won’t bore you with these details.

 

Today instead,  I’d like to introduce you to someone new in my life……….NO, it’s not my new little bundle of joy like you might expect, it’s a larger version of my baby.  Someone who many of you have come to know and love.  Someone who I share stories about, who makes us laugh, roll our eyes, and oftentimes, makes us wonder what the heck is wrong with an entire species (MEN!).

 

Yes….this person is my hubby.

 

And, I no longer know who the heck he is.  You see, during these past weeks I have a learned a few things:

 

1. Hubby does indeed know where the laundry room is.  As evidenced by the multiple loads of laundry he’s done to help me out (YES!  I did say MULTIPLE!)  AND…. He’s folded said laundry too!
2. He can, in fact, pick up after himself
3. Hubby does actually know how to empty AND load the dishwasher!
4. Hubby even knows how to fold washed bedding/sheets (well, minus the fitted sheet – but this is still mind-blowing!)
5. He can even do some low-grade cleaning!!

 

Heck, hubby has stepped up in so many ways since the baby arrived I couldn’t begin to write them all out into a list.  Normally I write about how silly he can be (he still is).  Or, how annoying he can be (he still is).  Or, how frustrated I can be with him.  BUT, he’s honestly become a different person to help out while I recovered from the physical and emotional toll the pregnancy and new baby have taken on me.

 

Now, you’d think I’d be over the moon that he’s been so great, and while at the surface, this is definitely the case.  I ask you one simple question….. where the heck has this guy been for the last nine years?!

 

In addition to learning that hubby can indeed do all these things I think I learned a far greater lesson:  Apparently I don’t know hubby at all…..

Or perhaps he’s just mastered the art of “training” me to not expect too much from him (sly guy that he is!)  Well, guess what hubby….. I’m onto you now!

 

Either that, or I maybe I should have had a baby 9 years ago!!  (ahhhhh……hindsight…………..)

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A Mini-Hubby (somebody please help me!)

Well, I’m 1/2 way to having a mini hubby around the house… we have confirmed our new baby will be a boy (Lord help me!).  And, as you can probably imagine, my actual hubby is thrilled to have a young impressionable little boy to mold into a 2nd version of himself.  I’ve mentioned before that I’m already surrounded by alternate versions of my hubby with both his father (here’s an example) and his brother (here & here are examples).. each seem to exhibit many of the same qualities.  And yes, his mother and I do our share of commiserating!

 

So here I am wondering how I can stop the madness and ensure my cute, innocent, little munchkin learns to put things away and to help with chores and to… well… uhmmm… just not be hubby (or at least the annoying version of hubby… he can totally be the part of hubby that I love…)  I have long term visions, WAY down the road, of commiserating with my own poor daughter-in-law about my son’s inability to wipe up crumbs and toss his dirty clothes into the appropriate basket… long into adulthood.

 

So what’s a gal to do?

 
Well, I’ve started by vetoing just about every insane baby idea hubby comes up with like:

 

Making the NURSERY into an outer space room with aliens -  yes, this is a REAL idea.

I’ve tried to explain to hubby that the baby comes out as an INFANT, not a little boy (I’m not completely sure he understands this). And that a black ceiling with glowing stars and alien spaceships doesn’t really feel very baby-like.  And, could quite simply ensure that the little boy is scared of his own room and moves permanently into our bed.  I’ve told him that by age 5 or 6 he can discuss this idea with our son and if he chooses to have an alien outer space room, we can redecorate.

 

Buying a bigger dog crate that can fit both our dog AND our baby….. so “the dog can babysit”

Ok, hopefully this isn’t a real idea, but with hubby….. how can anybody know for sure??

 

Having the whole family live on baby food (since he doesn’t want to cook)

There will undoubtedly be days when I have to work late or entertain clients, where hubby will need to be the care giver for dinner.  So, he’s basically already declared that he, himself would happily eat baby food with our new child rather than (god forbid) cook something.

 

Starting poker training early… let’s say at 5 years old (No, I didn’t mean “potty training”… POKER training, as in a full house beats a straight…..)

Since we have a poker man cave, hubby has already said it will be important for our son to “be adept at playing at an early age… so he can beat all his friends in a poker game” (That’s ever-so-important at elementary school).   Yeah, just what I need, a note home from the 2nd grade teacher:  “We caught mini-hubby in a heated poker game at recess today.  He had accumulated a couple of PS3 games, 2 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and a little girls hair band before we stumbled on him.  Please address this ASAP”

 

As you can see….. I’m probably in over my head.

 

I can only hope that our little one has some of my qualities too and that maybe some day, he can start The Daddy Diaries and you can hear all about hubby from his point of view!!!!!

 

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It’s A Closet… No, A Coat Rack….. Uhm, No, It’s A Kitchen Table

It’s Springtime. The birds are chirping, the flowers are blooming and yep, it’s raining.  This should be the time of year where you start stowing away your winter clothes and transitioning your drawers to bathing suits and shorts but this year it’s been oddly cold.  And, given the mild winter we had, is pretty dang annoying.

 

BUT, you know what else is more dang annoying?

 

The fact that both my kitchen & dining room tables have been showcasing their multitasking ability as coat closets for WAY too long.

 

Here’s the kitchen.

Please note the one coat dangling on the floor……  And please also note, the repair kit for the lawn mower that’s been sitting on the table for upwards of 2 weeks now.

 

Here’s the dining room.

Yes, that’s 2 more of hubby’s coats.  Resting peacefully until the next time they might be needed.

 

Much like the mind-boggling phenomenon of passing the dishwasher to put dirty dishes into the sink OR the mystifying 1/2 job of putting items on top of the counter, above the drawer where they belong OR the difficult task of placing empty soda cans into the trash,  hubby must walk at least 15 feet past our coat closet to put his coats on these chairs.  And then, they seem to live there for the season.  Even when I finally cave and put them away, while cleaning for the cleaning lady, they eventually find their way back to the chairs.  It’s a never-ending, no-win, battle for me.

 

I can’t wait until it’s warm enough to put the coats away for good…. at least I’ll have coat-free tables for about 4-5 months!!!

 

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Home Sweet Home

Ok, Ok…. I know what you’re thinking.    WHERE THE HECK HAVE YOU BEEN????

And, I can do nothing more than bow my head in shame and admit that I’ve been way too busy lately to squeeze in a free blog moment.

Lately it seems that I wake up, work anywhere from 10-15 hours a day, come home, eat some sort of crap for dinner and then go to bed.  Rinse.  Repeat.

It’s a crappy life but at least I get to come home to things that are “normal”, things that help keep me feeling close to hubby……….

Things like this…………

 

 

Yes folks, I cannot lie.

 

It’s those “Last Three Feet” coming into play again.  It’s obviously too hard to reach beyond the countertop to put things where they belong.    Ahhhh… coming home is so, so, sweet.   There’s truly no place like home.

 

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The Stink Of It All

 

 

This is a stink bug.

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you don’t live in certain areas of the US, you should consider yourself lucky that you don’t need to deal with this pest.

Sting bugs are truly one of the dumbest bugs I’ve ever encountered.  They are incredibly slow moving and they are downright stupid and fly themselves into windows, furniture & walls.  They also put up virtually no fight when you attempt to squash them – none whatsoever.  Their main weapon to prevent you from smushing them, is certainly not their ability to run away, it’s the impending stench that they emit once they’ve been squashed – thus the name “Stink Bug”.   Now, trust me when I tell you that this, in no way, deters me from grabbing these litter stinkers in a tissue and crumbling them up to either toss in the trash or flush down the toilet.  So, might I say, their ingenious method of preventing their own demise is generally pretty unsuccessful.

 

UNLESS………  you are my hubby.

 

Now let me clarify… hubby is not, in fact, scared off by their smell.  They apparently appeal to another of hubby’s weaknesses:  An Exploration of Stupidity.

 

Hubby is fascinated at how dumb these ugly-ass bugs are soooooooooooo… he apparently decided to conduct his own “experiment” (unbeknownst to me)

 

I have no friggin idea how these dang bugs get into our house.  But never fail, each week we find one either slowly crawling on the fireplace, or sitting on the curtains or perhaps (when they get an unexplained burst of energy) flying into the wall.  So one day, I’m in our family room and I notice that one’s sitting on a plant leaf.  I yell to hubby (who’s in the kitchen).  “Hey babe…. can you grab a paper towel?  There’s a stink bug in here”.  And he surprisingly replies “I know”.  So in my head I’m like…… What do you mean….. you know?   If you are aware that there’s a stink bug in here, why haven’t YOU killed it already?   But, as you probably know with hubby, sometimes you just have to let the conversation unfold to figure out how his insane little mind works.   I respond  “You know?”.  And I hear him yell from the other room…. “Well, are you talking about the one on the plant?  Cause if so, I know.”  So now I’m thinking… Ok, so you do in fact know about the SAME stink bug I’m referring to.  Why on earth didn’t you just kill it,  if you’re aware of it.  I mean come on, I know you can be lazy, and I know you sometimes have selective vision but it’s a FREAKIN bug, in our HOUSE – apparently in plain sight – and you opted to leave it be???  I could perhaps rationalize the laziness factor if it was on the ceiling and would have required a ladder to kill or perhaps, if it was a bug that could furiously flitter around the house and you gave up on chasing it BUT, it’s a barely mobile stink bug that would have sat there and calmly awaited it’s fate.   So, in my more exasperated wife tone I say. “I don’t get it.  If you know it’s there, why didn’t you just kill it?”.  And his response folks……. wait for it………….  “Because I wanted to test to see how long it would sit in the same spot – you know how dumb these bugs are.”

 

Yes my dear blog readers……. he wanted to “see how long it would stay in the same spot”.  I swear, I can’t make this shit up……………….

 

So, as I now get up to grab a paper towel because I can see I’m not about to get any help, I say to him.  “You do realize that once it moved out of that spot, you would no longer know where it is…. right?”  And he smartly replies, “Yes, I know that but that’s really not a big deal since it’s been there for over 2 days already.”

 

And once again, I feel the need to repeat what hubby said… just in case you missed it….. that friggin bug had ALREADY BEEN THERE FOR OVER 2 DAYS!!!!!!!!!!   

 

I’m not sure in what place or world, it’s ok to happily live alongside a bug for the sake of an experiment but I can tell you, that  it’s MOST DEFINITELY not my family room……………. UGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

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