The Test Of Time…..

Ok.. so like every post I write lately, I will start with an apology for dropping off the face of the earth.   I’ve been traveling for work 2 weeks out of the last 3.  We’ve had to deal with a sick baby with a fever for days (and shockingly, I mean the real baby, not the hubby).  And, I also somehow need to fit in all the stuff that life throws at me.. all this, while maintaining the ever-so-late bedtime of about 9:00pm since our wonderful little bundle of joy is still filling our lives with “joyous” sleepless nights.  It’s hard to squeeze in blogging time in between a work day that ends at 7pm, the baby’s dinner, my dinner, bath time and the baby’s bedtime all before I collapse from exhaustion at 9:00.

 

Anyhoooooo…..

 

You may recall from past posts that sometimes, only sometimes, I do what some might refer to as nag.

 

I prefer to call it reminding…… over and over and over and over and over………….

 

You may also recall that hubby has a severe case of Selective Vision.  In that, he has the unique ability to not actually see what’s directly in front of him… in plain sight, day, after day, after day.

 

So, it might come as no surprise to you when I tell you that the below picture is a bag that’s sitting beside the dresser in our bedroom.   Now, at first glance you say “Eh, no biggie….. it’s obviously holding important items” or you may think “What’s the big deal… it’s a pretty tiny bag that’s barely noticeable”.  But, let me share a few facts about this bag:

• It’s literally right next to the door to the bedroom so you see it (or at least I see it) Every. Single. Time.  I go into the room.
• It’s also right outside the door to the bathroom…. So, if you were sitting on the toilet with the door open (not that we ever do this………) you would be staring straight at it
• It’s been sitting in this spot for approximately 2 ½ months
• Prior to sitting in it’s current spot, it was sitting in our living room for approximately 1 month  (and then I got SICK of looking at it all day long and moved it to it’s current – AND APPARENTLY FINAL – resting place in the bedroom)

 

Perhaps the most perplexing fact about this bag is it’s contents………….

 

Wanna guess what’s in it?

 

Wait for it….. it’s a good one……………..

 

The bag is filled with an assortment of hubby’s Christmas presents.   YES, you read that correctly……. It’s holding friggin Christmas presents.  And, just in case, you need clarification on this.  TODAY is April 17^th.  Christmas WAS December 25^th.

 

These are apparently items of little-to-no urgency… hubby is obviously saving them for a rainy day (literally….. a rainy day…. one of the items is a poncho for him to wear at Giants games during inclement weather).  Another item is actually remnants of the actual gift… you see, the bag is still holding a shoe box from a new pair of kicks he received.  He’s worn the new sneakers but, heck, why ever get rid of the box when you can leave it in a bag, in the bedroom…… F-O-R-E-V-E-R????????????????

 

These are likely gifts that require thinking about where they should live permanently…… and, if it’s not completely obvious about where an item should be put away…. Hubby’s solution is to NEVER put it away.   LUCKY ME!

 

So, I ask you this……. I have not nagged about this bag once…. Nope, not one single time.  I quietly moved it upstairs.  I silently walk past it every day.  I bite my lip as I move it around the room so the cleaning ladies can vacuum.  BUT, I have not nagged one time.   So… after almost 4 months, if I were to remind him about this bag…. (since it’s obviously a permanent fixture in our room and he no longer sees it) would it in fact be nagging?????????????????

 

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If Today Truly Was The Last Day Of The World

What would you do?

 

I asked myself this very question when I got up today and I believe it or not I couldn’t come up with a list of things that I WOULD do…. I could only think of things I WOULDN’T do.  I guess, if the world doesn’t end tomorrow, I need to give some new thought to making a bucket list!

 

So, without further ado… here are the things I WOULDN’T do today if tomorrow was the end of the world.

 

• Wipe up the crumbs that are all over the counter, in front of the toaster oven, from hubby’s dinner from last night.
• Fold any of the bed sheets that are clean (and have been clean for almost 2 weeks) that are sitting in a pile in my laundry room (did I mention they’ve been clean for over 2 weeks)  – Yep, I sure as heck wouldn’t spend today folding laundry!
• Take out the trash or the recycling bin ….. or add to the recycling bin, the empty soda cans on the coffee table (yes, folks hubby still does this!)
• Make any of the beds
• Pick up any of the dirty clothes from hubby’s side of the bed
• Pick up the crumbled candy wrappers that are next to the soda can on the coffee table (hubby must have had a few snacks after I went to bed last night!)
• I wouldn’t wipe up any whiskers in the bathroom sink
• I wouldn’t move any of the bazillion coats from Every.Single.Chair around my house.

 

And, the last thing I wouldn’t do today is nag hubby about any of the aforementioned items on this list…….Hmmmmmm, WAIT JUST A MINUTE….. I think I just realized what’s been going on all these years.  Hubby has been living his life as if every tomorrow will be the end of the world.   Humpf!  I’m sorry I didn’t realize this until now.   I guess, if he continues down this path, I could quite possibly lend some truth to this style of living since I do generally want to kill him as I look around our house………………..

 

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The Last Hoorah?

Well, I am traveling for work again.   Sometimes I think they don’t care that I’m pregnant, and cranky, and uncomfortable, and tired… and….and….ok, I probably think they don’t care because they actually don’t care!

 

Anyhow, I’ve been away since Monday morning and I won’t be back until Friday

 

Before I left, hubby said he’d miss me and the baby, and then I reminded him that this would likely be the last time (literally) that he’d ever have the house completely to himself.  I had to remind him that, this time, I was taking the baby with me on my work trip but that on FUTURE work trips I’d be leaving the baby with him.  I haven’t explicitly asked work but I’d guess my employer would frown on bringing  an infant to future meetings, that wouldn’t be quietly hidden under a maternity shirt…. Just a guess…….

 

So, I can only imagine what’s happening at home on hubby’s last free daddy-to-be week.  I can picture the mess, the wanton behavior, and quite possibly naked tv watching, as he squeezes every last free moment of being alone before he officially becomes a dad and has to think about someone other than himself.

 

When I spoke to him yesterday, the cleaning ladies had just come.  He declared how nice and clean the house was.  To which I replied, “yes, but will it be clean on Friday when I get home?

 

Do ya think I should worry that he had no response????  

 

(I guess it was only a matter of time before I kissed my nice clean, organized home good bye, I just thought it would start with baby stuff and toys scattered around, not as a result of a last hoorah week while I traveled with our baby-to-be!)

 

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The Magic Of Blogging

I’ve mentioned before that sometimes this blog serves as great therapy for me.  This is to say that when I watch hubby step over stuff laying on the floor, leave whiskers all over the bathroom sink, or I throw away the umpteenth empty soda can from the kitchen counter…. rather than have silent conversations with myself about how to smother hubby in his sleep, I jot down a note to blog about it.

 

It’s become a tool for me to vent my frustrations about hubby’s clueless male behavior without picking a fight over Every-Single-Stupid-Thing he does around our house.  This is not to say that I’ve mastered the art of not nit-picking.  My will power to ignore every overlooked thing, or crumb, or untouched project, can only go so far.  But for me it’s helped to solicit comments from other poor people all over the world, who lovingly deal with schmos of their own.  So, if you’re a lurker here and never comment, this is the time you should share a story of your own!! (It’ll make you feel good!)

 

Anyhow, many of you know that hubby is a regular blog reader.   This can bring about a very unique set of circumstances after I post an entry. You see, I almost never tell hubby what I’m going to write about.  The topic (and my feelings about the topic) comes a surprise to him each time I post and sometimes it leads to conversations after the fact.  And, some of these conversations are pretty dang funny.

 

When I first started this blog, I discussed it with hubby.  I offered to share everything I wrote with him prior to posting.  He insisted this wasn’t necessary.   As much as I pick on him (and as moronic as he can be) we really do have a happy marriage.  The last thing I wanted to do was share something with the blogosphere that truly upset him.  The agreement we came to was that I wouldn’t make anything up, I’d only post things that were completely true.  Hubby told me “nothing is off limits”.  And so, off I went to share his absurdity with all of you.

 

Now, as you can imagine, sometimes he reads a replay of our conversations and he laughs out loud at how ridiculous he sounds.  Sometimes our friends comment to him about how nutty his idiosyncrasies really are.  Sometimes wives of our friends comment about how similar their husbands are. And sometimes, hubby gets so caught up in the story about something he did wrong, it makes him see it through different eyes.  Yes folks, these are my happiest moments.  It’s the days when I’ve blogged about him ignoring something that’s been blatantly awaiting his attention that, miraculously, the item is put away that night.  Don’t get me wrong. this isn’t normal.. but it does happen.

 

Then, there are the days where he’s read an entry and he wants to point out things that I forgot to share, or he wants to provide follow-up information.  These conversations usually start something like this….. ” in that bowl post, you forgot that I need to use certain spoons for certain things..” or “you didn’t mention that remote I left on the stairs for months…”  It actually cracks me up that hubby wants to rat himself out and provide me with additional blog fodder.

 

So, this week when he laughed about the fact that I quoted him as saying he “hates California“.. he followed that up with, “you know, I hate Pennsylvania too”.  So, of course, like I normally do when hubby says something that makes no sense…. I respond with “what the heck are you talking about.. what’s there to hate about PA?”.  And, with the straightest face he says… “Well, when you drive all the way out west, the PA turnpike sucks.. And, of course, there’s all those Eagles fans (hubby is a die hard Giants fan with season tickets).   So, I pretty much hate PA too”.

 

So even though hubby seems to be alienating all of my blog readers, one state at a time, I can tell you that his next comment about my last post was… “so I guess we’re going to Northern Cal this year, huh?”   And, I guess it goes without saying, that it was hard to mask the tiny little smirk that began to form on my face… as I celebrated another small, but successful, output from my blog — It looks like I just may be sipping wine in Napa sometime in the near future!!! HOOOORAAAAAAY!

 

(Do you think if my next 10 posts are about wanting a renovated bathroom, that maybe it could possibly happen this year too??????????)  🙂

 

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“It’s Just A Big Hole In The Ground”

As you may have assumed there’s not all that much grey area with hubby.  He either likes something or he doesn’t.  Now, the interesting thing about this is that his feelings can change in the blink of an eye or from week to week but, there’s rarely a day where he sort of, kind of, likes something.  Today he loves it and it’s the best thing ever and tomorrow he hates it and it’s not worth the lint in his pocket.

 

The confusing part of this dramatic swing is that you never know when the pendulum is about to reverse.  And, if you don’t move quickly enough, it could knock you upside the head as he transitions from not eating fish to wanting it every single night for dinner.

 

I’ve mentioned before that living with hubby is like living a life in extremes.  This was most notable when he decided mid vacation that he no longer wanted to be on vacation.  Yeah, there’s that damn pendulum…. it almost knocked me out as he declared that he wanted to fly home from Belize (you can read about this HERE).

 

These crazy-ass tendencies of deciding one day that something is great when yesterday he hated it, is, in all likelihood, eventually going to send me to the looney bin.

 

Anyhow… I assume you’re waiting for my story… So here goes……….

 

I am very well traveled.  I’ve backpacked through 19 different countries in Europe, I’ve held a job as a National Sales Manager where I traveled to almost every major city in the US.  I also have a pretty damn good understanding of who hubby is and what he might like.  I’ve been successful suggesting new food items, I’ve introduced him to some great new clothes and I’ve opened him up to a whole new world of home decor.   So needless to say, I feel that I have good enough resume to suggest trips for hubby & myself.

 

A few years ago I started talking about the Grand Canyon and what a great trip it would be for us.  I pitched it to hubby as an amazingly, breathtaking place with a whole assortment of things for us to do.  Hubby adamantly declared that he had no desire to “waste a vacation week” to see “a big hole in the ground”.   Needless to say I persisted, and when we conveniently had to travel to a friends wedding in Phoenix, it was the perfect opportunity to tack on the Grand Canyon.  And so, we traveled through Sedona & the Grand Canyon and hubby LOVED it.  To this day, he even talks about returning and spending additional time there.

 

Fast forward a bit….

 

Another destination that’s high on my travel list for us is Northern California.  I envision us spending time taking in Napa Valley, drinking copious amounts of wine, driving along the coastline,  and frolicking hand-in-hand through the vineyards (ok, maybe I went too far with that one).  Hubby’s response to this trip suggestion:  “I hate California”.  Now, I have no idea how someone could “hate California”.  I find it incredibly hard to believe that you could hate an entire state.  I could imagine someone saying “I hate the smog in LA” or “I hate the over-indulgence of Hollywood” or maybe even the “artificialness of Southern Cal”.  But to declare your outright hatred for an entire state just makes no sense to me.  But hubby, who traveled to San Diego once and didn’t have a great time, has determined that all of California sucks.

 

So, as I continue to fight this battle, we hear that hubby’s cousin will be getting married this year in Northern Cal… and I think to myself… “HOORAY!  We’re going to Napa!”.   Hubby’s actually on board with  the idea of extending the trip and I start Googling away to plan the details of our wine country excursion.  And then….. the Save-The-Date card for the wedding arrives.  And BAM!  They’ve changed their mind and they are getting married in Upstate NY.  So, in the blink of an eye, my Napa dream swirls itself down the drain.  Now, the closest I can get to sipping wine and frolicking in vineyards is stepping over hubby’s discarded grape stems as I blog about my unfulfilled vacation dreams

 

Although, I don’t give up that easily and this battle is not over. 

 

Some day I’ll be nosing and tasting the tannins of fine wine and I’ll sit alongside the California coastline.  And, how much do you want to bet hubby comes back saying he absolutely LOVED it????

 

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Can’t Catch Up!

I know, I know…. you’re wondering why I dropped off the face of the blogosphere??!!

 

I have hit a couple of weeks where too many of my personal obligations had a head-on collision with too many of my work obligations.  And the result, unfortunately, has been no time to blog. 

 

I have yet to figure out how to commute 1 1/2 hours to work in the morning, work for about 9 hours, commute 1 1/2 hours home, do laundry, go to the dry cleaner, buy toothpaste, wash dishes, shovel 2 inches of ice off my steps (Every-Damn-Day), undecorate Christmas, maintain friendships (insert deep breath here)  return Christmas presents, feed the dog, cook dinner, pay bills and so on, and so on, and so on.  Forget about fitting in any sleeping & unwinding… I’ll have to wait until Spring for that!

 

The good news is, I have off from work tomorrow and I plan to write a true blog post.  The bad news is, I truly think that this pace may continue for the next month or so.  I’m in the midst of budget planning at work for next fiscal year in addition to quarterly business reviews from the end of 2010.   This my friends means 8-9 hour meetings at work to prep for and discuss more meetings at work.  All culiminating in even more work meetings that will take place in FL. Which also means, more work travel.  Sounds like fun… right?!  Sure, almost as fun as having a bucket of ice water tossed over my head or maybe falling off a treadmill.

 

Either way.. I just wanted you to know that it’s not just my blog that’s suffering.. it’s my house too.  At this very moment, hubby’s Christmas presents are still on the floor in the living room, there are items sitting on the stairs awaiting their jouney upwards and… perhaps the worst of all.

 

This is what the hallway looks like as I ascend my stairs.

Yes, those are Christmas bins and other assorted items that need to make their way to the attic.  They’ve been sitting in that spot for a little over a week.

 

Here’s a better look at just how sad this is..

That’s something like 7 bins, 5 boxes, bags and other loose items that have been cluttering my hallway because I’m too busy to even nag hubby to help me stowe away Christmas until next year.

 

I’m even debating with myself which I’ll be able to tackle first… these bins or blogging.  And….. since the bins require hubby’s help, I have a sinking feeling that the blog may win!

 

Anyhow… wish me luck and forgive me for disappearing for a while!

 

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