On the other hand… October 26, 2006

… sometimes he does surprise me.

I had a really bad day yesterday. Well, it wasn’t all bad, it just was bookended by bad. The morning started off with the toilet plugging up. No big deal, right? Not usually, anyway. First, the new plunger I bought is a useless piece of crap. Would not work properly. Then, the girls and I discovered that the drain pipe in the basement was leaking everywhere down there. The new dryer got soaked, and water was running halfway across the basement. We threw towels down, put a cooler under the leaking water, and ran to the store to get a new plunger (actually, I bought two!). Had to go through both of the new plungers before I got one to work – the toilet is a little strange. Anyway, I’d shut the water off to the tank, but in the process of plunging, an air bubble popped the flush plug up, and…. water an inch deep all over the bathroom floor. *sigh* The girls helped me put towels down, but by that time, Princess was already an hour late to school, and had a test she needed to be there for, so we left the towels, and off we went.

Work was fine. My friend Kendra, the OT, is moving to Chicago. Her last day is this coming Monday. We had Chinese lunch together in the office – my boss, Kendra, her boss (our friend, the PT), and Peanut. That was nice. Then, after Peanut and I picked Princess up from school, we went to the PT’s house so the girls could play with her girls. We all went out to a Mid-Eastern restaurant for dinner together, then were supposed to go to a concert that the PT’s oldest was singing in. Well, to make a long story short, my oil light and service engine soon lights came on in the car right after we left the restaurant. NOT good. My friend took the girls with her, and I went to a service station, which was fortunately still open, and had them check the oil. Nothing registered on the dip stick. Eek. Got the oil changed, etc, etc, then headed off to the concert, driving in the dark by myself in unfamiliar territory. I made it for the last song!!!

On the up side(s), it could have been worse in both cases. In the morning, it could have been dirty water that got everywhere, but fortunately, it wasn’t. In the evening, I could have been completely alone with the girls, but I wasn’t.

So, what does that all have to do with hubby surprising me? When the girls and I got home (late), he’d actually taken it upon himself to clean up the rest of the mess. He’d washed the towels, mopped the floors, etc. He’d even done the dishes! *gasp* I was so glad… I really don’t think I could have handled coming home to all that mess.

Of course, then tonight I’ve been trying to get a little work done around the house, including in the sewing room, which has been neglected because it isn’t as important as the bedrooms and such. I got the girls computer mostly set up – couldn’t find the keyboard. Got Princess’s reading nook set up in their room, too. Looks really pretty. I put down a rug with castles and rainbows and unicorns, put her new colorful chair on that, a little bookshelf next to that, and put a pink gauze canopy up over all of that. She’ll feel like a real princess reading there. All she needs is a lamp, which is still at the apartment.

Being in their room made me just as cranky tonight. There are so many boxes and bags and baskets of clothes in there – it is VERY overwhelming to me. I finally decided that I am GOING to have help with that. I don’t mind putting the clothes away – mine and the girls, anyway – he can take care of his own. But he can help unload the various containers the clothes are in, and help sort and such, ya know? And I’m going to tell him that. That, and I’m also going to tell him if he doesn’t help me, I won’t do it alone. I’ll load it all in the back of the van and drive the two miles to the Sal!!!

(oh, yeah… I put the shoes away. They weren’t all the girls’. Some of them were mine, some his! There is a handy-dandy shelf in his closet for shoes. Imagine that!)

But, as you can see, as much as he sometimes gets on my nerves, there are times he’s very helpful, without me saying a word. Go figure.

My husband, God love him… October 24, 2006

… is such a MAN. And yes, I mean that with all of the negative connotations we women can put on that word at times.

This move is really starting to get me down, and he’s not helping that at all. Fact is, he’s not helping much, period. Well, okay. He’s helping to load and unload the car – he’s even packed a box here and there. However, once it gets to the house, it’s all my responsibility. He won’t help unpack at all, and I could really use the help. I was up and working by 7a.m. both days this past weekend, worked on unpacking until I had boxes emptied so we could go to the apartment to get more things. I got up early this morning to unpack, so we can go for another load tonight. In the meantime, I still have to do all the other things a mom does happily, without complaint – taking care of the kids, making meals, doing dishes and other cleanup, commuting to my job, etc. There is so much to be done, I don’t get much of a break, not until later in the evening.

Sunday night, we’d gotten home from the apartment with a load of stuff. I made dinner, then started to unpack a box. I was so tired, and it was late. Hubby, instead of offering to help, said, “why don’t you just knock off for the rest of the night? You look exhausted, and you’ve been at it a long time today. You can take it easy the rest of tonight, go to work tomorrow, then come home and work on unpacking after that!” OMG. Yeah, honey. Thanks for that!

And yes, I have asked him for help. I’m not just playing the martyr here. His response? “I don’t know where you want anything to go.”

Okay. I understand that when it comes to, say, the kitchen, but you sure as hell know where the shoes go! He dumped them all over the kids’ room floor, and left them. Every time I go in there, I get pissed off anew. Then, too, there are boxes of his things – clearly labelled as his – that he just piled in our bedroom, instead of putting them away.

I have to get the main part of the house in order first, though, then I’m going to get the bedrooms taken care of.

We’re down to the wire, now. The new tenant moves into the apartment Nov. 1st. Gotta get the rest of our crap out of there this week.

Quote of the day October 14, 2006

“A woman can look both moral and exciting … if she also looks as if it was quite a struggle.”

~Edna Ferber

Miscellanea October 14, 2006

Several times in the last week or so I’ve been driving along, and a good post will come to mind – well-worded, fully-fleshed out – and by the time I get home, one of two things will have happened. Either the post will have left my mind, or I’ll have lost the desire to bother with it in the face of dealing with general everyday domesticity. I’ve never been one for making “good” blog posts anyway, posts that those other than my friends would find interesting. I’m one of those boring folk who (as is obvious, if you’ve read any of my posts) tends to “journal” my daily life, avoiding talking about what is going on in great big world out there, rarely speaking of anything of importance. You know what I mean. Sometimes, though… every once in a while, inspiration strikes…. which makes it more frustrating when I lose it, lol.

So, back to my usual…

Know what? It is SOOOO nice to be warm, but not too hot. Here at the house, temperature regulation actually works! At the apartment, we were always either too hot or too cold. “Happy mediums” were hard to achieve because of the temps they kept the lower part of the building. You know it is bad when you have to start opening windows and/or running the air conditioner… in March in the midwest. Then, we’d have days where we just couldn’t get it warm enough, and everyone would be sick or at the very least have aching joints from the cold. So yes, I’m quite enjoying the steady 66 degrees here.

It looks like it is going to be a nice day here today. Chilly, but there is, at present, sun shining through the windows. Hubby and I have plans to take the girls out later today, after he gets home. Well, we really only wanted to take Princess, but I don’t think we’ll find a sitter for Peanut. Anyway, there is a Marching Band Invitational going on at the high school, and we want to take Princess to see part of it, give her a taste of what Marching Bands look/sound like. We’re encouraging her to pick up an instrument, and to get involved in things like that. Both of us were in band waaaay back when we were in school, and both participated in marching band. Hubby wasn’t too keen on it, but me, I adored it. It was a huge part of my life for several years, and the majority of my good high school memories revolve around that. Nothing makes me feel young again like watching a marching band. When I’ve picked Princess up at the bus stop at the high school the last few weeks, the marching band has been in the parking lot practicing. I watch and listen, and my spirit drifts back through time to my own glory days. My fingers itch to be playing along, and my feet start moving…. I feel like even now, I could fall in line with those kids there across the lot, and I’d be right at home. Makes me smile, brings me a measure of peace, makes me wonder exactly why I was silly enough to think, back when it counted, that I couldn’t make a career for myself somewhere in the broad field of music, that I wouldn’t be happy if I did. Sometimes, I think I was wrong to assume that making music a J.O.B. would take the joy out of it for me. Guess I’ll never know, will I?

It’s been a month and three days since my Grandpa passed away. I haven’t been back up north in that time, and won’t be for a while, I’m sure. I’m not in a hurry. I love both of my grandmothers, and want to see them, but I am not in a hurry to go to the farm, where my grandpa’s presence is overwhelmingly strong. I’m one who bottles up emotion. I don’t prefer to deal with it, so I shunt it to the side. I know I’m going to have to deal with it at some point, but right now… I’m not ready. My mom chastised me the other day because I haven’t called my gram since her birthday three weeks ago. She’s right – I should, but I think I’ll write a letter instead. In all the years I’ve been calling up there, grandpa answered the phone. As soon as he heard it was me, he would start in on one of our special “inside” things… lines of joking conversations we would have every single time we talked, be it in person or on the phone. I’m just not ready to call up there, and have him not answer after the ring. Bum you, Grandpa.

I haven’t missed commuting. October 4, 2006

Not one bit. I haven’t had to commute in 9 years. Sure, I had to take Princess to school, but for three years, you could see her school out the living room window, so it wasn’t exactly a long drive. Last year, it took 15-20 minutes to get to the school, depending on traffic. I’m on the road a lot longer now, and I don’t necessarily like it. I added today – I only drive 35 miles or so total in a day – from the house to the school to work, then from work to school to the house at the end of the day. Basically 18 miles each trip. It takes me an hour for each of those 18 mile sets. I’m now on the road two hours a day, and it really, really sucks. I don’t mind the morning drive so much, but the afternoon drive seems to take FOREVER.

We’re about 2/3 of the way moved into the house now. Don’t have the rest of the kitchen/pantry stuff or clothes moved over, or some other odds and ends. I was hoping to be finished by now, but for one reason or another, we aren’t. I am hoping to be done, then, by the end of this coming weekend, but I have a feeling we won’t be. *sigh* Other than that, we’re getting settled in. It’s a comfortable house – not too big, and not as small as I’d thought it was going to feel. We have all of the big furniture in, with the exception of the loveseat we’ve yet to purchase, and we can get around all of it easily enough. That’s a good thing!

Anyway, I had more to talk about, but some of it has slipped my mind, and I’m getting tired, so I’ll try to pop back in another time, sooner rather than later, I hope. Not having a computer or internet access at work anymore is a pain in the neck! (Also makes the days draaaag!!)