Marriage

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Forward or Back? Up or Down?

August 24, 2010 in Family, Marriage by Sara | 8 comments

I am coming to you, my friends to settle what has been a long running argument in our house. For years, if I wanted the A/C to blow colder, I would say to JD, “Let’s turn the air up.” He would walk over to the thermostat and promptly turn it the wrong way. He insists that if you want it colder, you turn the air down, not up.

These are the things we argue over. Pathetic, I know.

Today, we were talking about a scheduling conflict that has come up for Saturday. We needed to be somewhere on Saturday at 11:00 and Elena’s soccer practice was now ending at 11:00 and so we needed to change the time of the meeting to 12:00.

I’m kind of boring myself. Sorry.

Anyway, I said, “Can we move the meeting forward to noon?”

He replies, “You mean move it back to noon?”

At which point I realized we were in another Up/Down argument and I just turned around and walked off, laughing to myself.

He was hot on my trail and kept telling me that I just DIDN’T THINK CORRECTLY!! and to prove it he asked the girls,

“If you were going somewhere at 11 o’clock and someone asked if you could move the meeting forward one hour, what time would you be meeting?”

To which Katie, without missing a beat, said, “12 o’clock.”

I wish you could have been here. JD proclaimed that not only did I think INCORRECTLY, but I had passed on that gene to both of them! And he kind of hopped around a little waving his arms above his head.

I had myself a much needed laugh.

So, dear reader, it’s up to you to settle this. Who is right? Do you turn the air up or down to make it colder in your house? And if you needed to move a meeting forward would you meet earlier or later than originally planned?

If you side with me, JD will admit he is wrong.

If you side with him?

I’ll probably just ignore you.

Now He’ll Know

August 11, 2010 in Marriage by Sara | 4 comments

For the past 14 years my husband will tell anyone who asks that I’m great fun to be married to.

Except for 3 days a month.

I admit that I suffer from a raging case of hormones that most times get the best of me. My feelings are easily hurt, my fuse very short, and I’m frankly just not fit for most human company.

JD spent the first years of our marriage being baffled by this sudden change in behavior. When he finally figured it out, he would beg me to give him some warning when it was about time for my horrible alter ego to emerge. At which point he figured he would just go to his office and emerge 3 days later when the coast was clear.

Trouble was, I could never tell him. It was like it took me by surprise each and every month. This astounded him.

Then I got my iPhone.

Guess what?

There’s an app for that.

One of the features allows me to select a face icon that describes my mood for the day.

Yesterday we were in the car and I had my calendar out getting ready to chart my emotion face for the day. I turned to JD and said,

“Do you think that I’ve been irritable today?”

Before he could open his mouth to answer, I’m pretty sure the comment that flew out of my mouth answered for him.

“Or have you just been more annoying than usual?

I think we all know which face he suggested I use.

The One Where My Husband (Almost) Loses His Plumber’s License

July 19, 2010 in Family, Food, Friends, Home, Marriage by Sara | 4 comments

Our kitchen faucet had been broken for months. At first it was just a little bit broken. By that I mean that the little thingy on the top that tells you which direction to turn for cold and which to turn for hot kept falling off. Not really a problem as I still have all my sensory capacities in my extremities and had memorized “left for cold, right for hot” a while back. Then the pull down sprayer started acting wonky. It would suddenly just stop working and would only begin again after you punched the little black buttons on the side about a million times and said a few cuss words (out of the children’s hearing, of course). Then it wouldn’t turn off unless you shut it off and then pushed down on the middle of the turner offer thing. Then there was the constant explaining to guests on the proper off and push antics required each time you used the crazy thing.

And yet we let this go on for MONTHS.

Mostly because the thought of buying a new faucet did not bring me great joy. I’d frankly rather buy another pair of pajamas.

In the end, I took my friend Betty to Lowes and we picked out a new faucet. (Not before I’m sure she was ready to kill me for agonizing over the decision for so long.)

JD replaced it last weekend. Works beautifully. Simple to turn off and on. Delightful.

But you do remember this, right?

JD and the girls were at his folks for the weekend, leaving me alone in my house for about 4 days. So I threw a little girl’s only party Friday night and we had a wonderful time. We all brought cold or room temperature salads and they were yummy. The last gal left abut 10:45, I quickly cleaned up the kitchen using my new faucet and trusty garbage disposal to get rid of some excess arugula from one of the salads. I headed downstairs where I watched a couple of shows I’d DVR’d and then headed off to bed thinking of the wonderful Saturday I had ahead of me where I could do anything I wanted. A long walk/run with Lucy. A visit to the farmer’s market. Perhaps even a movie in the afternoon. The day was mine……..

Oh, what’s that? The light in the laundry room was on. So I opened the door, stepped inside and

SPLASH!

Right into 4 inches of arugula strewn water.

And so I did what all good southern women have done since Scarlett O’Hara set the example. I decided to think about it tomorrow and after making sure it wasn’t getting any worse, I went to bed.

The morning found most of the water gone but bits and pieces of salad from last night’s dinner stuck firmly to the floor.

I then made a decision which shall haunt me the rest of my days and is sure to give my family ample opportunity for mocking me.

I put a load of sopping wet towels in the washing machine and turned it on.

Wait. It gets better.

I then put Lucy’s leash on her and we went for a nice one hour walk around the neighborhood.

I KNOW!

What in the world?!

It will come as no surprise to you, gentle reader, that I arrived back home to 4 more inches of water in the laundry room. Luckily, while on my walk I ran into my neighbor who gave me the number of the best sewer and drain people in town.

The very nice man on the other end seemed so pleased that I had interrupted his Saturday morning with my pesky drain problems. And so to teach me a lesson he gave me a lecture on garbage disposals. His speech went on for several minutes. I’ll condense it for you. Basically it boils down to this.

Garbage disposals are from the devil. They should never actually be used. If you do feel you just MUST use the devil’s machine, you must feed it carefully only one tablespoon of food at a time. You must then follow this with copious amounts of water, ice cubes and perhaps a cup of bleach.

And then he says, “You know I’ll have to charge you time and a half to come out today and fix it.”

Exactly what was I supposed to say to this? “Oh no thanks, then. I’ll just leave water and rotting food in the basement til Monday.”

If he had attempted to extract a promise of my firstborn, I probably would have agreed.

Two hours later a nice young man named Michael (who appeared to have crawled through many sewers and drains already that morning) made a lot of noise and cleared out the drain.

Turns out it was sludge, food and lint from the dryer causing all the problems. Not a thing to do with JD’s recent plumbing job.

So he shall keep his plumbing license for now. He’s going to need it.

Somebody’s got to get rid of that darn disposal.

Not An Easy Job

June 7, 2010 in Family, Marriage by Sara | 5 comments

It is not an easy job being married to me.

I am a bit of a control freak, fiercely independent (to my detriment at times), and lets just say that with the onset of peri-menopause my moods can sometimes be a bit unpredictable. And though no one who knows me would say I’m the quiet type, when it comes to discussing things that are really bothering me, I have a hard time doing that.

I want to keep it all to myself, turn inward and start questioning everything I believe about myself.

That’s not really all that productive.

I believe with all my heart that this inclination is exactly why I’m married to JD.

Today he sat me down and forced me to talk out some things with him. And then he curbed his natural instinct to try and give me a step by step program for fixing things and instead just said some really comforting things that made everything seem so much better. He has a great way of doing this while at the same time not letting me off the hook for things that may very well need to change.

Introspection is a good and necessary thing.

Introspection done with a loving partner seems a lot less painful.

I’m a lucky girl.

I Can’t Compete

April 7, 2010 in Family, Marriage by Sara | 4 comments

I give them dinner. I give them lunch. I fix pancakes for breakfast. I take them to their numerous activities and social events.

I carried them for 9 months, gained weight I’ll never lose and then I gave them life.

And yet,

I can not compete with their father.

(Okay, to be fair, he does some of all of the above. Just hang with me while I make my point.)

As I was saying.

I can’t compete.

Because he gives them things like this.

This was one of the only times since the swing was put up that it was still.

Usually it looked more like this.

He risked life and limb to put it up.

(I ran inside and made sure his life insurance was paid up.)

I’m trying not to envision too many concussions from heads being smacked against the tree.

Just Perfect

March 29, 2010 in Marriage, Time Goes By by Sara | 6 comments

If you pin a woman down, I think she would admit that we sometimes long for the days when our husbands were courting us. The days when you could spend hours on the phone and nothing was too much trouble if it meant you could be together for a few hours. The days when the sheer adrenaline of new love kept you going even if you were keeping insane hours.

However, I would argue that love that has endured for a time certainly has its benefits.

My husband now knows me so well that he knew my perfect birthday would include a great meal, a nice quiet hotel room and just about 24 hours away from the responsibilities of our children and the dog. He knew that a drink in a very cool hotel bar and some time for me to wander around my favorite store would just be icing on the cake (the birthday cake, that is).

Art Deco hotel lobby

Yummy Pomegranate Martini

Roasted Beet Salad

It was perfect.

I think I’ll keep him around for another year.

The Master Planner

Wake Up Maggie, I Think I Got Something To Say To You

February 10, 2010 in Home, Marriage by Sara | 1 comment

This has been a week of technological wonderfulness at our house.

First, I managed to run over my blackberry with my car on Saturday. Likely story, you say? Yeah, so did JD. He is convinced it was an evil plot to bring even more Mac products into our house. It was an accident. I swear. You’ll remember that I managed to lose my last cell phone in our garbage disposal where it met an untimely and gruesome death, so it should surprise no one that I somehow managed to run over this one. Twice.

I looked at it this way. The universe was telling me to finally make the leap to the iPhone.

I’m in love.

However, so is JD. After coveting U-verse for months and months and months, he we decided to get it installed. You should have seen him talking techie talk with Roger, the guy who came to install it. I wish you could have seen them. Roger would look up and say something like, ” Your 87993 bits of…….lalalalala (this is where I would lose track)” and JD would get this very happy look on his face.

I got a happy look on my face because Roger looked EXACTLY like a young Rod Stewart.

I am not kidding. And the funny thing is that he TOTALLY pulled it off. He didn’t look one bit silly in spite of the 3 gallons of hair product he must have had in his hair. I’m telling you that his highlights and the volume he managed to tease out of his hair were nothing short of amazing. If only he had broken into a chorus of “Maggie Mae” I would have been sure I’d died and gone to heaven.

I’m totally regretting not getting a picture of him and his wonderful 1980’s do.

With my iPhone.

Groundhog Day

February 8, 2010 in Marriage by Sara | 3 comments

On Friday JD had to have a very minor procedure done. (He’s fine.) The doctors were nice enough to give him some conscious sedation and let me just tell you that seeing my husband completely stoned was one of the funniest things I’ve ever witnessed in my life.

While there were several recurring themes in his ramblings, this was the one that tickled me the most.

“Hey honey, how are you”

(through half closed eyes) “I’m good. Hey, did you know that my doctor used to live in Old Town Alexandria? But he and his wife didn’t like the fact that drunk people kept puking on their doorstep so they moved.”

” Yeah, well I can see why.”

At this point his eyes rolled back into his head and he started snoring.

15 minutes later he opens his eyes and says,

“Hey, did you know that my doctor used to live in Old Town Alexandria? But he and his wife didn’t like the fact that drunk people kept puking on their doorstep so they moved.”

“Oh, yeah, I can see why they would want to move.”

Head back, eyes closed.

15 minutes later:

“Hey, did you know that my doctor used to live in Old Town Alexandria?’

“Oh, really? Did they have people puking on their doorstep?”

Eyes widen: “Yeah, they did!”

Pause.

“Did I tell you that already?”

“Yep”

“Oh.”

This went on and on for the next 4 hours. It was hilarious.

It was our own little version of the movie “Groundhog Day”.

It was almost as funny as this.

Wish I’d had my video camera.

Submissive? Who? Me?

November 12, 2009 in Faith, Marriage by Sara | 3 comments

I’m a Bible girl.

What I mean by that is that I believe that it is God’s word given to us as a guidebook on how to live our lives. And no, I don’t understand all the killing and maiming and conquering that goes on in the Old Testement, but I generally fault my own lack of knowledge rather than choosing to believe a different God inspired that part.

But there has always been one part of the New Testament that I’ve bristled against from the first time I ever heard it. I think most every woman I’ve ever known has at least some issue with it. Ladies? Know what I’m talking about? Ever heard this one?

1 Peter 3

Wives and Husbands

¹Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, ²when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. ³Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. ⁴Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. ⁵For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their own husbands, ⁶like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear.

⁷Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.

Frankly, at first glance there is so much in these verses that bugs me that I could go on and on and on. Submissive? Outward adornment? Weaker partner?

And maybe the worst of all: Obey and call him master.

Are you kidding me?

These verses have always offended me on such a deep level that I’ll admit I never really delved into them to see if perhaps there was something valuable there.

Oh is there some valuable stuff there!

I’m asking you to suspend your misgivings and go here to listen to the message preached by Matt Chandler on October 25, 2009. It is the best “unpacking” of these verses that I have ever heard. The lessons he pulls out of verses 3 and 4 are something all of our daughters need to hear and understand. I believe that if all young women could internalize the things he talks about in just those two verses alone, a world of heartache could be avoided.

It will be 45 minutes well spent.

Lickity Lickity

October 28, 2009 in Lucy, Marriage by Sara | 2 comments

My kitchen floor isn’t the only thing that gets licked clean by Lucy these days.

This is what happens every time JD comes in from a jog. Lucy has gotten to where she stands and waits for him at the door because she knows that a sweaty, salty treat is in store.

Is anyone but me grossed out by this?

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