Life is Good – November 4, 2011

I’m not sure where this week went. The days flew by. But when I stopped to think about it, it was a really good one.

Loving my job! Right now I am testing newly developed systems to make sure they work as they are supposed to. And this involves not only testing things to make sure they work right, but testing things that aren’t supposed to happen to make sure they don’t happen. So I get to dream up all kinds of things to throw at this thing solely for the purpose of seeing what comes out on the other side. It’s kind of like when I was a kid and my grandma gave me an ice cream bucket in the kitchen and let me mix all kinds of things in it to see what would happen. Only now I’m getting paid to do that! So cool.

Movies! I saw two movies – in the theater - this week! I never see movies, much less see them in the theater. It has literally been years since I’ve gone to the movie theater. But last weekend, a friend asked me to see a movie with her. We saw The Help and I was absolutely in love with it! Do you remember that feeling you’d get as a kid when on that rare occasion you’d get to go see a movie and it was so much fun that you didn’t want it to end? That’s how I felt. I wanted to sit there and watch it all over again. Of course they don’t let you do that, so I decided I would definitely be buying the movie when it comes out on DVD. And in the meantime, I may read the book again, because I also loved that.

A few days after seeing my first movie theater movie in years, I went back again, this time with Mark. We saw Footloose. Again, loved it! It was really fun and held pretty true to the original. And it had me wanting to get up and dance! Two thumbs up!

Lunch with a great friend – I work within a very short walking distance of one of my favorite friends, and yet we’ve hardly ever had lunch together. We finally made a point to get together this week and had a wonderful time! We definitely have to do that more often!

Full House! All the kids are going to be home this weekend – to celebrate my birthday – which is not this weekend. But this is when it works for everyone to be home, so I’m not complaining.

Life with Puppy – Lucy has settled in nicely in her new home. One of my favorite things is when I come home from work and she nearly tackles me with joy! There have been only a few puppy casualties around the house. One shoe, a candle, a plastic jack-o-lantern, one floor vent and one rubber backed floor mat have met their demise via my puppy’s teeth. (Mark took her along in his truck when he ran errands not long after Lucy attempted to eat the floor mat. She threw up in his truck!) Yes, I’m done feeling sorry for her being kenneled when left alone. Clearly she can’t be trusted alone for any amount of time just yet.

Chewing a rawhide bone

BUT … she hasn’t destroyed anything of any real value. This weekend we’re going shopping for more puppy toys. Life is good!

I haven’t written because I’ve been busy fighting with my husband and such

It’s been requested that I get the lamp shade off my head and write another post. I guess it has been a few days, hasn’t it? What can I say? I’ve been busy.

Things at work are going swimmingly, but busily! Busy is good, right?

And the after-work hours have been busy this week too. I bowled one night this week (very well, thank you!) Another night we took Lucy to meet Mark’s parents. She was extremely sweet and gentle with Grandma and Grandpa. Mark’s dad is recovering from a bout of pneumonia and Lucy seemed to sense that she needed to be extra gentle with these people. She walked right up to where Grandpa was sitting and rested her chin on his knees and let him pet her and tell her what a good girl she was. Then Grandpa showed Lucy where the doggy treat cupboard is and proceeded to feed her several treats.

Oh, and then there was the night that I was home, but I didn’t have time to write because I had to go to bed early because I was mad at Mark. See, there was an issue involving one of our children. Not an extremely serious issue, mind you, but one that needed discussing. I suspected Mark’s reaction would be less than calm. I suspected his reaction would be something like …

No! Not happening. To which I would reply, “Well wait a minute. Let’s talk about this.”

To which he would then say, Fine. But then (child in question) can plan on paying for all of this out of their own pocket! To which I would say, “Can I say something here?”

To which he would respond, Fine. Do whatever you want. I don’t care.

To which I responded by telling him that those three reactions are exactly how he always responds when there isn’t an easy answer to a problem and that he can’t just expect to proclaim his decision and then sweep the issue under the rug.

To which he responded that I always think he should never get angry and that I always cater to the kids. To which I told him “For your information, I am not necessarily in favor of this and I have all kinds of feelings about this but you are so busy making decisions all by yourself that you couldn’t even bother to act like a grown-up and have a reasonable discussion with me.

At which point I shut myself in the bathroom because I was done talking to him and didn’t want to continue. At which point he knocked on the door and said, I’m sorry. What are you feeling? To which I hollered, “ANGRY!” To which he responded, So I’m thinking you don’t want to discuss this right now? To which I said, “Not particularly.”

And being the pig-headed woman who I am, I required a couple of hours to stew about the whole thing (during which time he would ask, Are you still mad at me? To which I would lie unconvincingly and say no) before deciding to punish him by depriving him of my presence and going to bed early. Like 8:30 early.

(May I just take a moment here to give my husband credit for putting up with the emotional tornado he calls his wife?)

And so I slept on it and woke up realizing that the problem was not Mark’s reaction at all, since I knew this to be his typical reaction. The problem was that I took his reaction personally. Again. Twenty-three years of this, you’d think I’d have this figured out by now. So I now know that in the future, I should expect these very reactions from him in the face of difficult decisions, let him get them off his chest and proceed after he’s done pretending he’s in charge of everything. Because we all know that it’s really me who is in charge of everything anyway.

I’M KIDDING! (Sort of.)

So anyway, that’s why I’ve been a slacker this week. Sorry if I’ve disappointed anyone with my lack of writing. I promise to try harder to keep up from now on.