"My husband is an idiot."

I put the title in quotation marks because I am quoting someone else.

Again, an encounter at work has made me reflect on the nature of marriage.

Today a woman, not much older than me, told me "My husband is an idiot."

What incredibly stupid thing could this man have done to warrant such a public insult to a complete stranger? I'LL TELL YOU.

The woman had come to pick her dog up from daycare. I grabbed the makeshift leash and Gentle Leader that the husband had left with us in the morning, and when she saw it she laughed awkwardly - apparently the apparatus was ghetto-rigged in a way I didn't really see, and as she handed me the regular leash she had brought, she said very plainly, "My husband is an idiot." I can only assume he deserved this title because he was unable to find the usual leash this morning. Based on this information, I can also infer that SHE has NEVER misplaced anything.

I'm sure she's not the first to have an idiot husband. From what I understand, they're a rather common household nuisance. So I have lovingly devised three different, but very effective methods for dealing with said problem.

This is a stock photo of a couple posing for a stock photo. Her motivation: "He's an idiot."

Solution One: BE GONE WITH HIM!

1. GET ANNOYED. Seriously, if you're not annoyed with him at least 3 times each day - constantly is better - this will never work. Whether it's the way he loads the dishwasher, the amount of time he takes getting ready in the morning, or the inescapable stench of his post-workday feet, everything imperfect must bother you to the point where it blocks out any enjoyment of his presence.

2.  Let it fester. You must never mention these annoyances to him. If you think of a way he could improve the situation, KEEP IT TO YOURSELF. Ladies are better seen and not heard anyway, right?

3. Blow off steam by telling your friends, "My husband is an idiot." Vocalization of your frustrations to those outside of your marriage is key.

4. Blow off more steam by telling strangers, "My husband is an idiot." (The subject in question is definitely at this stage, if not beyond. She's progressing very well for one so young!)

5. (you may perform this step anywhere between 3 and, well, now.) Tell your husband, "You're an idiot."

6. Be persistent AND creative in the ways you put him down. Any missed opportunity will become a setback to the ultimate goal. He will probably attempt to defend himself at some point, and the best response you can keep in your arsenal is a simple pat on the head.

7. Try marriage counseling, only if HE wants to, but maintain the knowledge that you're right and he needs to change.

8. Divorce. Counseling can only do so much when you're dealing with idiots.

9. Celebrate your freedom!

Now, if you can make it through all 9 steps, I salute you. It takes a profound lack of compassion, understanding, and flexibility to treat another human being that way. You must have hidden your soul very deep inside of you, indeed! Unfortunately, not everyone is quite that callous; the second option is better for those who prefer to exert far less mental and emotional effort.

Solution Two: COAST.

The only step in this program is to become completely numb. It has sustained many marriages, and is preferred by those who'd rather be buried next to someone they haven't spoken to for the last 30 years.

This is a stock photo of a happy couple, because most real couples don't know what it looks like.

Now, if you're one of those rare people who isn't satisfied with the outcomes of solutions one OR two - I figure you're about 20% of the married population - keep reading. Solution three requires maturity, reflection, and selflessness. Only the most stout of heart and sound of mind can handle it.

Solution Three: LOVE HIM, ACCEPT HIM, WORK TOGETHER AND GET OVER YOURSELF.

This isn't a step-by-step program, but rather an ongoing state of being. You must overlook those minor annoyances and resist the urge to share whatever problems you're having with the outside world. If you can't talk to HIM about it, you shouldn't be mentioning it to anyone else. He is your best friend, your life partner, the person you should trust above everyone else. Belittling him to others belittles him in your own eyes as well and creates a cycle. He may do things differently than you do, but that doesn't make him wrong or stupid. And think of how miserable you would be if he spent as much of his time picking apart YOUR behavior, or badmouthed you in public.

If you're to the point where small things are setting you off, take a step back. If those nasty thoughts of "he's an idiot" are creeping in, remember this: you didn't MARRY an idiot. Short of some kind of life-altering brain injury, HE hasn't changed (much). Your perception has, and it's entirely up to you to change it back. By all means, please tackle the real issues together - but if your opinion of him is so low that you will disparage him to a stranger, I'd bet money that the majority of the problem lies with you and your thought patterns. Focus on the positive, and if you can't find any, seek help. And never, ever make demands of him that you wouldn't want him to make of you.



Thus concludes the second in a randomly-inspired series of insights from a newlywed. Thank you for reading.

Progress

Just a quick post--

I recently borrowed a book called "Little House in the Suburbs" from a friend, and I fell in love with it. We can't really do a full-out homestead while renting a townhouse with about a 60 sq ft courtyard in the back, but I decided this year I'd like to try some container gardening. On my next trip to Fresh Market, I bought some wheatgrass seeds. Here is photo evidence of their daily progression - the first sprout popped up on Valentine's Day.

 

Should be edible in a few more days. Yahoo!

Making things OURS

Our first furniture re-do is complete, with more on the way!

Let's rewind a little...
When Devin and I got married (or, rather, when we moved into our first apartment a few months before the wedding), we had no money and almost no furniture. The latter was fixed, however, by the extremely fortunate circumstance of both sets of his grandparents downsizing and moving into single apartments, while his parents were also upgrading parts of their home. We inherited our bed, dresser, two living room chairs, and our kitchen table and chairs...among other things! And in that first apartment, we were on the second floor with only a balcony to access the outdoors; ergo, no major modifications were going to take place on our new-to-us stuff.

NOW, however, we've moved into a townhouse with a small courtyard in the back. Still no patio furniture, but now my "nesting" instinct is really kicking in, and I thought, HEY, let's make some of this inherited stuff really OURS. Project 1: the dresser!

Not bad, just not "us."

 This is not the thing that was completed today.

I think this dresser is about 40 years old (but please correct me if I'm wrong, if you know for sure) - we didn't have any real complaints about it, but we just wanted to upgrade it into something of our choosing. I've seen lots of decoupaged furniture online and I LOVE the look, so it just became a matter of figuring out the when and how.

I used some Christmas money to buy a large print from Michael's, as well as spray paint, wood stain, and drawer pulls. Devin borrowed a power sander from work, and now the only thing stopping us has been the weather...

Day 1: Wash watches me sand.

Day 2: the boys watch Devin sand FO REAL. He is Vice President In Charge of Sanding.

"I'm naked!"

That's all the pictures I have of the dresser for now. It has been spray painted, but the top still needs to be stained - it has a wonderful flamed/spalted top that we decided we didn't want to cover up with paint or paper.

Here's another project, some DIY shelves! The green ones will be in the dining room, the blues will be upstairs in the den/studio. Hopefully we'll get them up this weekend!

We'd like to be useful now, please.

 And now, for the Project That Is Complete: THE NIGHTSTAND.

Yes, the "after" picture is first. If you thought this was the before picture, I suppose I should rethink my new hobby.

 Here's approximately what it looked like BEFORE:

Except the handle was just a small wooden knob. It matches our coffee table (which is currently serving as entertainment center). Both were given to us by my mom, who won them in a church auction. And, as is often the case with church auction items, she had no use for them. We're thankful, but they're BO-RING. :-p

The ivory sides and the dark Kona stain on top are the same colors we're using for the dresser. The drawer front is scrapbook paper; it doesn't exactly match the dresser's print, but the colors are all there. Once we started on the dresser, I figured, why not go ahead and make the nightstand coordinate? I'm pleased as punch with how my first re-do/decoupage turned out! (read between the lines: yes, I would do this for money.)

Love y'all.

Love and Marriage Marketing

I have a confession to make:

I am not a blogger.

But I'm a young married woman (blog about how in love we are)! With two cute dogs (blog about how cute the dogs are...oh wait...)! WITH AN ENGLISH WRITING BACKGROUND (write blogs!!!!). And we have a small budget so we like to DIY and upcycle (perfect blog material) and we eat healthy (healthily?)(BLOG ALL THE RECIPES.)

So why have I been silent since August?

Because I just visited the blog of a married woman (younger than me...) with a baby. There's a photo of her licking a huge lollipop (the woman, not the baby. One's cuter than the other.) She has a button on the sidebar that's a photo of her holding colorful balloons, smooching her husband, with the baby on the ground next to them. It says, "Complete Bliss." It's nauseatingly adorable.

You know how my brain responds to that?

"COMPLETE bliss, eh? So when he farts under the covers and it wafts up to your nose, you just inhale, and say, "MMMMM, thank you for the gift of your gas, baby"? Or when the adorable infant is crying, puking, and pooping all at once, the only thought in your mind is, "WOW, life sure is amazing and wonderful and the best thing EVER..."? Yeah. Didn't think so."

Hey, I'm a realist.

And every young married's blog is filled with all the same exhaltations of life, the universe, and everything. And while there is a mood and a time and a place for such things, these women make it look as though every day is a creative, adorable, squishy, perfect love-fest. I was perusing another blog awhile ago, and the author gushed, "We like to make forts out of blankets, we hold hands at the movies, and we eat ice cream cones" (or some other such cutesy nonsense). My first reaction? "....we don't make blanket forts... :-/" Immediately I wondered if something about our relationship was sub-par. 30 seconds later my brain said, "Screw that noise! We're awesome and we know it." We could totes make a kick-ass blanket fort if we wanted to.

But since I can't write about our blanket forts that we don't make, and I don't want to say our life is COMPLETE BLISS because, dude, it's not, I feel like less-than-ideal blogger material. The attitude I've had is, "Well if I can't make everyone gush and awwwwww and SQUEE and nearly lose their lunch, then what's the point?" These women all seem to just have it together and all figured out, and I very much...don't feel that way.

So I'll blog when I have something on my mind, like now. Because I can't act like our life is a fairytale, or share every mundane detail. I don't photograph every meal or outing or family cuddle pile. I don't WANT the whole internet to know what we do with our days off together, and the internet doesn't care, anyways. I don't need to talk us up every day in my need to convince you how in love we are. Hang out with us and you'll know.

I was never one of those girls who doodled my own name over all my notebooks in school. I think those girls grow up to write blogs like the ones I'm running into (with varying grammatical correctness, I might add...), while I'm just over here like, "Todaaaaaaaaaay...wasaday. I'll tell you when something important happens."

Careful! Don't love too hard.

Inspired by a conversation I had a few weeks ago, complete with footnotes.

I was talking with a man who was going through a "nasty" divorce. I do not know on what grounds the divorce was based on, but from the sound of things, SHE was PISSED. Anyways, the man noticed my wedding ring and said, "Ah, it looks like you're married."

Me: "Yes, I am."

"Happily, I hope?"

"Sure. It's been about 8 months now."

"Yeah, the first 8 months can be good." *pause* "Do you guys have joint checking accounts?"

"...yes..." *sensing impending doomsday-type advice*

"So did we. I found out that almost 2 years ago she started putting everything in HER name."

"Wow...that's crazy. I don't think I could ever do anything like that." *wanted to say many more things, but really, what CAN you say?*

"Well I didn't think she would either, but she did."

His point?

"Be careful."

Be careful. In more words, be careful with the person you devote your life to. Be careful that you don't fully trust them. Be careful, because everyone, EVERYONE, will screw you over(1).

I retold this conversation to my husband a few hours later, and we confessed that we had probably never been "careful" with each other. I said, "Maybe in the first two weeks." And we wholeheartedly agreed on several things:

1) That the kind of "careful" that says, "Let's keep our money separate," is basically a poor man's pre-nup. It says, "I don't know if I trust you. If (when) we break up, I want to make sure I'm safe." I'm sure there are exceptions to this. I know that there are people who have spending/gambling problems, and maybe that really is a safety issue, and keeping their money separate actually helps these couples stay together. But I think that's a minority.

2) That "be careful" is some of the worst possible advice for a marriage. It's good in the early stages of dating. It's probably also good in a divorce. But for a marriage? There's no room for careful. There's no room for doubt or mistrust. There's a reason it's called "taking the plunge(2)," because you have to take a blind leap of faith, and hope and trust that you won't fall on rocks but on a bed of MARSHMALLOWS(3)!


3) That dogs, beer, cuddling, and Netflix are the best things ever (4).



So there you have it: insights from a newlywed. Go ahead, laugh(5).

Do these faces look careful to you??

P.S. Devin said earlier, "You're great." I said, "How'm I great?" Reason number 1: "I can call you on my way home and say, 'Baby, I need beer.' And you will go out and get goooood beer." :-D



(1) Except your dog.
(2) The only other plunge I've taken was a literal one from a 30-foot cliff into water. Marriage was an infinitely better decision.
(3) I think marshmallows and love go very well together, be it in metaphor or reality.
(4) Unrelated.
(5) Just be careful you don't choke or bust a gut.

Goings-ons

Yep. I'm a terrible blogger. But here are some things that have been going on in our world!

In dog world, Wash passed his Canine Good Citizen test with flying colors. Here he is with his completed evaluation sheet:

Being a Canine Good Citizen means that he can follow basic commands - "sit," "down," and "stay"; he knows how to greet strangers and other dogs appropriately; he walks nicely on leash; he lets strangers handle him (brushing, feet, ears); and he doesn't become overly anxious when we leave his sight. He still doesn't like it when strange people come into the house, but he has improved tremendously from when we first got him!

Meanwhile, Chewy has been having a bit of a rough year. Starting in March, he got what looked to be a spider bite on one of his paws. He had to wear the cone of shame for a week so that he wouldn't lick it and give it a chance to heal. Then, both dogs came down with some bug that gave them both diarrhea and vomiting. A little medication cleared that up. Then, they both came down with a mild case of kennel cough. THEN, one day after daycare I noticed Chewy having some trembling in his legs, and for a few days he was particularly lethargic. The vet diagnosed some kind of back strain/injury, and he underwent two rounds of laser therapy + pain medication. I have to admit, laser therapy was kind of fun and interesting, and the "doggles" they put on him were insanely cute!

Most recently, he had some odd growths removed from his paws (seriously, both vets that looked at them said, "Wow, that's odd..." Some kind of extra paw pad growing symmetrically on both front paws) Here he is, looking ultra-pathetic shortly after coming home from the vet:

For now, he is happy and healthy. And now that the weather has stopped with the insane heat, we've been doing short training sessions almost every day to REALLY crack down on his intense anxiety around other dogs. He has improved a little, but this will definitely take some time. We wonder if his reactions are a result of some kind of attack when he was chained up/on a leash before we got him. Poor little pup...
We've had him for almost a full year now, and I can't wait for his "birthday" - we're buying him a nice new collar and getting him groomed professionally at Good Dog. I'm sure there will also be some particularly tasty treats involved!

Moving on to other subjects - AND SPEAKING OF MOVING - we are! We found a really nice townhouse for rent in Broad Ripple, half a mile at most from Good Dog so I can walk to work. Yahoo! Devin's commute will be about the same, maybe a tad shorter. The place is 1200 sq feet, 2 bed/1.5 bath, comes with washer and dryer, small fenced courtyard in the back, and the only utility we pay is electricity. Lots of closets and a bigger kitchen! And the guy who's just moved out put a doggy door in the back :) The move will be in mid to late September.

In other good news, I got the job of color guard director for a high school in downtown Indy. It's not the same level of intensity that I've done before - they only have 2 competitions all season, 2 practices a week, and a five minute show (compared to the 7 or 8 competitions, daily practices, and 10-12 minute shows I'm used to!) But I'm glad to be teaching and spinning a flag again. I'm also glad to be dancing again - the same week that guard started, I joined a contemporary dance class at a nearby studio. Let me just say that one class a week isn't enough! I want more!! Devin also got a raise and job title change last month - he is now the lighting and sound technician for the Center (formerly assistant electrician).

It's now almost time for me to head to guard practice. I have another post on deck for sometime later (maybe in another month? :-p) Thanks for reading, everyone!

All About Wash

Yes, it's been awhile since I've blogged. Sorry...we've been busy! I guess that's what happens when we both work full-time or close to it. Here is a post that I wanted to write almost 3 months ago, but it's okay that it's just now getting done - here's the story, progress, and personality of our second rescue dog, Wash!

His very first day in his new home - not quite sure what to think!

With getting my job at Good Dog came the talk, and the search for dog #2. We had wanted to get Chewy a playmate and once we knew we'd have that extra source of income, it didn't take long for us to find a new someone to bring into our lives. His name was Billy, and he was in foster care after being found as a stray at a school near Plainfield, IN (southwest of Indy). After meeting him at a PetCo adoption event and filling out the application the week before, on March 10 we introduced Chewy to his new brother, Billy - whose name we changed to Wash. Yes, it's a bit unusual; he's named after a character from the cancelled TV show "Firefly" and the movie "Serenity." Here's the original Wash, expert spaceship pilot:

Wash and Chewy were best friends almost immediately, but once we got them both home and they played into the evening hours, Chewy started giving us this look like, "Soooo...when's he going back to HIS house?" He wasn't the biggest fan of sharing our attention with his new brother at first (who it turns out is a bit of an attention HOG), but the two of them are still like peas in a pod.

So here's a few more details about Mr. Wash:
We really can't tell what he's mixed with. Corgi and possibly yellow lab? He's about ten pounds bigger than Chewy.
His ears are very bouncy when he walks. It's ridiculously adorable.
He has a VERY waggly tail. Naturally, it goes nuts when we come home after work. But sometimes even if you just look at him or say his name, his tail will reveal how pleased he is.  :)
He came to us with a thick, plush undercoat and he was as soft as a teddy bear. He has since shed this, and now he is less soft and looks quite a bit scrawnier than in these photos!
Like Chewy, he LOVES treats, but compared to Chewy he is much better with accepting simple praise as a reward. Chewy's attitude: "You don't have a treat? Well then why did you make me do stuff??"
Unlike Chewy, he doesn't go completely insane when he sees other dogs (yay!) (Chewy is also making small improvements with this)
Also unlike Chewy, he is wary of strangers, ESPECIALLY when they come into the apartment. But in the 3 months we've had him, he has improved tremendously with this. Between going to the dog park, daycare, and his new obedience class (class #3 was this past Sunday), he has gotten much better accepting the presence of strangers and often will seek attention from them. He meets new people several times a week and we can see him changing before our eyes, which is so rewarding. It's like he's discovering how much fun life can be; when we brought him home, he wouldn't stick his head out the car window, and he didn't really know how to play with toys. Now he ALWAYS has his head out the window, and will ask us to play tug o' war with him the way Chewy did. He still tends to be generally afraid of unfamiliar things, and he especially hates any kind of spray bottle. Hmm.

Also NOT a fan of baths!

Mornings consist of Wash whining to be let out of his crate (as early as 6:30, as late as 10). We let both dogs out and Wash will hop in bed and sandwich himself between us - sometimes rather violently! - and Chewy will pop up to say good morning and then take window lookout duty. The two of them do most of their playtime after their meals and they love to chase each other in circles around the couch.

 

 

They do a good job wearing each other out!

Look how curious the puppy is! (just this past Sunday)

In summary, we now have two dogs who each has his own unique set of idiosyncrasies. They are great dogs and we are working to make sure they are the BEST dogs they can possibly be. They make us laugh every day, and even though it hasn't even been a year yet, we can't imagine life without them! I'd never had a dog before Chewy, and now there's two....I'm just pleased as punch :)

Until next time-
Kathleen