I think I love my husband

Anybody remember the movie with Chris Rock and Kerry Washington: I Think I Love My Wife? Well, that title came to mind yesterday (that would be Tuesday since I’m late posting this blog). I have these days where I’m just overwhelmed with a flood of positive emotions for my life mate. Maybe it was the sight of him standing in the kitchen washing the mountain of dishes when I finally made it back from my mom’s house and the grocery store. I was tired and hungry; and I had a monster headache to boot. (Of course, the water was running constantly for the first 20 minutes after I arrived and was putting away dishes and preparing dinner, and that was driving me completely crazy, but I tried really hard not to say anything! After all, Mike was washing dishes and that’s what matters.) Whenever I’m in one of these euphoric moods, Mike inevitably says or does something to burst that bubble and I revert back to my unappreciative, nagging self oftentimes before I’ve even had the chance to tell him how much I love him and how wonderful I think he is. In other words, these “moments” shall we say are fleeting or short-lived. What is up with that? You’d think it’d be the other way around: my “normal” self would be the loving, dedicated spouse, and the fleeting moments would be characterized by the fussing and nagging. (Actually, in my opinion, there is a lot of love and dedication going on from what I have to put up with on a regular basis--Mike may agree as well.) All of this is to say I realize I complain a lot about Mike, especially in this blog, but he does have some redeeming qualities as well. (Please don’t ask me to name them!) Just as Chris Rock realized when tempted by that scandalous Kerry Washington, I think I love my husband.
07/29/09, cont…
Well, today is supposed to be a day of shopping for Alisa. Her b-day money and gift cards are burning a hole in her pocket. I think she figures she has enough for her hermit crabs, but we’ll hit the clothing stores first. Surely, she will have to add a little to her gift cards and that will reduce her “hermit crab” savings. (I see hermit crabs as something else for me to take care of when she gets tired of having to pay attention to them and feed them and change their water.) I always tell the kids “first things first” in an effort to help them learn to prioritize. We’ll see how the shopping turns out.
For the majority of the day I was busy with food preparation, laundry and dishes (after I brushed down the pool in the light rain, which was actually quite pleasant). It seems that every time I turned around someone was saying they were hungry. I guess in my household summertime is for doing nothing but sitting around thinking of what’s next to eat. Part of the problem is I just went to the grocery store Monday, and the kids feel compelled to eat up everything I bought simply because they know it’s there! It’d be different if they were outdoors playing or engaging in any type of physical activity, but they spend their time on the computer or playing video games—not exactly expending a lot of energy.
Anyway, my day was peppered with phone calls from a very excited Barrett who is counting down the minutes until his vacation officially begins. I lost count after 7 or 8 calls.
Around 4 p.m. the kids & I loaded up and headed to the Parker Uniform store to check out what sizes Alisa will need for next year. Of course, everything is a different size: 32 for the skirt, 14 ½ for the jumper, XXL for the long-sleeve polo shirt, 16 for the blouse and L for the cardigan. Aaron called my attention to the time around 4:50…He was supposed to be at weight training at 5 p.m., and we were in Fort Worth a good 20 minutes from home. I tried to convince him that he would only be a few minutes late, but he decided not to go. It’s too embarrassing to walk in late. The boys were “maxing out” on the weights, and the kids in Aaron’s group would all have to start over with the lower weights to let Aaron work his way up to where they were. I don’t like to be late places, either, but I thought he could at least suit up and hit the gym for part of the workout even if he missed the maxing out part. I didn’t pressure him, though. That was not a battle I felt like fighting.
We delivered X to his dad who was picking us Leyla at Tia & PaPa’s house. Just when I was worried about how to make a clean break without getting Sasha all worked up, her mom showed up to pick her up, too. We left PaPa & Tia to their quiet house and spaghetti & meatballs for dinner and headed for Costco and a girly store called “Justice.”
I ordered some prints from my camera with the 9¢ coupon at Costco. Then we took Alisa across the street to the Highlands to check out Justice. Aaron stayed in the car because the store had “just for girls” across the front doors. They had lots of brightly colored (as in neon) outfits and sparkly stuff any girl would love, but Alisa disappointed at the prices (welcome to the world of shopping, right?). A t-shirt with a silkscreen print cost $24.99, jeans were $29.99. Alisa was determined not to spend more than the $20 on the gift card and refused to put any of her cash with it, which meant slim pickings. She ended up getting jewelry. Earrings were buy 2 get 1 free, so she bought two cards with multiple pairs of studs on each and got a pair of silver hoops for “free.” She has very sensitive ears, and I hope she’s able to wear them. 8 pairs of earrings for $8.99 sounds scary to me, even if the card they’re attached to says “sensitive.” We’ll see about them soon enough I suppose.
We stopped back by Costco to pick up my prints as well as picante sauce and lettuce for tonight’s taco dinner then headed home. I had zero energy by the time we arrived. I really wanted to lie down for about 30 minutes, but it was already getting late. I took out the ground turkey and mixed it with ground beef in a skillet and let that get going while I washed lettuce and gathered the rest of the toppings to chop. I think I was moving in slow motion. There were dishes stacked from dinner, breakfast and lunch, and there was barely any room to maneuver, but I managed to pull it all together. It was after 9:00 p.m. when we finally ate dinner. I spent over an hour in the kitchen for everyone to be practically done eating by the time I sat down to the table with my plate. All I could think of was the movie, A Bug’s Life, when the ants were talking about the grasshoppers: they come, they eat, they leave! The remainder of the evening passed without much incident (of course, it was practically bedtime when we got up from the table). I managed to put away the food and leave the dishes for another time (recurrent problem in this household). I chatted with my sis-in-law (she now has AT&T so cell to cell costs us nothing-woo-hoo!) and read to Alisa until my eyes began closing on their own. I retired for the night around 12:45 a.m.