Audition for a Wife

Tags

hubby, humour, marriage, wife

Standing in line at the grocery store, I snickered when I read the headline “Tom Cruise Auditioning for New Wife”. Judging by the source of the headline, it was snicker-worthy. I suspect there isn’t much truth to anything in that rag apart from a few words like “is” and “the” so I didn’t take it seriously.  But seriously? What an idea for a blog post!

Initially I thought about what I would look for in a new husband, but I already have one of those. A few years ago, a friend of ours lost his dear wife to cancer and it started the wheels turning faster in our own cob-webbed brains. One night Hubby asked me out of the blue, would I re-marry. I blurted “NOPE!” (rather too hastily and loudly). Seeing the hurt in his eyes, I quickly explained that our early years as a blended family, even just as a couple, were too painful to repeat. I was so thankful God helped us through it. I was happy now. Why would I want to fight over the empty toilet paper roll with anyone else?

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NB: Empty toilet paper rolls are one of the Top 50 Things Couples Fight About.

It was recently reported that women in long-term relationships continue to shoulder much more responsibility than men when it comes to household chores like buying groceries, cooking meals, household cleaning, and planning social activities…

• Buying groceries: (65% of men, 90% of women)
• Cooking/preparing meals: (48% of men, 85% of women)
• Household cleaning (48% of men, 88% of women)
• Planning social activities (26% of men, 57% of women)

…as well as caregiving for loved ones, including kids and aging relatives (55% women to 39% men) [B.Stalsburg, PhD, Whitman Insight Strategies]

I can’t say I’m surprised!

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First, in the audition, she would have to WOW me with her cleaning skills, cooking skills, financial skills, childcare skills, driving skills and home reno skills. She would have to be charming, patient, creative, and a noble wife of character (Prov. 31:10-31). A pretty face and a sweet disposition wouldn’t hurt…and a good sense of humour.

Just for fun,  I gave myself 10 minutes to fire out any question that came to mind, no matter how practical or random:

• Are you willing to buy chips every week and tuck them away in a safe place until Friday night, even though they aren’t good for me?
• Can you stick to a budget? Are you willing to browse flyers and “price-match” to stay within budget but also willing to scrimp in one place in order to buy a “treat” for the family?
• What brand names do you consider “essential”? [Let’s be honest – No Name cheese is an abomination and No Name cereal tastes like soggy cardboard. Yuck!]
• What is the ratio of your listening skills vs. your communication skills? [If the conversation is always one-sided, I’m not interested.]
• Do you handle creepy-crawlies, tiny critters, and mosquitoes in the middle of the night?
• Coke or Pepsi? [The correct answer is Coke]
• Do you “breathe” at night? Snore? Roll around? [It’s not a deal-breaker. It just means we have to live as a “sleep divorced” couple.]
• Do you notice the little things [like dust on the bathroom tiles, the rice krispie trail across the living floor, or the full laundry basket waiting (and blocking) the bottom of the stairs]?
• Will you fold my underwear?
• How are your driving skills [like when it’s sleeting and you’re late for school or in a life-threatening situation, like the school parking lot]?
• Do you change bed sheets, kitchen linens, and toilet paper rolls?
• Snacks – salty or sweet? Favourite dessert?
• What are  your hobbies,  your decorating style, your favourite colours, your favourite t.v. shows, your favourite author, and your favourite doughnut flavour?
• Star Wars or Star Trek? [The answer is Both] Original show/movies, or later shows/movies? [The answer is Original for both]
• What will you do for me when I’m sick? [Buy me gingerale]
• When you throw dirty clothes in the basket, do you turn them right-side out first?
• Are you organized enough to handle all the gift-giving, card-writing (& mailing), appointment making (& keeping), record-keeping, and re-stocking of food & clothing items needed by the family – extended and immediate – and to do it on a budget?
• Can you bathe and style a guinea pig?
• Can you handle patronizing car mechanics at the shop, dumb retail salespeople, and prissy Passport office employees? [If so, tell me how…please!!!]
• How much do you love chocolate and tea?

Phew…10 Minutes goes by pretty fast and I’ve barely scratched the surface! It’s important to find a good wife because “A quarrelsome wife is like the dripping of a leaky roof in a rainstorm” (Prov. 27:15).

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Inquiring Minds Want to Know – what would you be looking for,
if you were to audition for a wife?

 

Happy Weekend!

 

Vincent

Tags

family, hubby, humour

I am sure I looked like the walking dead heading into church yesterday morning. Ok, maybe I didn’t look it, but I kind of felt like it…Vincent the Christmas Virus was a few weeks late – had made visits to friends in the blogsphere facebook, and so on…and he visited Little Guy this weekend. Don’t know the song?

“Vincent the Christmas Virus
He’s the one that’ll keep you up all night
He’s the festive parasite
Vincent the Christmas Virus
He’s the gift that keeps on giving all night long.” – Arrogant Worms

It was Sunday, midnight – the “witching hour” and I heard a strange, gargled cough…Hubby’s feet hit the floor before mine (I find it reassuring that this recent half-centenarian can still move with catlike agility if he needs to…). Little Guy had projectile vomited in his sleep. Hubby & I moved with precision – while I mopped up the kid and sent him to my bed (fingers crossed there wouldn’t be a repeat performance there), Hubby ran for a plastic bowl. While Hubby stripped the bed and took the soiled bedding downstairs, I made up with the bed with fresh linens. It was remarkable! When Big Guy was little and vomited, Hubby retreated, gagging, to another floor of the house, lest he also start to vomit. I always told him that if he did, he’d have to clean it up himself. But now, having raised this boy from infancy, Hubby is “all growed up”.

With our child safely tucked safely in his own bed once again, bowl close at hand, we took turns burning washing our hands before crawling into our separate beds. I snuggled into a new (cold) spot in my bed in an attempt to avoid contagion. At 1:00 a.m., we were at it again. We switched tasks, and I threw some bedding in the washer. Big Guy was visiting for the weekend, sleeping next to the laundry room…but I knew he was already awake. I was certain the sound of the washer was less intrusive than the noxious fumes emanating from the bed sheets. I curled up back in bed with the door open and my Mommy Brain on high alert.

Little Guy tiptoed to the bathroom at 1:30. I wondered if Hubby was lying stiffly in bed, holding his breath and straining to hear that all-too-familiar sound. It was like playing chicken from our separate bedrooms…I won! Hubby got up, just in time for Round 3. I tucked Little Guy back in and tried to stifle the voice in my head that kept reminding me that I was helping lead worship in the morning and I needed to get to sleep. Since Big Guy was home, Hubby & I decided that I would take Big Guy with me in the morning to replace Hubby in the sound booth…Big Guy just didn’t know it yet.

At 2:30, there arose such a clatter, that Hubby sprang from his bed (with the gracefulness of a gazelle) to see what was the matter…it was a sheet of ice falling off the front awning onto the concrete and iron below.

The room had the greying aura of early morning when my eyes flit open. I could heard a couple of gentle coughs from Little Guy, as though his throat was dry, followed by a muffled, “muppet”esque chicken ba-caw” sound. I glanced at the clock – 5:00 a.m. – and mentally calculated that I had now had 3 hours of broken sleep. I slipped into his room to find Little Guy kneeling over an empty bowl. “I’m ok” he said, as he laid down again. I asked if he wanted a sip of water and I stroked his head. He assured me he was really okay. I moved his bowl, and it was wet on the rim. Eew! I was about to leave to wash my hands with acid, when I asked him “where’s your bed buddy?” He didn’t know. As I scanned the surface of his bed (I already had one wet hand and I don’t like surprises), my eyes, having adjusted to the dim light, perceived a brown shape that was not like the others (his sheets had pound puppies on it). Round 4! Little Guy insisted he only needed a towel and he could sleep on it. By that time, Hubby was conscious again and hearing the word “towel”, came to investigate. Repeat steps…only this time, the pile of soiled bedding went in the tub. Neither of us was in any shape to make it down 2 flights of stairs…and back up.

I stumbled out the door early, respectably dressed (no make up though…too dangerous. I might put an eye out…), and headed to the church. Big Guy and I only made one stop – for “caffeine”. The morning went well, except I question the Pastor’s judgment (every time) for asking me to speak in public (it’s even worse when I’ve had less than 4 hours of sleep…).

Little Guy, I’m happy to say, was happily playing video games with Daddy when I stumbled home, another large caffeine-filled hot drink in hand. I needed it – there were 2 pillowcases, 2 mattress covers, two and a half set of sheets, three blankets, two comforters, and a partridge in a pear tree an assorted pile of facecloths, towels…and one precious bed buddy…waiting to be washed.

Thank you, Vincent, for another “memorable” night!

Tool Time

Tags

family, home, home renovations, hubby, humour, tools

Hubby’s quote for the day: “I can destroy the porch and rebuild it in three days…if Home Depot has all the supplies I need.”

You can probably quote that old saying, “Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for day. Teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for the rest of his life.” I would love to see it applied to the use of power tools…something like “teach a man to use tools and he’ll build for a day. Teach a man to use power tools, and he’ll keep his wife happy building for her for the rest of her life”. I strongly believe that the ability to use power tools is a bona fide superpower, and it’s the duty of the men in my life to occasionally put that power to good use (you certainly don’t want me to use it – it won’t end well!). Actually, my father-in-law offered to come up sometime this summer to tackle a project. So last weekend, Big Guy and my in-laws descended on our small house so the “guys” could “redo” the back porch! Sounds simple enough…but I confess I wasn’t optimistic. Every project we have undertaken in our home: a) runs into problems; b) takes longer than expected; and, c) never seems to get finished. For example, we laid a new floor over the disgusting and dated retro linoleum in the kitchen several years ago…but we didn’t take into consideration that the height of the floor would increase just enough that when we put the fridge back, we couldn’t re-install the cupboards over the fridge. I’ve filled the gaping hole with decorative dishes. It was that or frilly curtains (shudder). Or when we gutted part of the basement to insulate it, we got the flooring and drywall in, but didn’t get to the ceiling tiles. “Life is what happens after you are busy making plans. –John Lennon”

So the 4 guys strapped on their tool belts, grabbed a hammer, popped on their caps, wiped their noses on their sleeves, and (cue AC/DC Back in Black) in slow-motion style, headed out the back door to “do this thing” Monday morning! Within minutes, the back yard was littered with all the crap that we had been storing on the back porch, along with power cords and power tools. Ah, the sweet screech of a reciprocating saw and a grinder in the early (not too early) morning air.

In December, 2007, BBC News reported that “men are naturally more comedic than women because of the male hormone testosterone”. I don’t know if I believe that or not. There was certainly a lot of testosterone around, but when the guys donned their work “uniforms”, I think they also donned a grumpy and condescending attitude. Certainly there was no guffawing when the reciprocating saw blade broke…and they didn’t have a replacement…and no stores were open because it was a holiday…I did what any wise woman would do – I cleared out. In fact, I left town Tuesday afternoon. So while they dealt with rotten wood Monday morning, I dealt with some of the rotten apples strewn over the back yard. The wasps were pretty humourless too.

Deconstruction: Working hard or hardly working?

The deconstruction was completed on Monday. The construction should have been done yesterday…but Home Depot didn’t have all the supplies we needed. Maybe next week?

Happy Weekend!

Bugs & Ladders

Tags

bugs, family, hubby, humour, spider

OK, I only screamed twice. What was the big deal?

I had just dumped out the bag of guinea pig shavings into a clean container, and I was fluffing the shavings, when the shavings sprouted a million legs and started running around the cage. It was horrifying.

Hubby yelled down, “bug?” (isn’t it nice that he can read the signs?), then “what do you need?” I was thinking of answering, someone to come and kill this bug, but I yelled up “bug spray or a big shoe”. He brought both but we can’t spray near the guinea pigs and I guess he didn’t feel like carrying them upstairs in a topless, plastic bin. So I had to stare at it while he went for a dustpan to scoop it into (my hero!). As he headed up the stairs, he told me I have to stop screaming, there are bugs everywhere and I should deal with it. Seriously? It’s not always the fact that there’s a bug, but that the bug has startled me and I react before I reach the logical conclusion that I’m not in imminent danger (or am I?) The more I thought about his harmless comment, the more distressed I became. I didn’t know whether to rip his head off and spit down his throat, or sit down and cry. I thought about pointing out the 2 recent bathroom encounters when I calmly pointed out the spiders and cringed in the corner. And what about the black spider on Saturday morning – I screamed (twice) but I killed it myself.

Then my thoughts went to a mean place. I wonder how he would have reacted had I shaken the ladder he was on Sunday morning? Ladders wobble – deal with it! [Did I mention that at 9 a.m. on Sunday morning, I climbed a ladder and was standing on the carport roof…in my Sunday dress, holding another ladder for Hubby? Happy Mother’s Day. At least it hadn’t started snowing…sideways…] But I’m not the vindictive type…maybe in a few years once the hormones kick in!

! I may have joked when we were first married, that my job in life was to make his a living nightmare. But it was just a joke. I told him that I don’t sit around all day thinking up new ways to annoy him, to which he replied, “you don’t have to…you have a natural talent”. I’ll take that as a compliment!