Friday, December 30, 2011

Wedded bliss {My spin on poetry. :)}

This is what it is..
a safe place to fall...
a warm summer breeze..
fuzzy socks on a cold night.
It's a tall glass of iced tea and hot cup of cocoa with little bitty marshmallows floating on top.
It's a gentle laugh, a subtle smile, a soft touch.
It's being full...happy...content.
It's being totally vulnerable and completely protected all in the same moment.
It's the highest high and lowest low having a shared center.
It's opening the world to all the possibilities and then closing the circle around the heart of it all.
It's deliberate when it needs to be and beautifully random when it can be.
It's the perfect balance of sophistication and innocence...of elegance and messiness.
It's a whisper and a shout...a song and sigh.
It's shelter from the storms and dancing in the rain.
It's finding yourself enmeshed in someone else and finding someone else enmeshed in you, two becoming one.
It's ups and downs, leaps and bounds, two steps forward and three steps back.
It's giving up on the idea of giving up.
It's war and peace and joy and grief.
It's where hope and reality meet.
It's pure and simple...and complicated.
It's looking into someone's eyes and seeing only yourself there.
It's looking into your heart and seeing only him there.
It's love...and all love promises.
A ring and a kiss.
This is what it is...wedded bliss.

Thursday, December 29, 2011

What part of 'vacation' don't you understand?

I am married to a very hard-working man, for which, I am very grateful.  He takes both his paying job and his job as keeper of the castle very seriously...maybe too seriously sometimes.  Like today, for instance...


I am on day #7 of my Christmas break (one of the very nice perks of being employed by a school system).  In those seven days, however, there has been very little down time for me.  If all the pre-Christmas activities...shopping, baking, wrapping, cleaning...and all the Christmas events...going to see my husband's parents, hosting the big family get together for my side of the family, having our traditional Christmas breakfast with our little family unit...and all the post Christmas tasks...getting mountains of empty boxes and shredded wrapping paper bagged up, taking down the tree and decorations, making a return to two weren't enough, our youngest son has had basketball practice every morning at 9am except on Christmas Eve and Christmas itself.  With all that, there has been little 'vacation' to be found in this break as of yet.  


So this morning, on day #7, we finally had the opportunity to sleep in, slow down and just have a lazy day.  Oh wait, remember that hard-working man I'm married to?  Yeah, well, he doesn't believe in a lazy day.  


As I sit in my office hiding from his to-do list, I can hear him repeatedly calling for our fifteen year old son to come help him as he tiles and grouts the shower in our main bathroom.  My son's response...or lack thereof...indicates to me he has the same opinion about my husband's incessant need to stay busy as I do.  


What's wrong with the occasional day of sheer and utter slothfulness?  Spending the day in one's jammies, watching made-for-tv movies, playing mindless games on Facebook...how can that be such a terrible thing?   Will the world stop spinning or the sun cease to shine if we just let everything go for a single day?  Can there be any real harm in just taking it easy and doing absolutely nothing of real value for just a 24 hour period?  


As I hear him working away, I almost feel guilty for just sitting here now...almost.  It isn't that I don't have a to-do list of mine own.  I haven't been to the grocery store in almost two weeks.  I need to get the Christmas decorations down to the basement.  The checkbook needs balanced.  These are all things I could easily do today that would satisfy his need for us all to stay productive while not causing me to feel overworked on our very first free day. 


Maybe I'll even go offer him a little help...or at least company...while he works.  He always seems to appreciate that.  And after all, I really do enjoy the fruits of his labor so it's the least I can do...literally, it's the least I can do.  <g>


I guess I should just give up the dream of a totally lazy day...at least until January 4th.  That's the one day he'll be back at work, but I'll still be on vacation.  :-)







Friday, December 2, 2011

Flushing Optional

We have two bathrooms in our house...ours and the boys'.  The boys' bathroom is actually the main bathroom for the whole house, but for all intents and purposes, it is the boys' bathroom. They mark this bathroom much in the same way a dog marks it's territory.  In addition to dribble marks on the floor in front of the stool, they also leave their mark with dried blue toothpaste in the sink (sometimes mixed with whiskers), dirty laundry draped over the tub, the daily newspaper scattered about and more often than not, an empty toilet roll sitting on the counter.  


For these reasons, I have often referred to this bathroom as the gas station bathroom and have refused to use it.  But just before Thanksgiving, my husband remodeled their bathroom and made it simply beautiful.  So today, I decided to give this not even two week old bathroom a try.  For the most part, it looked great.  But then I saw the tell-tell sign that it definitely is still the boys' bathroom.  The toilet had not been flushed.


I do not know why my sons consider flushing to be optional.  And in spite of their mantra, 'if it's yellow, leave it mellow; if it's brown, flush it down', I somehow doubt their actions have as much to do with water conservation as simple laziness.  


Unfortunately, that isn't the only thing my sons consider 'optional' around here.  My youngest often considers tooth brushing optional.  When it's to the point where his teeth and flesh are almost the same color, I feel compelled to inquire when he last brushed.  (Were I more gifted, I could probably answer that question by the hardness of the dried toothpaste in the sink.)  He will then, use the inside collar of his shirt to wipe off his teeth...as though that's a worthy substitute for actual brushing.


Putting sheets on their beds is also optional to the boys.  My mom often says it looks like an episode of 'Cops' around here because the mattresses are always exposed and their bedrooms look like they were ransacked.  I have no idea why they elect to sleep in the remains of their own sloughed off skin cells or why they feel at home in rooms that put the best frat houses to shame.  


Clothing is also optional around here much of the time.  I do not know why I cannot convince my boys that they are past the point where seeing them in their skivvies is cute.  One of them traipses through the house routinely in nothing but his undies, usually scratching himself as he goes.  But at least he refrains from letting it all hang out when we have company, unlike my youngest, who very recently made a trip through our dining room in just a sweatshirt and his underwear (why a sweatshirt with underwear, I haven't a clue) while I had several of my friends over.  Even when I shouted, "Hey, these ladies don't want to see that", he just shrugged and went on about his business.


Maybe these are just issues in our house.  Maybe they are just issues for mothers of sons.  Maybe they're the things that make for annoyances now but will make for funny memories somewhere down the road.  Who knows...I'm just glad I have my own bathroom.  :-)