Monday, January 21, 2008

Will It Be This Week?

...that it snows here?

LOL, just kidding. I know it won't, and I really don't want it to, as people just go wacko whenever it snows. That's a photo of the eastern sky this morning, taken on my back porch. Tres cloudy. The sun is usually blinding me, but not today. Hovering around 40 degrees, and I'm feeling very lucky. My heart goes out to you all enduring the below freezing weather, ugh!

Ok, back to what my title meant..."Will It Be This Week?"
...that I do everything I've planned for it?

I highly doubt it. Seeing as I plan way more than I realistically can do, that is. So, another new, fresh week for me to screw up, LOL. Dangit, why do I do that to myself?

I was thinking about that this weekend. Little things that set our moods, expectations, ways we judge ourselves (fairly or not so much) when we're not even looking. And ways we react without even fully ingesting what we are reacting to.

Heavy stuff. But here's my case in point before your eyes glaze over in utter confusion, lol. When Hubs and I got married, he already owned a home. He'd bought it with his first wife and kept it in the divorce.

And, it did not have a dishwasher, which I noticed right off the bat because I'd never lived without one. Even when I was a baby, we had one that rolled out and hooked up to the kitchen sink. No way was I gonna start living with one now, right? It was 1987, after all.

The week before our wedding, he took me to Conn's, had me pick one out, and then bought it, remarking, "Here's your wedding present."

Well, I thought he was trying to be funny. That was a joke, right? Uh, no, it wasn't. I decided to not make any drama over it, but I remember being a little insulted and just wrote it off to eccentric behavior on his part.

Now, from my first visit to Hub's parents' house, I knew his mom did not have a built-in dishwasher. She had the kind we had when I was a freakin' baby, except that her machine was not as old as I was by a long shot. I refrained from asking any questions as I didn't want to appear rude.

All these years go by, and I'm still just writing it off to eccentric behavior being genetic, okay? Cuz to my mind, no one in their right mind lives without a nice dishwasher, a built-in dishwasher.

This weekend, Hubs and I are talking about our new dishwasher and how I forget it's new and more modern and improved than the one we had for 10 years prior (the one after my wedding present one, which stayed in the house when we sold it in 1998). How I just automatically treat it like the old one, even though the new one is lots more powerful, yadayada.

Well, I make a quip about it being my third wedding present, and that hurts Hubs' feelings. I'm like, confused and ask him to explain.

Turns out, he had bought that first dishwasher for me as a sincere gesture of bigheartedness, because he was raised to be dead-set against them as a general rule.

"After all," he said, "my mom had to wait 20 years to get one."

Well, that just floored me. Not only did Hubs genuinely believe he was giving me more than his dad had given his mom, and a heckuva lot sooner, but I'd never even realised it! And, he'd never even realised that being against having a dishwasher wasn't even a belief he really wanted to own at all.

I swear, if O. Henry'd been sittin' there, he'd have had a new story line. It's just funny, we really do learn something new every day. LOL

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Hey, I have another layout on Scrap the Girls. I say this because you can, too. It just has to be a girl layout. It can be your child, but it can also be you or your mom or sister or friend. They want their readers to send them layouts. It's more like a reader's gallery than submitting and competing and all that crap that I avoid. So, if you visit that blog and believe in spreading your scrap love around, send them a few of your fave layouts about girls. You need to read the post to see what file size and where to send them, so check it out!
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Doesn't that look delish? Don't worry - it was. Food by Hubs, presentation by me. Another funny story here: he told me we were having mahi mahi. Now, call it a sixth sense, but something told me to ask him how he was cooking it. He was going to blacken it. I don't care for his blackened foods, but I'd never told him that. Now I was going to have to fess up, which I did. He got a little ticked, but begrudgingly said, well, I'll fry it in batter then.

Later, I go to make my plate for dinner, and what do I find? Pan-fried blackened fish. {Sigh}. He's just lucky it was delish, that's all I'm sayin...
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Now, what about this dish? It's called Simple Chicken and Sausage Gumbo. You can get the recipe HERE. This is a fave dish at Hub's workplace, and their food rivals any fire house, okay? If you are in the mood for gumbo, this is it.
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Did you ever know a dog that watched football? Our Reggie does. Here he is, catching the games yesterday with Hubs. I don't think Reggie knows how to yell at the refs, but when Hubs does, Reg starts howling. So, maybe I'm wrong...
Anyway, we've been trying to pay a lot of attention to Reggie and he's been lapping it up. I might pay a hefty sum to know what he's thinking. If he's missing Sheila, or even wonders where the heck she is. I know I'll never know this, but still, intriguing questions.

I do notice that he spends a LOT more time in the doghouse now. Granted, it's winter and cold, and that's where the space heater is. I will be curious to see if he continues once the weather warms. We always wondered if Sheila kicked him out of there, since we'd often find him outside when he was supposed to be sleeping...
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The 2peas blogger challenge for today asks: "If you set a New Years Resolutions, how are you doing with it?"

Well, I did not make any per se, but my WordQuad (Dare-->Bare-->Share-->CARE) implies my resolutions, since I'm trying to do more of those 4 things. And so far, I have:
1)dared to go through my "nice" dressy clothes and part with some outfits that I frankly looked silly in but had to have because the model looked great in it. I bared and tried them on first and looked in the mirror, I suppose to hope in vain that I didn't look silly, LOL. Anyway, I shared by donating them to charity when they called for home pickups. Gonna try to do that every time they call, til I get rid of all the silly stuff, and because I care.
2)Yeah, not gonna go thru the words in each case...that one above was just to show the process...I sent my layouts to Scrap the Girls, cuz they asked for them.
3) I've been keeping in touch with my IRL girlfriends more, as well as our couple friends.

Each of these have been conscious efforts, where my first response was not to bother. So, it's a beginning.

10 comments:

Noelia said...

Call me insane or call me what you want but I have a built-in dishwasher and I don't use it!! Maybe because it's old and doesn't wash properly or just because it's faster and easier to do the job myself, which again, call me insane but I quite enjoy hehehe

Lida said...

That is a great story about your husband and the dishwasher, it is really interesting to find out stuff like that. The food looks so yummy, I´m glad you didn´t freeze your heinie off and that dog is seriously good looking.
I´ll have to check out Scrap the Girls since I have several layouts featuring me and well I am a girl.
It would be hilarious something like a boob layout with the title Scrapping the Girls lol , oh now I´m just being silly....but what if?
Have an awesome week and I love it when you stop by, love your comments.

Sarah Coggins said...

Those two meals look so good! My stomach is growling! LOL Love the LO you sent to Scrap the Girls. So pretty. :)

Linda said...

Thanks for sharing the story about dh and the dishwasher. It always amazes me how differently men think. The food looks yummy! Off to check out Scrap the Girls.

Ryzmomplus2 said...

I always love reading here and getting some insight on just about everything. The dog watching TV is too cute too! Great story about the dishwasher - isn't it funny how we live in 2 different worlds sometimes.

Anonymous said...

It is funny to see how men think. I mean it's almost cliche about a man giving his wife a new vacuum or iron, or dishwasher. I think my problem is that I'm too forward - and I'll be the first to tell DH how I'm taking his gesture. But now, of course, you should see how skittish he is over questions like "don't I look better now that I'm exercising?" He'll tell me outright that there's no right answer, because if he says "yes" then that means I was fat before! Men and the doghouse - that's the topic for a few books right there!

csimmers said...

Love the post. Isn't it amazing how the meaning of something changes based on who is looking at it? I love the story about your husband. (Although I have to admit, I agree with you about the dishwasher.)

Have a great week!

Gina said...

Love that dishwasher story! I was totally siding with you on that, until I read your husband's perception of his gesture. I didn't change sides (I'm too loyal to you hun), but then I saw his viewpoint too! Makes me rethink the stand-up freezer I got for Mother's Day a few years back. LOL!!

I have to ask - who was your DH supporting in the game?

Congrats on another amazing LO on the STG blog. I am awed by the gorgeous stitching all the way around the scallops. Wow Aimes!!! It's a stunning LO all around. Great photo too!

csimmers said...

I had to leave another comment, because I just checked out your work on Scrap the Girls. I absolutely LOVE the graduation layout. The stitching is great. Looks like you might have pulled out one of your toys (sewing machine).

Kelley said...

I'd be happy to share some of our snow and sub-zero temps. We've had enough for the year.