It's not just your husband

On a recent trip to Austin, I had the pleasure of hanging out, sans kids, with some of my favorite gal pals. If there was one theme for the night it was husbands and their lack of common sense!


This doesn't mean that some of our husbands are complete morons ALL of the time. Nosiree. It means that ALL of our husbands are morons some of the time.


All the girls I hung out with are stay-at-home-moms, so in general, they are burned out and just looking for a little help and a break every so often. Not so much to ask right? Instead, we get husbands who think we nap all day long and have endless amounts of free time to do silly things like iron towels and discipline our children and sweep the floors.


All names have been changed in order to protect the innocent. Here are our stories.


Luanne: Her latest incident involved venting. Now we all know when we vent, we just want someone to listen to us...well, VENT. We don't necessarily want answers or "constructive" criticism. So Luanne's husband vents to her about his job. She's attentive, she listens, she empathizes with him. She has no answers nor does she pretend to. She's the perfect ventee. When Luanne decides she needs to vent, she naturally looks to her husband. He listens, he nods, he says "mmmm-hmmmm." But then, he launches into a long diatribe on how Luanne could and SHOULD fix the problem. Not only that, he pretty much makes her feel like she's a failure unless she fixes the problem ASAP. There are tears, hurt feelings, etc. If only he'd kept his mouth shut and just listened.

Jessie: Most recently, her husband did his business in the bathroom and left the toilet bowl a little less than sparkly fresh and clean. She kindly pointed it out to him and he readily agreed to clean it up. ASAP. That was 2 weeks ago. He even had a whole weekend at home with no wife, no child and he still didn't manage to get the tidy bowl out, although he did find time to obsessively iron! So the night before last (or sometime in the recent past) he asked her to clean the pantry and the linen closet - total nitpicking if you ask me. So they were about to leave to do some shopping when she mentioned the skid marks in the toilet again and he said he take care of it. While she waited in the car, he proceeded to clean the entire bathroom. Lovely timing, huh?

Lucy: Husband in point is a workaholic. They have a newborn. Currently, pretty much nothing he/she does is right. Need I say more?

Carmelita: Husband buys expensive items from Craigslist. Wife says nothing. Wife wants to buy high priced electronic item. Husband thinks it's ridiculous. Like a bear skin rug isn't ridiculous on so many levels. At least the item that wife buys will provide wonderfully, beautiful photographs of children who are growing at the speed of light. Plus, it was her birthday present!

So there you have it. Every one's husband has their flaws. You are not alone! Sure, every husband has his redeeming qualities, too. For instance, my husband is so easy going he let me shop at Target tonight, ALONE, for several hours. It didn't matter that I needed absolutely nothing. He never bugs me about my scrap booking habit or the fact that my laptop is permanently affixed to my lap.

So tell me, what are your husbands hang-ups? Or is he absolutely, without a doubt PERFECT all the time?

The Gift

The kids are in bed and I sit here ALONE. Alone for the first time in 10 days. You see, my husband works in Houston during the week (weirdo stalkers, I'm an armed woman, so don't even think about it!) and comes home on the weekends. It's not a traditional arrangement, but not as uncommon as you might think. Lots of men travel extensively for work, or work oversees for long periods of time, or offshore, or are in our fabulous miliarty protecting our country. I'm lucky that my husband comes home every weekend to mow the grass and fix whatever's broken and rub my feet!

Thanks to Ike (you see, there is a silver lining in every dark cloud) my husband spent 10 glorious days at home. Sure, he had to work, ALOT, but he was here. He was here to take BJ to school and pick him up. Here to for soccer practices and just farting around in the yard. He was here for breakfasts and lunches and dinners. Here to cuddle with Mia and change her diapers (woooohooooo!). For 10 solid days.

In the past 2 years, the longest stretch my husband has been home was when Mia was born in November of last year. He was home for 6 days, one of which was Thanksgiving. It was great, but let's face it, I had a baby. We were home, then we were in the hospital, then we were home, surrounded by family and friends and a tiny, sleepy, hungry, crying newborn. Yeah, I think I blinked and he was gone.

Sure, we've had several long weekends, and a 4 day stretch here and there. I've gone back to Houston regularly and spent a week at a time, but it's just not the same as being.together.at.home.

So now I sit here alone and missing my better half. It's amazing how much these past 10 days have recharged our marriage (not just in that way folks!!). What a GIFT! It's not that we have a bad marriage. Not at all. We have a very strong and trusting marriage, and you kinda have to in order to live in our situation without going insane! But we've been seriously lacking on the downtime, the hanging out in our pjs time, the eating popcorn on the couch and watching old home movies time. On the weekends we are so busy trying to not be busy that we miss out on alot of the things that normal families take for granted.

So, over the past 10 days, we took this gift (provided to us by a storm that ravaged the Gulf Coast of Texas) and we ran with it. We went shopping together, we had picnics, we went to BJ's school several time and had lunch with him, we did some landscaping, we cleaned our house, we watched home movies, we sat and talked, we laid on the couches and ignored each other! It was nice to have my partner, my husband, here to help me with the kids, and because he doesn't get to do it often enough, he was more than happy to step in and take over giving this worn out mommy a break!

These past 10 days also provided me with a unique opportunity. Me time. That's something I don't get alot of, my friends. To be honest, I get NONE. I take care of our two children alone during the week, and on the weekends it's all about family time. So I've been able to do some things on my own. Not big things, but small things.

Today, my dearly beloved (are you totally sick of the sappy husband-isms?) departed for Houston. He's back at his office, which ironically is without power again, after having power restored late last week. His condo is also without power. So now he has no idea what he's going to do. I told him he should just come back home, but he wasn't ready to turn around and drive 5 hours to get here. Just yet. But we'll see how it goes and how long it takes for the power to be restored. Maybe we'll get another gift of extended family time, which would be great considering BJ's 5th birthday is Wednesday and mine is the next day. No, not my 5th, but my 29th ;).

Tomorow we'll be back to our regular routine, and you know what, I'm kinda looking forward to it. Sure, I miss Brian like crazy, but I'm used to it and it's fine. And because the alternative to our current situation isn't even an option. There's no way I would move back to Houston. Never.ever.ever. Not after living in this paradise for the past 2 years, and certainly not after Ike plowed through our old backyard and utter devastation was left in his wake. I'm perfectly happy living in Leakey and seeing my honey on the weekends. Thankyouverymuch.

p.s. Mia turned 10 months old yesterday. Can you believe it? I'll post pictures soon! I promise.

So many things

I have so many things to blog about. So many. Just no time.

I want to tell you about Mia, and how she's growing so fast. How she's sitting up now and occasionally gets there by herself. I haven't seen her do it yet, but I'll turn around and she'll be sitting. Or she'll start crying in bed and I'll go in to check on her and she's sitting and confused as to how to get back to the sleeping position. I want to tell you how she's so tiny, still wearing size 2 diapers at 7 months old. That she smiles all day long and I wonder if her face must hurt from all the grinning. She loves her voice and loves to squeal and babble on and on. And that I think she's going to be like her brother and talk non stop. She's growing so fast is scares me. It makes me sad to know that she's our last and I feel like I need to soak up every single moment of her sweet preciousness. When I put her to bed at night, she snuggles so close to me I feel like she's trying to get inside of me. And I want her there again.

I want to rave about BJ and his inquisitiveness. His four year old wonder and awe of the world around him. His love of everything except bedtime and tomatoes. How he tells me at least 20 times a day that he loves me more than anything else in the world. The sweaty, boyish smell of him after a long day of play, and how wonderful and clean and soft he is just after his bath. His love of books and his odd choices of subjects at the library. His box of treasures, pieces of old glass that seem to be all over our property, acorns, fossils, and many, many rocks. How he brings me fistfuls of wild flowers almost daily and insists that we put them in a vase full of water. That he wants to be a helicopter pilot when he grows up, but that it might be too hard to learn. About his injuries, head wounds, scratches, and bug bites that seem to be endless.

I also want to blog about my business and how I'm so busy sometimes I feel like I'm missing out on all of the above. About the conscious effort I make each and every day to spend as much time away from my laptop and with my kids. But it's so hard when there is a never ending list of clients. And those clients, how wonderful each and every one of them is. How different and unique each design is. And my business partner, who is amazing and crazy and freaking hilarious. She makes me laugh at least 100 times a day. And inspires me just as much. About Arianne, the newest member of the Be Design family, and how she is such a perfect fit and fills a serious need for us. And that she makes me laugh almost as much as Beth.

And my friend, Lisa. My dear sweet friend. I could talk to her on the phone at least 4 times a day and share a slew of emails back and forth and we still have so much to say. I want to tell you how I wish she lived next door, so she could send her kids over when she needs a nap and vice versa. So we could sit up and eat ice cream together and watch TV late into the night. I would love to be able to go shopping with her to make those important decisions on bedding for the kids' rooms. Or furniture. Or baby clothes.

I also want to mention my husband and how hard he works and how I miss seeing him everyday. It's been almost 2 years that we've lived apart during the week. And while I feel, without a doubt, our marriage is stronger now, I still miss being able to unwind on the front porch with him and talk about our days after we get the kids in bed. Talk about the ups, the downs, and the in betweens.

And I want to blog about me. About how I never stop going. How in order to make everything above possible, I have to juggle a million things and work late into the night. And about how happy I am with everything, and with the exception of my lack of sleep, I wouldn't change a single thing. Except I would request that the damn raccoon that keeps getting into my trash can at night and spreading garbage all over my yard please stop. For the love of all that is good and peaceful. Stay out of my motherf..., well, you know, trash.

So that's what I've been wanting to blog about.