The Standoff

My hubby and I get along most of the time. We do not see eye to eye on the laundry, however. He believes the following things about laundry:

1. There is only one load, everything. Sorting is irrelevant.
2. Everything should be washed with hot water and lots of bleach. The more bleach the better.
3. Folding and putting away clothes is a waste of time.

And, he doesn't want to change. He doesn't care if he has a pink shirt or bleach stains on his pants. I, on the other hand, don't particularly like these "side effects" on my own clothes.

Luckily, I don't mind doing laundry. And because I am mildly OCD about organization, I like to have separate baskets of white and colored laundry. I don't mind carrying it downstairs, washing it, drying it (or hanging it out to dry when I have time), taking it back upstairs, folding it and putting it away. In fact, normally it doesn't faze me at all to do this. As long as I carry something every time I go up or down, the laundry pretty much stays caught up.

That is until I put my husband's clothes away. Our room has a very small closet. Seriously small. So we have a couple of wardrobes for our clothes. I put the clothes away, folded, and stacked. And my husband roots through his and makes a huge mess. Some fall on the floor. Now, being that he is freaky over germs, he feels that these clothes must be washed again or left on the floor until they are dirty enough to wash again. Which means, immediately.

This has made putting his clothes away, quite frustrating for me. I asked him to at least try not to unfold and make such a mess. I begged. I may have yelled. Okay, I yelled. And, nothing happened.

So, last summer, I stopped. We had reached a standoff.

I started stacking all his folded clothes in our Pack-N-Play. To my chagrin, he actually liked this. He could root around and nothing would hit the floor. I even stopped folding them. (Really, what is the point when he just messes them up?) My folding time was cut in half, at least.

For awhile, we were both happy. Until, he started to drop clothes all over the floor when he was looking for something. I then moved the Pack-N-Play into the hallway so I didn't have to look at it. This, too, seemed better. Out of sight, out of mind. It wasn't a mess I could see, so I felt much less annoyed by it.

But, by last month, it was all I could take. Clothes were everywhere. I was constantly being asked were this pair of pants were or that shirt was. I was finding clean clothes in the laundry all the time. Clean as in they had just been washed. Dirty because they hit the carpet during his daily search for clothes. There were no matched socks.

I stopped letting people go upstairs. I was embarrassed of the mess. Not my husband, he didn't care! In fact, I debated about taking a picture of the Pack-N-Play filled with clothes. But, frankly, it put me over the edge. I started thinking that I was going to need powerful drugs just to be able to write about this situation.

So I gave in and I ended up sorting, hanging, and folding all the clothes and putting them away properly.

I thought I would teach him a lesson. Make him see the error of his ways. And do you know the only comment I heard after everything was neat and clean was, "Hey, what did you do with the Pack-N-Play? I liked that thing!"

I thought about taking my own life at that point. Seriously.

Anything ever backfire on you?

I got married on Mardi Gras

I got married 2 years ago today and it was Mardi Gras. In any other little town, that would not matter at all. In our little town, we throw down for Mardi Gras. Well, we throw down in a very small town kind of way. Hokey parade and costumes. It's pretty hilarious. I moved to this town in 1984 and have attended every single Mardi Gras since (that would be all but the very first one).

I did not plan to get married on Mardi Gras. I planned to get married on my grandmother's birthday (which is also today). I wanted to elope. My husband wanted a wedding. He got his way. We had a small ceremony and reception at our church. We had planned on going to a downtown restaurant afterwards with our family and have dinner. But, 3 weeks before the wedding the restaurant called and cancelled, because it was Mardi Gras.

I freaked out some. Then I decided that I couldn't miss Mardi Gras, I mean, I had never ever missed a Mardi Gras. So, we thought we would have everybody walk down to the parade after the ceremony and then come back to our house for a small party. My mom stopped at a little store downtown to pick up a very pretty Mardi Gras mask for me. She ended up telling the owner of the shop about what happened. She immediately called her son, a firefighter, and arranged to have the hook and ladder truck that was leading the parade be decorated with "Just Married" signs and for us to ride the parade route in the bucket. Then she insisted on reserving her storefront for everyone who attended the wedding. She even decorated for it.

Seriously. I am not even making this up.

So, that is what we did. Our guests enjoyed a cake and punch reception and then went to the Mardi Gras parade (with reserved seating)! We got a ride to the firehouse and climbed into the bucket truck and led the parade. I have to admit, I kind of felt like the whole thing was a party just for us. And, let me tell you, when you have beads, you have POWER. People go pretty crazy for some plastic beads. My hubby and I kept kissing each other just to avoid throwing all of our loot before we got to the end of the parade (and because we just got married, of course)!

The truck dropped us off with our guests near the end of the parade route and we watched the parade with our family and friends. We also got interviewed for a story in the local paper, yes there is proof. Then we rendezvoused at our house for a party. (I had Mardi Gras wedding shirts printed for RM, myself, and THE Princess so we had a quick costume change.) We had Turducken (a chicken in a duck in a turkey, seriously), jambalaya, gumbo, and kings cake. We partied into the wee hours. It was kind of a crazy wedding. But fun.

So, if you ever need a fun day to have a wedding, plan for the LW Mardi Gras. Or not, it's a little unorthodox. But it's fun!

Oh crap. Seriously.

No, this picture has nothing to do with my post. I was just proud that during the King of the Jungle's bat-ma-tism (as THE Princess says) he did not scream bloody murder. This was just seconds after he made "the face" and I thought it would all go downhill from there. Luckily, it did not. Pheww....

So, now, the oh crap part of my post. (Doesn't it seem like many of my posts are the "oh crap" sorts?) Such is my life, I suppose.

So, in my little world, February has turned into quite the eventful month. I had planned on not doing a lot. But, more quickly than I imagined, it has become busy. The one thing I had planned on was this coming weekend. This weekend, my grandparents, turn 88 and 90. My PopPop has his birthday on Friday and my Mimi (or GG for Great Grandma - now) has her birthday on the 17th. Valentines is sandwiched right there in the middle. And, my own anniversary is also on GG's birthday.



How slick is it that I get to squeeze 2 holiday's and a couple of birthday's together? Mostly, because for valentines and our anniversary, I must get gifts for my darling husband. That sounds like something I don't want to do and really, I do want to get him gifts. Really.


The thing is that I never know what to get my husband. He likes airplane stuff. Not, airplane themed items like clocks and signs. No he likes actual airplane items. Like, for use or installation on an actual airplane. Altimeters, gyroscopes, wires and other technical items. The last item he requested was a digital scale for weighing out the components of his aviation glue. (I swear this is not made up.)

In fact, after using the camera this weekend this is a small sampling of the pictures I found.

There were like 150 various shots of this sort. Engine components and parts along with an engine mount (I had to ask to find out). Not a living soul (not even the dog) in the bunch.

It's not exactly romantic. And neither are socks and underwear, which is my default gift for his stocking at Christmas.

But, my husband has made it easy on me, finally! He now buys his own gift. Seriously. A new airplane something or other. He even let me see a picture of it. It pretty much looks like one of the pictures above. And it has a fantastically technical name that I can't remember. I just call it a "thingy" or "whatyamacallit."

That makes my life so much easier. That leaves me trying to figure out a unique Valentine my children can give to their friends. That is something I can do.

THE Princess gets tired of making valentines after about the second one, which last year, left me with about 30 more to make.

The package arrived this weekend. I ordered personalized Fruit Roll Ups with my kids pictures on them and the message, "you are so tweet" with a little birdy graphic. I was trying to stay away from candy (not that a fruit roll up is much better) and have something fairly personal.

They actually look better in person...who knew that taking a picture of a fruit roll up would be so difficult. (The shininess of the fruit roll-up does not help my sad photography skills at all.)

Okay, so even if you don't order any, get on over to My Fruit Roll-Ups and design your own. It's pretty fun!

So, I am a bad, bad wife. No gift for my hubby on Valentines/Anniversary. Well, not a gift actually picked out and paid for by me. Or, maybe it's his way of giving me a gift. Sort of. I think. Heck, I don't know. I am just glad I don't have to pick out a gyro-aileron-triple beam balance for him. Seriously.