I finished my third and fourth quilts over the long weekend.  The third was for practice (a dog bed) and the fourth was the first one made from the fabric I ordered online.  It’s adorable and pink and I want to keep it.

After my fourth unplanned supply run (twice across town to Joann Fabrics, twice to the local Walmart), I had an epiphany, and it wasn’t an enjoyable one: it’s impossible to accurately plan when you don’t know what you’re doing… and I’ve been a b*tch to Joey about unplanned supply runs.

Being frustrated that you’re short by one stupid critical thing is bad enough (me: ran out of thread, need a rotary cutter; him: wrong valve, need more wood, can’t find the screws).  Being enthused about learning and trying to get it right (or a bit closer, at least) but falling just short is worse.

But the very worst thing is being frustrated and falling short and then having a mate give you shit about buying more stuff or spending a bit extra on the right stuff.  Or so I suspect, since my husband is sweet and doesn’t give me shit about it all.

I’m the b*tch giving him shit about the gobs of money we hand over to home improvement stores.  The hypocritical b*tch who has spent more than she wanted on supplies for the (completely optional, voluntary, and over-ambitious) Christmas Quilt-Giving Extravaganza.

So I apologized. 

I didn’t want to, not one little bit, and not because I don’t like apologizing (who does?) but because I just knew this apology would come back to haunt me during our next fight.  (It starts with, “Remember that time you were WRONG?  That time you said that you were the one who wasn’t accommodating and understanding and ______….”)

But it was the right thing to do, so I did it. 

I caught my husband on his way out the door to work on plumbing at the other house, held his hand, and apologized for giving him a hard time for spending so much money when clearly he wasn’t doing it just to make me stressed, but rather trying to do the best job possible while learning something new.  I promised to be more understanding – or at least more silent.

He was surprised.  Then he kissed me and went back to killing brain cells with the stinky plumbing glue.  And I went back to making quilts.

~~~

How was your long holiday weekend?  Did you survive all the family time with your attitude and grace intact?  Did you eat so much you felt food-drunk?  Did you shop?

We had the quietest Thanksgiving of my thirty years.  Really.  We spent the whole day alone (just the two of us) – no family gathering (his mom was sick), no turkey (we’re not fans), no big Thanksgiving meal (unless you count Cracker Barrel).  I was poopy about it until I remembered: I get to decide how I experience future memories.  So, we danced in the living room and giggled at the dogs and together dreamt of professional kitchen appliances. 

Like espresso, Thanksgiving alone together is an acquired taste.  Everything we are is distilled to its most potent form, so it takes some adjusting.  No families to distract, no drama to avoid, nothing but he and I and our relationship.

It was good! (After the first few metaphorical sips.)

Friday night we made our own (much better) version of the traditional meal, with ham instead of turkey, cheesy buttery mashed potatoes, and nothing else because we forgot to make any other sides and were too hungry to wait any longer.

~~~

Once upon a time I was with this guy – this funny, sweet, kind, good-looking guy – who drove me nuts and made me want to throw things.  Or run.  Or scream.  Or something.

But I knew I loved him, and I wanted to make things work.  No, I was certain we had to make things work.  This was the guy for me, so we could either drive each other nuts and be miserable or try to find the skills we needed to understand each other better.  And not fight.

I went through armfuls (and SUV-fuls and bedside table-fuls) of books.  Some were nutty, some were depressing, and some were entirely too maudlin and blame-your-parents-for-everything.  Some, though, some were magical in how they opened up my world to a new way of thinking.

With the holiday season fast approaching, I’m sharing them with you in the hopes that someone in your life has an eye-opening moment, too.  The widget in the sidebar has been updated, too.

1.  The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate by Gary Chapman

You’ll have to ignore the cheesy cover picture and if you’re not religious, the religiousy prose, but it’s totally worth it.  Totally and completely worth it.  I’d bet you show your love in the way you want to receive love, and so did I, until I read this book.  But lo and behold, the things that make me feel loved aren’t the things that make my husband feel loved.  Who knew?  Gary Chapman, evidently.  So now when I want to show my husband how I feel about him, I clean the kitchen.  Or rake the leaves.  Or clean out his car.  His love language is Acts of Service.

What’s yours?

My husband read my copy, but as he pointed it, it’s a little bit “girly,” so I was thrilled to find a new version just for men.  Yay!

2. Ten Lessons to Transform Your Marriage by Dr. John Gottman

 

With empirically validated research, Dr. Gottman’s book is a real page turner.  No, seriously.  From the moment he stated that it’s not how often or how loud couples fight that matters, it’s just how they fight, I was hooked.  I often remind myself to recognize repair attempts during our arguments, and I just realized my Drop-It lesson comes from this book!  Please read.  References to this work appear in all sorts of other books I love, like “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell and “SuperFreakonomics” by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, but the book stands all by itself as a useful, practical, necessary relationship book.

In tough times, I’ve been known to run crying to the bookshelf to frantically flip through it for advice.  If that doesn’t say something important….

3.  Don’t Shoot the Dog! The New Art of Teaching and Training by Karen Pryor

Okay, fine, this isn’t a human-human relationship book, it’s a human-dog relationship book, but don’t discount it just yet.  Learning the principles of behavior modification to use with my puppy, I suddenly realized how I might be more effective with my husband… not because he’s like Indy, but because the communication challenges for me are the same whether I’m trying to get my husband to hear me or my dog to understand.  I try to talk my way through anything, but reading this book reminded me that often, it’s more effective to act.

Interestingly, the original title of the book was “Don’t Shoot the Dog: How to Improve Yourself and Others Through Behavioral Training: How to Improve Yourself and Others Through Behavioral Training.”  Much more appropriate, I think.

Funny story: my husband is now reading this thanks to an agreement brokered in the middle of our last argument about disciplining the little hoodlums, and I’m not sure I like the situation.  I think I’ve noticed him trying to mark my behaviors and offer positive reinforcement!

4.  I Love You, Ronnie: The Letters of Ronald Reagan to Nancy Reagan by Nancy Reagan

Politics and crazy parenting dynamics aside, I love Nancy and Ronald Reagan as a couple.  Reading through his letters, I forgot he was a grown man – President of the United States of America, even – because he was so funny and silly and in love.  Boots-on-the-ground kind of practical advice is all well and good, but remembering to be silly, to be in love, to insulate ourselves as a couple from the outside world, these are good lessons.  And apparently you can buy it for a penny, so why not?

Have you read any of these?

I suck at finishing things.  I get all caught up in the rush of ideas, buy $150 worth of fabric, then don’t finish.  Okay, in this case, not $150, but because of start-up costs (new presser foot, scissor sharpeners, etc), these baby quilts cost me more than… well, you get the picture.

But I finished one!

It turned out a bit smaller and a lot thicker than I’d planned.  I think we can call it a changing pad or crib blanket – it’s too thick to really wrap around a baby, but the perfect thickness to put under or on top of a baby.

The flannel held up really well in the washer and dryer (cold water, low tumble). 

My biggest frustration, though, was the “binding.”  I thought it would be easier to just roll the thick stuff over and sew it down.  By “easier,” I mean “not requiring another trip all the way across the city to come up with a better option.”  But holy heck, those corners were way too thick for my poor machine.  I broke two needles and my will in the process of sewing them down, then had to hand-stitch them anyway because they came loose in the wash.

Argh!

I had to walk away, do something else, then reassess… because halfway through every DIY I’ve ever attempted, I want to give up and buy something made by an expert.  I want to make things for people because of the sentimentality, but I don’t want them to LOOK handmade, ya know?

Anyway, I wrapped this into a little bundle, tied it with a ribbon, and delivered it (along with freezable containers of homemade spaghetti sauce) to our neighbors.  They seemed to like it enough, I guess, but I could have just taken the food sans blanket and it would have been okay.

Oh, well! 

Now I have one more of these to make for my favorite neighbor baby (oops – my first favorite neighbor baby) for Christmas.  With different binding.

 

I tore out the wonky picture frame thing around the fireplace.  It was solid wood – mahogany.  Doesn’t make it any less ugly, though.  And the stuff around the fireplace?  Two solid slabs of crab orchard stone.  My first thought was that I was right, it was solid slabs of stone.  My second thought was, crap, now I can’t, in good conscience, paint it.

But I did paint the wall and bookshelf (note: the wood shelves are permanently attached in some crazy godforsaken way).

While the first coat dries, I’m off to play at Benjamin Moore.  Any suggestions for a (free) software program that’ll let me mess with the proportions of the fireplace?  I think it needs a tall mantle.  And while I’d love to not trim it out, there’s a gap between the stone and the plaster.  Yes, plaster.  Not drywall, like in normal homes.

More tomorrow.  Smoochies for all the suggestions.  I’m not NOT painting that wall something other than white, but I have white so I’m painting it white for now.

Update: the second coat on the first third of the second wall is now complete.   Valspar’s Ultra Premium Ultra White in Eggshell is nice.  I still think I prefer Glidden, but we were at Lowe’s so I went with it.  Because it’s so thick, one gallon only covered one half of the loooong hallway and one third of this wall, which is a bummer, but I’ll stick with it… since I have no choice now (ever tried to match whites? DON’T).

First-world kind of “rough,” yes – or more precisely, “cushy first-world in the suburbs with a good job and relatively minor problems” kind of rough, but rough nonetheless.

God, how I suck at deciding.  You have no idea.  Proudly, I have a handful of coping mechanisms – asking the server to choose my meal, asking my husband to choose the paint, avoiding decisions as long as possible – but I still often end up frozen in indecision.  I’m one of those consumers that needs a sale or a coupon or a friend to push me into buying something.  I can’t shop alone.

New coping mechanism: asking blog readers for input!

I can’t decide what to do with the stupid fireplace wall, and I’m determined to do SOMETHING with it before Thanksgiving.  Yes, in two days (eek)!  I’ve painted it gray, blue, white, smoke (seriously, looked like a smoker hacked up onto the walls) and I’m three minutes away from going back to white.

Oh!  I forgot about the chalkboard paint.  Behold:

Yea, ew.  It was fun for Halloween, but the contrast-y drama I was going for didn’t happen.

I like contrast.  I like drama.  I love that Tulip chair.  I half-love the bench (which needs some lovin’, I see).  The brown couch stays because it’s indestructible.  The big black coffee table and ginormous TV stay because, well, all I can handle right now is paint.

I like Morgan’s place (who doesn’t?) but she doesn’t have original wood trim or badly proportioned fireplaces.  Oh!  Maybe the fireplace needs a more vertical mantle?

I like Kitka Design’s place (again, who doesn’t?… and again with the lack of wood trim and ugly fireplace):

And I like these (oh, forgive me, I have no sources, so if they’re yours, speak up and I will credit… *gulp*):

 

I think the one below is my favorite of the bunch, though it’s also the least like mine.  And it needs more yellow, or orange, or red, or turquoise, or SOMETHING to give it more life.  But I love it, still.

So I spent way too much time (correction: am spending) on Benjamin Moore’s website playing with paint colors, and now I need your help.

Just FYI, the hallway, previously a barely-almost-mint green (ew) is now white.  Ultra-white, which I’m now freaking out about, because I could have gone with normal white but then at the last minute I couldn’t decide so I made Joey choose, and he (being a man) could have cared less and arbitrarily chose Ultra White… *deep breaths.* 

See what I mean about the freaking out?

So, easy option A:

Oh, I covered the fireplace grate with some random flesh color and now I don’t recall why.  Please ignore.

Option B, which would require me to paint the other two walls something other than blue, which would then necessitate replacing of the curtains, which are a dirty cream color and would not at all work with bright white walls:

 

{Benjamin Moore’s Instinct from the Affinity line = $$}  The theory here is that with a soft gray-blue, the redness and ruddiness of the fireplace isn’t as ugly.  I’m chickening out about painting it (more on that later).

Option C (requiring the same stuff as option B, but I’m willing if it means I don’t have to paint this room again):

{Benjamin Moore’s Metropolitan}

Option D:

{Benjamin Moore’s Eternity}

The grays look great on screen but concern me, since we’ve already painted gray and then figured out the gray was contributing to many “blah, blah, I just wanna sleep” kind of days.

Liz suggested painting the fireplace all black, which freaks me the hell out, frankly, but here’s what it looks like:

Crap, I hate that fireplace.  The proportions are off, or the bookshelves are off, or something.  ARGH!  Seriously, I think I’m going to just paint the walls white and leave the fireplace alone.  It’ll look just like it did when we first moved in, except less “old.”  {Cue the freaking out about the Ultra Freaking White.}

Oh, how I hate coming full circle.

Thoughts?  (Other than: drink wine; it’s five o’ clock somewhere.  Don’t think I haven’t thought that already.)

The fights between my husband and I have improved – if you can call anything about tempers and raised voices “improved,” and you know I think you can – but it feels like there’s a cost, one I struggle with.

To minimize the depth and length of our fights, I shut up.  This morning he was grumpy because he didn’t sleep well.  When he doesn’t sleep well, he blames me, the dogs, cats, sun, noise, neighbors, weather… you get the picture.  Today it was my turn.  He didn’t sleep well because I stayed up late doing some Christmas-related shopping on my laptop (under the covers, suffocating so he wouldn’t have to deal with the light, just fyi).

Whew, went off on a bit of a tangent, sorry.  The point is, he was short-tempered and pissy, and he yelled.  I yelled back.  This seems fair to me. 

Then he cussed.  I didn’t.  This seems like growing up to me. 

Then, because I was hurt, but instead of yelling and trying to make him see this, I just shut up.  I turned my head, pet the dog, and shut up.

Shutting up isn’t my way.  Explaining, defending, standing up – that’s my way.  Shutting up feels like giving up.  In the context of an argument, to me it means, “You’re not worth it to me.”  And that’s certainly not true.

So when I shut up, it feels like I’m scheming, strategizing, manipulating the situation so that he’ll feel bad (which he will) and apologize.  Shutting up feels like we’re doomed to repeat the same cycle over and over again because he still doesn’t understand my side.  Shutting up feels fake.

Except that sometimes, in a tiny glimmer of understanding, shutting up feels like giving myself room to breathe.  In the silence, I listen to my heart beat.  At first, it’s fast and thumping, overwhelming and angry, inciting me to do something, say something, STOP BEING A WIMP.  But the longer I listen, the slower it becomes.  I pet the dog — in the rhythm I want to feel, not the one threatening to take over my mouth.  Eventually my brain comes back.  I can breathe, I can think, and while I’m still angry and hurt, I can wait for him to figure it out on his own.

It’s scary, sure, but I remind myself that I can’t teach if he’s not trying to learn, and anyway, who appointed me the teacher?  So I’ll continue to work on my impulse control (something I need to work with my dogs on, too) and he can work on… well, whatever.  Or not.  He’s an adult.

 {Gratuitous dogs-and-husband-running-like-maniacs picture.  Just ‘cause.}

I get paid every two weeks.  When things are good and my life is under control, every other Friday finds me sitting in front of my spreadsheet paying bills.  Honestly, it’s fun.  I like to know what’s going on, like to feel like everything’s under control, like to update the numbers and see the total balances fall.

But sometimes, when my life is out of control, I don’t.  My call schedule pushes into the late evening, I still have hundreds of pages of documents to review, and I really want to go to happy hour.  And the bank has run out of the handy dandy little tiny checkbook registers, the ones tiny enough to fit in my wallet so that I actually bother to note what I’ve spent.

Also, I hate to say no to my husband.  I know, I know, that’s silly.  I’m neither his mother nor Santa Claus, but sometimes he mentions that he wants something and I volunteer to pay.  Most of his money goes to two places: Home Depot/ Lowe’s and eating out.  The former is unavoidable; the latter is mostly to please me.  I pay for little things that make him happy, even though he would happily accept a “sorry, can’t.”  Hell, half the time, he’s joking about wanting something or just mentioning it in passing.

Before I know it (except I have that low-level “uh, oh” stress going on the whole time), I have no idea what’s up with my account, except for being certain I’ve overspent.  Somewhere.  Everywhere. And that we aren’t making nearly as much progress on paying shit off as we should be.  The disappointment and self-recrimination are enough to make me give up…

… but I don’t.  I take breaks, I walk around, I blog, but eventually I finish, because I’ve finally learned that low-level stress is both avoidable and completely sucky.  I’d rather deal with the discomfort and get through it than live with the discomfort and avoid it.

Other things I should do but don’t:

• Return my dad’s phone calls.
• Call my husband’s doctor.
• Call my own doctor.
• Go to yoga. (I pay for the membership every month, but I haven’t been in almost a year!)
• Start working before 8.  (Okay, okay, NINE!)
• Shower before I start working.
• Pay in cash.

So I’m curious: are there things you know you should be doing – for your mental, physical, emotional well-being – but you don’t do them anyway?

Remember this guy?

He looks like this now!

 

   

Lamp Shady!

Now he needs a home!

We went to Sears to get a doodad for my quilting project and decided to wander around the appliance department.  Big mistake.  Within minutes, my husband found the biggest, priciest, most tricked out refrigerator in the place and was in love.  Deep, deep in love.  He actually impressed me – kinda – with his ability to spot the most expensive appliance in the place, then try to convince me that we really need the semi-pro gas range with cast iron grill pan, or the convection microwave with removable tray and super exhaust fan, or the Jenn Air convection wall oven.  Evidently we need $12,000 in appliances.

This from a man who cooks frozen pizzas and tacos.  Exclusively.

Oh, lordy, shopping for appliances is going to be fun!  (Ahem, not.  My cheap-ass cringes at the thought of a full priced “semi-pro” anything.  Marketing, blah.)

But we did end up talking about kids, something we do quite often lately.  And that got me thinking about all the things I never would have guessed grown-ups could do, which is a roundabout way of saying I don’t think we’re really grown-ups yet.

Things I Didn’t Know Grown-Ups (Still) Did:

Dry off after a shower with a t-shirt because nobody remembered to put towels in the dryer.

Stick the trash can in a closet because they just don’t feel like taking it outside right now.

Leave piles of clothes on the floor in the bathroom long enough that the cats start to nest (it takes three days, by the way).

Find scraps of wood, dog bones, rawhide, and a random sock hidden carefully within the covers of their bed… then climb in and go to sleep anyway.

Wear two different socks because a) they’re clean, b) they’re available, and c) they’re wearing boots anyway.  Same deal with swimsuit bottoms as underwear.

Forget when they last washed their hair.

Drop food on the floor and let the dog(s) lick it up; it’s easier to clean up that way.

Search high and low for their keys, then find them in the door/ on the porch/ in the shower.

Drink beverages exclusively for their caffeine or alcohol content.  Exclusively.

Find a strange kind of satisfaction in sweeping up piles of animal fur so large, the cats hiss at them.  (Note: this happens every two or three days.)

These are not things people with kids should do, especially kids who crawl on floors and lick tables and chew on random found objects.  When our favorite neighbor baby comes over, we hang out outside.  People, it’s safer and cleaner outside than inside!

I’m reminded of this post by Benjamin Wagner (although I suspect he prefers people to read his blog for the rock ‘n’ roll, I read it because of his divorced kid’s point of view on marriage):

Before I met Abbi (the first woman, it should be noted, with whom I’ve shared a roof), I did laundry only when I ran out of underwear. Before I met Abbi, I did the dishes only when I ran out of pint glasses. Before I met Abbi, I swept the floor only when I could see the crumbs.

It’s an interesting thing to be changing my behavior in an effort to be a better teammate. Given my druthers, I’d watch Nova or Frontline on DVR. Left to my own devices, I listening to NPR and blog.

But this marriage thing is my new reality, and calls upon me to step up my game. Accordingly, today I unloaded the dishwasher, took out the trash, ran three loads of laundry and washed the windows (and watched Frontline, and blogged). I don’t relish this new, hyper-vigilance. But I relish being considered a good partner, even if I do mope about it in only half-jest.

Though I must admit, the carpet sure does look nice. And it’s a real treat to be able to get into bed without wiping my feet.

What do you still do that you never thought grown-ups did?

My best peep posted recently about not having a blog niche, something most of us blogger types think about periodically.  I think it’s especially challenging for those of us who started blogging about weddings and then had to find a new focus, but I’m betting it’s a universal challenge.

Here’s the thing: I don’t read your blog because it has a niche, I read it because you have a personality.

I was thinking this morning about wordiness and editing and how my posts have gotten longer and longer and longer and… you get the picture.  Honestly, I’m not sure I would read my own posts if they weren’t mine.  That’s how long they are.

When I wrote for Weddingbee, I tried to have a point, if only that being engaged and planning a wedding and being in a relationship is hard.  On this blog, I still try to have a point, but boy, oh, boy does it take me a while to get there.

But that problem isn’t a blog problem, it’s a me problem.  I am a wordy person who struggles to get to the point before I get distracted by a peripheral thought.  I have to remind myself to get there first, then embroider.  Tell the story, then follow up everything else.  Pick a direction and stick with it.

I blog because writing helps focus my thoughts.  I rarely know how a post is going to end when I start and I’m often surprised by how well I found my point.  I’ve found gratitude, sentimentality, and depth I don’t often exhibit in real life by writing about real life.

I blog because I feel more connected.  Life can be tough and until very recently, I thought I was broken because I struggled.  Ridiculous!  But without a network of female friends, I assumed everyone else got it right and I was broken.  Hearing from you that you can relate is such a relief.

I blog because you might feel more connected.  Boy, there are so many things we don’t talk about, not publicly, not to the people who matter.  Fighting with our spouses, growing up, playing Twister, wishing sometimes that we were anywhere but here in this life… these are not things I chat about with my neighbors.  I don’t doubt that it’s my personality – all chit-chat, little depth with most people – but I do my best to be brutally honest about my life because somewhere, someone might read it and think, “Hey, I’m not as fcuked up as she is!” 

The research scientist Irene Pepperberg taught Alex the parrot the kinds of things that changed the way we thought about language and learning (he could add, sound out words, understand concepts like bigger, smaller, more, fewer, and none). 

{It’s really quite breathtaking.  Here’s a YouTube video of Alex and Alan Alda on PBS.  If you want to read more, read “Alex and Me” by Irene Pepperberg.}

She wasn’t convinced that animals learned only through conditioning – as many behaviorists believed.  If that was the case, every prey animal would get eaten!  Instead, she and her research assistants taught Alex using a model/ rival program of training: the principal trainer would ask the secondary trainer to name an object, and the secondary trainer would model right and wrong answers and be rewarded or scolded appropriately.  Then they’d switch.  The upshot is that Alex saw the behavior he needed to learn and the resulting response and learned very quickly under the system.  {The other trainer also functioned as a rival for the desirable object being used in the training.}

I’ve done the conditioning approach to learning, and as I said yesterday, I’m not willing to go through another marriage to get it right.  Sure, I can make little mistakes and learn from them, but we learn, too, from our peers.  In fact, some research indicates that the “nurture” part of the nature versus nurture equation is more affected by a child’s peers than her parents.

I blog because you are my peers and I am yours.  No, you can’t really know me by only reading my blog, but you can certainly “get” me.  It’s my essence.

In the same way, I read yours because I get a sense of who you are, in a way not easily replicated in real life.  I get to see through your eyes, hear about it in your words, experience your life as you do… even if all I see is a small slice of your life.  And I learn.

So the next time I find myself wondering if I should focus my blog, find a niche, write for a specific audience, I’m going to remind myself that people like me read blogs for the person on the other side. 

But I am going to try to get to my point more quickly.