25Aug
Our housewarming party on Saturday was a huge success. We had lots of friends – new and old – who filled our house with lots of love and warm, gooey, goodness. I was a little worried because we invited people from all different groups of friends and so I wasn’t sure how everyone would mesh, but I think the meshing was good. Chris worked the grill like a pro, and I served Martha Stewart’s homemade lime wine spritzers like it was my job.
And I have to say that there were so many compliments on the house (but what else would people say at a housewarming party??). Everything they commented on was something Chris and I had fought about.
“This paint job is fabulous!” – Why, thank you. My husband almost kicked me out of the house when I refused to use a drop cloth.
“I love the color of your living room!” – Why, thank you. I made Chris sleep on the couch for a week until he would compromise on the color.
“Your yard looks fantastic!” – Why, thank you. I was searching the Yellow Pages for a divorce lawyer while Chris laid the mulch.
And every time a comment was made, Chris and I would just laugh and laugh until the guest moved on and then one of us would mutter, “I freaking told you so…”
I do need to give credit where credit is due though. Our house really did look fantastic. And the yard was all the rage. I thought Chris’ head would just pop off right there next to the grill if one more person said how great it looked. He did good, that husband of mine, and in the end I’m glad we didn’t divorce over something silly like mulch or honeysuckle vines. Especially because there are much bigger things out there for us to argue about…like laundry.
After the crowds left, we had a small group of our closest friends who came up from New York stay the weekend. This is the group of people who have been in our lives since we were in high school. They were Chris’ best friends since childhood and in the past 4 or 5 years, they have become some of my closest friends as well. We’ve experienced just about every major life change with them. They were there when Chris and I first started dating, and when we broke up, and when we got back together, and when we broke up, and when we got back together. They stood next to us on our wedding day. They were there when we graduated. They were there the day we closed on our new house. We’ve been through break ups, marriages, funerals, bad haircuts, depressions, incredible successes, and just about everything in between together. To say they are more than friends is really an understatement. They are as close as family, and – like so many events in our lives – the weekend would not have been complete without them. I know that in the next few years there are many changes coming – maybe some weddings, maybe some babies, maybe some new jobs, maybe some moves. And it makes me smile inside to know that these people will be there for it all.
So, it was a good weekend. New friends and old friends. Beer cans and hamburger buns. Questionable croquet games and cornhole tournaments. It was just the kind of celebration that you want to kick off a whole new chapter in your life.
What can I say? A house just isn’t a home until your friends litter it with beer bottles.
21Jul
This weekend Chris worked on our basement. He painted and cleaned and built stuff. I left him alone for most of the time because he seemed to have it under control. And because there are no AC units in the basement and its hot down there. But around 1:00 on Saturday, I started to get bored, so I moseyed on down to the basement to offer my painting services. It was miserable. I literally painted myself into this tiny corner and when I tried to turn around, I knocked over a bookcase of stuff, breaking my favorite oil burner. Glass went everywhere, including into the paint can. I reacted the only logical way I could think of:
I got mad at Chris.
So, I thrust the paint brush into his hands and stormed off. Looking around for my next project, I decided that I would start cleaning out our storage room that is just off the basement. Its been holding most of our moving boxes that we emptied but hadn’t broken down yet. So I grab a box cutter and start hauling boxes out into the yard and cutting them down. On my second box, Chris comes up and starts telling me how to break down the cardboard. I reacted the only logical way I could think of:
I got mad at Chris.
“Now you’re going to start telling me how to cut up cardboard??? Leave me alone! I can do it!” I snap.
“Fine,” he snaps. And he goes back into the basement to continue painting, leaving me with a pile of cardboard boxes, two dogs, and a box cutter. After 2 or 3 more boxes (and several tennis ball throws for Molly), I suddenly realize that this job sucks. Its hot outside and cardboard is a lot heavier than it looks. I manage to finish breaking down the boxes, but I only got half of them thrown into the trash shed. The rest I threw onto the driveway as I wandered into the house to find yet another project, with the silent promise to clean it up before Chris could see.
2 hours and 1 nap later, I woke up to see that Chris had finished the basement and it looked pretty spectacular. He had also finished moving the boxes to the trash shed and broken them down much neater than my piles had been. In his “spare” time he even took down my bathroom door and shaved some wood off the bottom so it would quit getting stuck on my floor mat. I followed his trail of honey-do’s and found him outside, up under the back deck, hooking up our sprinklers. He looked up and smiled at me, asking how my nap was. I waited a minute to see if that would be followed by a snide comment or a judgmental look, but those never came.
He had spent the whole day picking up after me, taking care of me, and generally making life easier for me. And he was still happy to see me. There was no I-told-you-so, no guilt, no anger or frustration. He was just glad I came out to see him.
It’s official. I can’t live without him. I mean, aside from the fact that I’m almost positive my heart would just stop beating if he weren’t in my life, I can’t live without him because I couldn’t practically function without him to pick me up, dust me off, and fix my mistakes. Who would fix my AC units when they break or cover an entire wall in cork because I decide I want a bulletin board wall? More important than any of that, who would do all of that and then at the end of the day STILL be happy to see me? No one. No one loves me like Chris does. And I wouldn’t want anyone else to love me either. I’m smitten.
This morning as I am unpacking even more boxes in our kitchen, Chris comes in a says that he needs to run to Home Depot (otherwise known as “The Place I Go to Feel Superior”) to get some paint. While he is there he is going to pick up some new plates for our electrical outlets, and could I take a minute and help him out by letting him know which plates in the kitchen I want to replace. So I make a little list. He comes back a few minutes later and starts to go over my list, essentially taking off almost every plate I asked him to replace. Finally, I say, “Then why did you ask me?” to which he replied, “Because I need your help.”
What a load of crap.
It has been like this for the past few days and its really starting to piss me off! I have discovered that needing my “help” is needing me to stand next to him and tell him what a great job he is doing. I know this because when I offer help, he gets irritated. For years he has laughed and made fun of me for not pitching in. Its no secret that I am a bit of a lazy beast. I don’t like to be dirty, I enjoy a good pedicure, and I like to wear jewelry in any situation. But now that we have a house, I’m actually enjoying things like painting, moving furniture, and even cleaning (sometimes). I mean, it still sucks and its still 1,000 degrees in the house, but I actually like looking at something that I’ve finished and being proud of it. For Chris, though, I’m cramping his style.
Take, for example, dinner last night. We had just finished putting a second coat of paint on the living room (which looks beeeutiful, by the way), and Chris was cleaning up so I went to the kitchen to make dinner. For the past few nights we have been grilling because there is too much stuff in our kitchen right now to really cook and because Chris has been working on the fence, I have been doing most of the grilling myself. So I’m taking out hamburgers and all of a sudden Chris comes running into the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” he asks (this is his new favorite question and he asks it whenever I am doing something that he did not specifically tell me to do).
“I’m getting ready to grill these hamburgers.”
“Well, let me do it,” he says. “Grilling is my job and I don’t want you to take it over just because we are in a new house. Ever since we got here you’ve been doing all the grilling. Grilling is a boy job.”
I laughed and kissed him and told him, fine, he could still be the Grill Master, but inside I was seething.
And then there was the painting of the living room. Not our finest hour. Chris decided that he would cut in and I would roll the room, since cutting in is clearly very challenging and therefore not possibly something I could do. I didn’t mind really because I found this fun little attachment for my roller to keep me amused. Now, rolling is not rocket science, but Chris found every chance to “critique” me as possible. I was leaving paint lines (I was not), I was dripping paint (one small little drip in one small corner of the entire room), I was not getting close enough to the edges (which is a matter of opinion), or I was getting too close to the edges (again, a matter of opinion). He was driving me crazy. Every now and then he would throw in a “you’re doing such a good job!” out there to keep me from killing him, but he was on my last nerve. And then – karma. Two seconds after he finished telling me I needed to get into the tiny corners better with my gigantor roller, he walks right into our new couch with his bright green paint brush! I would have killed him if the karma of the situation wasn’t so perfect.
Here’s the thing about me not pitching in before. It has always been a choice. And choosing not to help out during the first 10 years does not mean I can’t help out for the next 10 years. I choose not to help out because I’m lazy, NOT because I’m incompetent. Any monkey can line shelves in the kitchen, but Chris somehow believes these precision details have his name written all over them and I should just keep busy with cleaning out lint traps.
I’m a patient person (lie, lie, lie…), but I’m over this boy/girl thing. I’m obviously strong/smart/capable enough of moving large pieces of furniture, of sandpapering an entire room, of building a fence in the backyard (which I helped with and felt uber-manly when I was finished). If I can do these things, I can help with just about anything in this house. I keep reminding myself of all those single women out there who take out their own trash, put together their own bookshelves, carry their own pink toolboxes. When did it become debilitating to be a married woman? Marriage doesn’t mean that suddenly I can’t do the heavy lifting or decision making on my own.
(Side Bar: While this is no new revelation for millions of married women out there, this is all very new to me. For 10 years I have relied on Chris for just about every dirty job there is.)
I’m over this crap. If I want to grill, I’m going to grill. If I want to change the plate in one of the sockets, I’m going to change the plate. If I want to cut in a room we are painting, I’m cutting in. I’m a wife, dammit, not an 8-year old!
Now I’m off to drill a hole in something…
While I am adjusting to our new house magnificently, the dogs are having a tough time. Â They love the house, but they are glued to my side. Â Normally, this isn’t a problem and I would be more than happy to have them shadow me around the house while I unload Waterford crystal still in its original gift wraping from our wedding. Â The problem is that we have very narrow stairs in this house, so trying to make it up or down these with two dogs literally underneath me has been tricky. Â I tried just running faster down them, thinking I could pass them up but they’re quick little boogers. Â So far we have all crashed and burned in a giant heap of paws, elbows, and moving boxes at least three times.
And then there is the attic thing. Â We don’t have a finished attic here. Â Its just crawl space in the roof. Â For some reason, my closet in the master bedroom opens directly into this area, with no wall or blockage of any kind. Â This morning as I was hanging clothes up in my closet, Molly happened to wander into this area and disappeared into the dark pits of our attic. Â I called her and she (thankfully!) came hopping out. Â So I close my closet door to keep her from getting back in there. Â As soon as I shut the door, she starts barking at the closet like a beast. Â I yelled at her and told her to shut up and happily I moved on to finding the perfect arrangement of Chris’ boxers in our dresser. Â About 15 minutes later, I hear this faint little whimper coming from my closet. Â I open the door and there stands Lucy – covered in insulation and spiderwebs. Â Good Lord, dog! Â Don’t you know that heat in those kind of places can kill you?!?!
After such an adventurous day in the house with the dogs, I was so ready for our backyard to be fenced in so I could just let them outside and get some work done. Â I practically met Chris in the driveway when he got home from work today, kissed him, and put a drill in his hand. Â He finished the fence and we let the dogs go this afternoon. Â They were so happy! Â They have so much more room to run here, and they really, REALLY needed to get it out of their system. Â Stairways and attics just don’t always do the trick.
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