Marriage | Marriage Confessions Marriage | Laugh. Fight. Stay Married.

Since I can remember, my family has nagged on me about not being a morning person. “Oh, don’t mess with Kate in the morning!” “Kate, are you grumpy yet?” “Nobody move, Kate’s awake!” I have realized though that it is not that I am unhappy in the mornings. I just need some quiet time. When I wake up, I need about half an hour (sometimes even an hour) to be by myself. I’m not unhappy, I just need to slowly wake up. What makes me unhappy is when people start poking at me and talking to me a lot. THEN I get grumpy.

Being married to a morning person is a challenge, but we’ve worked it out pretty good. I like to get up really early and Chris likes to sleep late. This means that I can get up and read and/or stare into space for my half hour to full hour before Chris even turns over in the bed. On the weekdays, I get up to go to work much earlier than Chris does, so I usually get dressed in the quiet and I use this as my time to wake up. Its a flawless plan. A solid morning routine is truly key to a happy marriage (at least MY happy marriage).

There are times though when Chris needs to get up early with me and it really just throws me off kilter. This morning was one of them. First, it starts off all wrong because I generally don’t wake up with an alarm clock. I have one of those freak of nature bodies that is set on its own internal Timex and I can usually wake myself up when I need to. Alarm clocks bring back haunting memories to me of my Mom or Dad throwing my bedroom door open at 6:30 in the morning in high school and shouting, “TIME TO GET UP!” Its just unpleasant to wake up to. (For the record, my parents still take me up this way when I am home visiting…) Â Chris, however, needs a high school marching band to get him out of bed.

So this morning I wake up to a blaring alarm clock and Chris talking 90 miles an hour about his iPhone that he is getting today (incidentally, the iPhone debacle will gets its own full entry soon). He’s talking about the weather and his schedule and what we’re doing tonight. All the lights are on, music is playing, the TV is blaring. Then he lets the dogs out, so they are bouncing all over the place. Lucy’s moaning to be fed. Molly’s laying across my freshly ironed work clothes. It is so the opposite of quiet at 7:30 in the morning that all I can do is straighten my hair and count to 10 (about 100 times).

On top of it all, Chris realizes that it is April Fools Day. Everything became an April Fools joke. I couldn’t find an earring and when I asked him if he’d seen it he said, “Yes – April Fools!” And on and on (think middle school boy). And after every joke he would bust out laughing. Then he started planning how I could use April Fools jokes during my day. “Walk in and tell your boss you quit! April Fools!” And the laughing continues…

Not. Funny. And definitely Not. Quiet.

4 comments | posted in Around the House, Lucy, Marriage, Marriage Confessions, Molly | tags: Marriage, Morning

We didn’t end up calling a repair man to fix our washing machine. Instead, Chris thought he could fix it. I am always hesitant about this solution. Whenever Chris offers to fix something, it usually takes about a week for him to get a plan together in his head. It takes another week and a half for him to gather and/or purchase all the necessary supplies. And then it takes another week or two before he actually has the time to work on the project. So by the time he’s ready to fix something, I have usually already gone out and bought a new one. But this time, he just jumped right on it and low and behold – our washing machine works again! Crisis over (but then, sadly, so are my excuses for not doing laundry…).

IN OTHER NEWS… Molly has started sleeping in Lucy’s house when she takes her naps. The funny thing is that Lucy’s house is made for a tiny dog, and Molly ain’t so tiny. The other night, Molly was sleeping in Lucy’s abode for a few hours between dinner and bedtime.

Then, Lucy decided it was time to go to bed…

And when Molly wouldn’t get out, Lucy got in with her…

At which point Molly got scared because Lucy has a tendency to eat her face off when she gets too close, and Molly moved to her own bed where she pouted for a good 15 minutes before falling asleep…

Lucy wins again!

1 comments | posted in Around the House, Laundry, Lucy, Marriage, Marriage Confessions, Molly | tags: Chores, dogs, Lifestyle, Marriage, Washing Machines

Our washing machine is breaking down. It hasn’t broken completely yet, but it is in the process. You can turn it on, but it won’t run a full cycle. I’m having a hard time dealing with this.

Everyone knows of my love/hate relationship with laundry (See The Great Laundry Crisis of 2008). My relationship with laundry is a lot like marriage, actually. In the beginning, when I was just starting out on my own in college, it was fun – even exciting – to do my own laundry. I would spend hours in the laundry detergent aisle of Walmart picking just the right combination of detergent and fabric softener. I saw my friends get dressed up to go down to the laundry mat once a week and do their laundry with whatever machine was available and I silently gave thanks for my washing machine that I could spend quality one-on-one time with. I loved sharing my Sunday afternoons with my laundry machine and a good movie. But then I got married.

Now, laundry is just another chore. Another something to be done. And, over time, my machine has just let itself go. No longer does it sit in my apartment with Victoria Secret Delicates detergent on top of it, always available to me, always clean, always ready to go. Now, it is in my basement, dirty with lint and old fabric softener sheets and covered with generic 10 gallon jugs of detergent from Sam’s Club. It has just lost all of its shine. The fact that it now has chosen to give up completely is just, well, hurtful. And it won’t even break down to my face. It does it slowly and painfully, pretending to start a load and then just giving up in the middle. Its just toying with me.

If my laundry machine doesn’t want to make the effort in this relationship to even finish a load, then maybe its time to just pull the plug. There are lots of new models out there on the market now – young, bright, energy efficient models just waiting to come home with me.

But I’m nervous. Making the decision to get new washing machine is so intense. What happens if I don’t find a perfect new machine right away? Am I going to be forced to go to the laundry mat every Thursday night like my non-committal college friends and throw my change at any old machine that’s available? I’m just not ready for that lifestyle yet.

So, for now, I’ll stand by my machine. We’ve had too many good years to just kick it to the curb. But I think its time we brought a professional into this relationship. Tomorrow we’re seeing a repairman.

1 comments | posted in Around the House, Laundry, Marriage, Marriage Confessions | tags: Chores, Laundry, Marriage