Now for something...

...completely different.


I like Dr. Phil because he has a decent, practical approach to life. Nothing is ever rocket science, its all down to earth and my husband is known as the "Dr. Phil" of his company (he's not a doctor, but a therapist). I imagine they subscribe to same school of psychology. The husband doesn't care for the format in which Dr. Phil conducts his therapy, but he respects the underlying philosophy.

Today, while browsing my facebook news feed, I came across this:

It really made me think. Ongoing feud? Why? Why on earth would you let your marriage have an ongoing feud? In fourty-one minutes, the questioned garnered almost 400 answers, most them of stating the particular feud in their marriage. Thank goodness some people answer that life is simply too short to get your knickers in a twist over hair in the sink, the toothpaste cap and not putting the toilet seat down. I agree with the minority.

I think that when you are truly in love, in real love, you find those idiosyncrasies endearing. You understand that your spouses sole purpose on earth is not to annoy you with a barrage of disgusting or different habits. You love their flaws because its what makes them different from you, what makes them uniquely human. My husband's hair in the sink doesn't bother me in the least. Sometimes I wonder how he does it, but instead of getting intensely frustrated that 6 years into our relationship we can't overcome that problem (because it clogs the sink), I actually think about him, the person, with warm, fuzzy thoughts.

I wonder about sink design-- why hasn't anyone developed a man-proof sink yet? That makes me think about how impractical men are when designing the nuts and bolts of household appliances and fixtures. If they don't clean it and unclog it, how do they know its a design flaw?

That's the thing about these feuds. What happens is that you think your partner is purposely doing something to annoy you. Then the offending partner gets caught off guard with you unloading this rather small, but intimate complaint in a big way. The offending partner feels bad for offending and what's worse is the culprit is an ingrained habit of which a second thought is never given. The offending partner feels personally attacked for being themselves (which no one likes!). They find themselves arguing that the behavior wasn't to punish you for X, Y and Z or because they wanted to stick it to you for the sake of mean-ness. Then it gets ugly, quickly.

Words fly, feelings get hurt, and one day you may even find yourself with irreconcilable differences because he's got to trim the beard he grew in order to minimize the hair clogs in the sink. Or maybe he never altered the behavior and the offended partner feels like she isn't important enough to accommodate. In whatever case, its easy to let facial hair, a tube of toothpaste, a toilet seat, or household duty sharing spiral out of control.

Yet, nobody gets divorced because of toothpaste. They get divorced because they feel unloved, they feel their needs weren't being met and the marriage became a very negative circumstance with hurt feelings.  You get divorced because these feuds have the underlying message that "He doesn't love me enough to consider how his actions make me feel". Or "She didn't love me enough to consider how her judgment feels to me".

We have this idea that we should just *know* how to have a relationship, how to exist in a marriage, how to navigate all the rocky seas of coupling instinctively. The problem is we don't have these instincts. As mom of an autistic kid, let me say that no one has a freaking clue. These things are learned and not all relationship education is created equal. We have this funny habit of assuming the other half of our marital unit should know how we feel, how to make us feel better or worse, and how fix their irritating habits for us to feel better. Rarely do we take the time to educate ourselves on how this actually works. Let me tell you, your partner doesn't know-- sometimes they just make good guesses based on history. Sometimes not. And changing habits? In marriage, it doesn't work so well solo. Marriage is about a team effort.

Part of the problem is our inability to choose the correct partners. We settle, we rush into relationships, we think we change our mates after the wedding, we don't realize that what our deal-breakers are, we are too lazy to work at it and think a healthy, happy relationship just happens.

We fail to realize that we have the super-power in our lives that has been known to save marriages: We get to choose how act and re-act. Should our partners change their annoying habits or should we change our reaction to those habits? I think the answer is somewhere in between. Combining appropriate action with appropriate re-action is freaking awesome.

Duh-da-da-duh: Super Wife and Super Husband with their uncanny abilities to put things in perspective!! A dynamic duo, indeed!

If there is something that really irritates me, I discuss it with my husband. I make it a point to make sure he knows that I know it is not something he intentionally does to hurt me. I make sure he knows that I love him. I explain rationally, calmly and without judgment (no way it ever helpful to say "you are nasty human being because you left the toilet seat up!) the problem *I* am having. After all, it is my issue and its something I need his help to resolve. In turn, he is willing to make me feel more comfortable by either obliging, working to a reasonable compromise, or allowing me to sort through why it bothers me in a supportive way. This is a great strategy for the big things-- parenting, money, work, intimacy, family-- not just the little. We communicate our needs pretty well so that there is no feuding.

Sometimes, I will exclaim something completely random when I am frazzled and encounter all my pre-rinsed, dishwasher ready dishes  covered in ranch dressing. I normally throw up my hands, saying "Argh! You people drive me crazy!" in an exaggerated tone. Just doing that makes me laugh out loud, but if it doesn't, my husband's deer in the headlight look does. I can't help but love the fact that he doesn't want to test my sanity with ranch dressing or other condiments. So, I apologize, explain that I'm just frazzled (or have PMS) and melt into his arms. I also make it a point to follow up my post-hug apology with a stunning compliment and a "I love you more than anything". He has his own ritual for changing asshole behavior to loving husband behavior. It works.

There isn't much that bothers me and it isn't often. I can't help but marvel at our capacity to love when I am unclogging a drain. It's is marvelously amazing that as his wife, I am the only person who knows his most intimate habits and flaws. He knows my strange habits and accept them as part of what makes me, me. On top of all this, we love each other. I think he's funny, brilliant, a great father and husband and sexy ass man (and vice-versa). I still get butterflies when walks in the room, despite the knowledge of those intimate habits (that many people find annoying).

I think about how sad it would be if those little, pesky facial hairs no longer graced my sink. How awful it would be if I didn't find empty protein bar containers in cupboard. If his cups no longer needed my assistance getting to the dishwasher. If he never, ever picked up a new toy instead of paying a bill. That would mean he was not with me. That is a very real possibility for us, so I cannot fathom why anyone would choose to argue and feud over such trivial things that when approached in a positive manner could actually further your martial bond.

Beautiful People

A friend posted an image of this quote on her facebook page. The words really struck a chord with me, so in lieu of certain events today, I am going to post it.

PSP X3

I have decided to down-load the latest version of Paint Shop Pro. I know, I know, everyone uses Photoshop and I suck for loving PSP. I know the program, I preferred it over PS before every buying a home graphics/photo editor and frankly, I'm feeling a little too old to learn new tricks. Plus, the price difference was stellar and my budget at the time was meager.

I actually own(ed) PSP X2 (? I think ?) at one point, but the computer it is on now belongs to my husband solely. I feel creepy about putting all my crazy girl scrappy stuff on his big manly computer. I'd rather have my stuff on my little laptop. Besides, that's where all my photos are. And my cute little graphics. And my links to other cool elements and stuff. (Somehow he has an awesome computer chair that makes me want to throw this all out the window and I'm not sure how I get the where-ever seating)

My goal is one day have a drawing tablet of some kind:

















That way, I can take my ability to doodle aimlessly and unproductively to a whole new level. I have very simple, yet moderately expensive dreams. For now, I am going to install the try before you buy PSP X3 software-- and then I'll buy the actual disk at some point so when I need to, I can re-install it. Wish I'd gone that route the first time.

The Easter Snaik

I never thought about religion much when I was a kid, save for my Irish Catholic BFF's mom, who thought I had the devil in me, God (and hell) talks. My mom was a Lutheran who thought that religion was done wrong in America. So, we weren't any particular religion at all and I got to explore faith any which way I liked. And because I think I screamed so much the few times my mom tried taking me church services and Sunday school that our family was asked to never return. Of course, Easter being what it is, I knew the story of the resurrection and such from my mom and from said BFF (and BFF's mom).

My dad is a funny guy who isn't particularly religious. Growing up, he loved Easter because he always got a box of Whitman's chocolates and tons of other sweets. He HATED dying Easter eggs (aka Spring Spheres), sorta. He really hated the part where young children with excited fingers grabbed at permanent die in our house. If it were up to him, it would have been an 'in the grass at the neighbor's house' activity. I think he died a little inside each Easter and there were times I was surprised he didn't stroke out (like when my nieces and nephew died eggs in their toddler years).

There were several rules when it came to egg dying. These rules were debated passionately by my parents and these debates sometimes ended in threats of divorce. Other times it would end in a snarky kid saying 'Cut it out! We are making eggs for Jesus!'. Why we were making eggs for Jesus, I have no idea. Two-thousands years of hard-boiled eggs has got to wear thin on a Messiah, but then again I suppose he could change them into little cupcakes or whatever trendy snack en vogue (Dear Jesus, I hear doughnuts are the next big thing!).

The first rule is that you must never use copper pans to boil your eggs. Or is it aluminum? This would start the parental debate as my mom would have to prove to my dad that her stock pot contained no offending element, even though she had the same pot for like ever.

The second rule was the Rule of Paas. Never, ever could anything but the ORIGINAL Paas Easter egg dye be used in our house. Period. No tye-dye eggs. No fancy colors. There are 12 (or was it 9?) colors acceptable and those colors were dictated by the Paas people. No Paas dye, no Easter. End of story. I still get a little apprehensive whenever my mother-in-law pulls out something other than the traditional Paas egg dying kit before Easter. We will not tell my dad that my son hasn't ALWAYS used Paas's original kit-- it might kill him.

The final rule was that you must use a white crayon to make the most important egg of them all: The Easter Snaik egg. And yes, its S-N-A-I-K. It was the only time a misspelled word was appropriate and your egg would be spared the infamous Library of Congress red pen (all our pens came from the Library of Congress-- heck, until I was 9, I thought everyone got their pens from the LoC). While my parents corrected my spelling until I was 32 years old, this special and holy spelling spelling of 'snaik' was a crucial part of our Easter tradition-- the Holy Grail of all our holiday celebrations.

So, my dad would draw this 'snaik' in white crayon on an egg and then write the words 'Easter Snaik' underneath (that)**. Yet, this is no ordinary snaik. This snaik has 4 legs with feet, 3 polka-dots and is always smiling, open mouthed with his forked snaik tongue sticking out.

It wasn't until I was much older that I realized the gross contradiction between Easter and the snaik. Later I learned that most of the religious traditions that our culture engages in are actually NOT Christian, but rather have deep pagan roots. Bunnies have nothing to do with Jesus. Eggs are for fertility, celebrated during the Spring Equinox. And as a parent living in a very judeo-christian world, where poking fun at Jesus and religion (or atheism?) isn't readily accepted (unless you are famous and a comedian), my dad found the most amusing ways to poke fun at the inherent contradiction between mono-theism and poly-theism.

This years Easter Snaik Egg

My dad made his point in a way that his children could marvel at (and shock her friends parents at the same time). He made it so we came to love the tradition for the simplest human and most godly reason-- the love of ones family. I have no doubt that God has a sense of humor and is decorating his own Easter Snaik egg with his own son.

 ** If you didn't get that aside, than you obviously don't read Cake Wrecks

A long time...Dog Stool

Since I've posted anything. I am really good at not finishing stuff. Or getting distracted. Or something.

The husband was diagnosed with a Chiari Malformation (CM for short), (or maybe its an Arnold-Chiari?) about a month ago. I'm sure you have no idea what that is. It's a rare congenital defect of the skull and his kind is going to kill him. Well, it would kill him if not for his super-star neurosurgeon, Dr. Sugarman, who preforms 4 such operations a year.

Most CMs are quite benign and can be managed with physical therapy and pain management. Sometimes there is a syrinx present (a fancy way of saying fluid filled cyst inside the spinal column) and not all cases require surgery. A few CMs are progressive- not only is the skull misshapen, its also pitted and perhaps with jagged edges. When the brain rubs against the skull, the tissue becomes damaged (and you become officially brain damaged). And because you have to be a bad-ass with a rare condition, your brain doesn't just push down a little into the spinal canal, it pushes down a lot! (If you don't know what I'm talking about, you did not click on the link). It doesn't stop slipping-- well okay, it does stop slipping once the brain stem has been crushed enough by the brain to cause your body to stop doing things like breathing or pumping blood).

My husband is a bad-ass. A rebel through and through. He's got that hot shot CM that gives doctors boners. Seriously. In the land of routine and preventative medicine, several doctors have gotten to see something most never see in their entire career. He made these doctors bad-ass by default.

Even I find the science behind it interesting. I'm not sure if it was helpful for me to declare how awesome it was that they were going to take bones from a cadaver and graft it to his skull. But c'mon, a dead person parts are going to be inside of you! It way outshines a blood transfusion-- which frankly I thought was cool to have a part of someone else coursing through my veins in a (Anne Rice, not Twilight--yeech) vampire kinda way.

In a time in our lives when are just starting to gain real traction-- because the husband, me and maybe the kid all seem to march to an invisible drummer boy that no one else seems to hear-- we get this mind blowing news that the husband either has surgery or he dies. So, duh, he's having surgery. Traction turns into a hard braking, slip-slid-ee, pit stop in the middle of a foreign country with no map and no grasp on the language. It took us two days to grasp what we were collectively facing. We went from stressing over the normal financial stuff, parenting stuff and family stuff to stressing over our finite existence.

Now we are talking advance directives, wills and power of attorney, insurances, and social security applications instead of  paying off debt, living simply, future career plans, retirement planning, 401Ks and savings. I'm 34 and never, ever expected to be in this territory at this moment in my young life. Plan for the worst, plan for the almost worst, plan for the moderately okay and hope for the best is my new long ass motto.

The surgery is May 19th at Christiana in Newark. Dr. Sugarman does four of these surgeries a year, which in the realm of rare conditions is a substantial number. We are making plans for the 7 days minimum the man will stay in the hospital, but beyond that we are completely flying blind. We are supposed to get a packet that will tell us more of what to expect, but that packet hasn't gotten here yet. It better hurry up because May 19th is that far off and we are busy. Hell, since this condition is so rare there isn't a lot of good patient info on the internet. There are plenty of research papers and the like, but I'm no neurologist, or doctor (but I probably should have been, except I hate the inside parts shown on the outside).

I am taking the stance that this is all going to be okay, we'll get through it and my husband will live (even if he forgets who I am or some other awful scenario I've imagined). I told him that if he sees a light RUN the OTHER WAY. Do not walk, RUN.

In the mean time, we have things like Easter to distract us... or spend the entire holiday and family time talking about my husbands bad-ass brain and less about bunnies pooping chocolate eggs. Which reminds me-- the husband asked why dogwoods are called dogwoods. The kid responded because its where dogs made their stool. (5 points for not saying "crap", kid!!)

On that note, I'm out.

(and at least now my husband can say "sorry, brain damaged" when he f's up-- and yes, its okay to laugh, humor is the best medicine, isn't it?)

Holiday Reflections

Happy New Year!

A lot has been going on with Pooping Red Guy and the gang. They've spent the holiday season trapped in the closet having all sorts of adventures, most of which involved the watching our lives like a sitcom, or is that drama, but definitely not something like the Real Houswives. All I know is that to be a fly on the wall in my house had to be engaging.

Firstly, business came first. My sales during December set a new record. That God for that because otherwise, we wouldn't have had any money for Christmas. After Christmas, I took a break from putting up new inventory and shoppers took a break from spending money. I needed a mini-vacation from my business and people needed to let me have it. Don't you love it when life syncs up personally and professionally?

When I wasn't working, I was spreading Christmas Cheer. You wouldn't think this was an actual task, but it really was. Not many were in the spirit of the holidays beyond the obligation of dinners, parties and gifting. Who can blame them in this economy? So, I went about decorating and baking, doing good deeds when I could and generally being happy. My neighbor swears that I am the happiest, most easy going person she knows. Not sure if this is true, it's just that I've learned to roll with the punches. Certainly when the world gives you carte-blanche to celebrate, I seize the opportunity.

I would say about 4 pounds of flour and butter was used to spread merriment among those I know and even some I don't. Who knew that simple gifts could be so effective? Children shrieked with delight at the ability to get their hands messy creating edible pieces of art work. That sorta child-like happiness is contagious.

Did I mention my husband started a new job? So along with the regular holiday hub-bub, he was adjusting to a working in a completely foreign environment with ridiculously demanding and ever-changing hours. He still hasn't fully adjusted and keeps telling me the job is just not for him. He's been a trooper, hanging in there for the sake of the team.

The excitement of the holidays with an Asperger's kid provided extra challenges, especially with a dramatic change in his dad's schedule. I really tried to keep our routine stable, but it wasn't always possible. Plus, the kid could not stand the anticipation of presents, the worry over whether he was naughty or nice (a huge topic for another time), and the joys of sugar over-load. At least once a week, he woke up at 2 or 3 am because he couldn't sleep. Christmas Day, we were up at 2 am. Then there was snow… lots of snow that makes children very excited. And sleep-overs. And family. And gift cards he used on line, which led to more anticipation. He is still recovering.

All and all, it went off really well. I managed to stay within budget, so that Christmas was modest, but each gift had a lot of thought put into it. I found the ultimate oatmeal cookie recipe and have a few ideas for next year, including hand-made Christmas cards. Everyone who sent a card this year is getting a version of their card back next year. I also managed to spread cheer in many, many ways, even if it was as simple as reminding my neighbor you didn't need to go all out all the time to have a Merry Christmas.

Soon, Pooping Red Guy will return. I meant to take pictures of him in the snow, but real life called. (Plus, I kept forgetting to ask the man where he put Pooping Red Guy). Baby Jesus was present under our tree, along with other's from his birth. Husband and I argued how to set up the nativity, but managed to make it work.

Hope your holidays were bright and that 2011 will be a great year for all of us!

Game On, Again.

About a month ago, our beloved computer bit the dust. After three years, the hard drive went *cough*cough*wheez*sputter*pblllttt...* kaput unexpectedly. Naturally, we had not backed anything up, so I lost everything: every document, every photo, every program... it was a very sad day.

My wonderful husband brought a new one home after robbing a convenience store. Not really, but long story short, we were back in business. Things went well for 20 some days when the new computer had an electronic asthma attack with no inhaler. Fatal.

Turns out we bought a dud. A million hours later with Gateway customer support after CompUSA said "sorry, your 0:00:00:00:01" too late in calling about a problem and we can no longer accept a return". CompUSA said pay UPS shipping to Texas and pack it like a fortress and we'll fix it for free in 3 to 6 years. Ended up taking the sad machine to Staples and getting them to put in a new hard drive.

So, all my Pooping Red Guy images are gone. I have to take new ones... maybe tomorrow Jesus will help me cook a turkey dinner? Since we've had a house full kids, all those poor dudes are all over the place.