the naughty list

I was in Victoria’s Secret a few days ago. Brad expressed a Christmas wish for me to dress up in holiday lingerie so skimpy that it will certainly earn me a place on Santa’s naughty list. I often hesitate to spend much money on lingerie because my husband’s litmus test is this — throw it on the ground; if it looks good, buy it because it’s going to end up there in about a millisecond after donning it anyway.

But it’s his Christmas wish. And I aim to please.

The trouble is: When did Victoria’s Secret get so . . . un-sexy? I saw five or six truly skimpy and sexy nighties. The rest of the store was full to brimming with cotton pajama bottoms, rhinestoned tank tops, and soft knit baby doll nightgowns in little floral prints.

Victoria’s Secret used to be a store I could not take my kids into and, indeed, often felt the need to cover their eyes when walking past because the mannequins and posters in the windows were so scantily clad and provocatively posed. When I was there the other day, mothers were pushing their toddlers through the store in strollers!

How sexy can the lingerie be when the store is overrun by children and harassed, sleep-deprived mothers? I ask you.

I did find a few hot little numbers that I wanted to try on. One of which was a red vinyl micro-mini skirt trimmed in white faux fur with fishnet stocking for added effect. But the entrance to the dressing room was clogged by a pre-teen who was watching her baby brother in his stroller while her mother tried on bras. Besides that, I couldn’t find a clerk who could help me.

So, I turned to the Internet. I may or may not have ordered a skimpy, sexy li’l red outfit. And it may or may not have arrived on my door step — in pink.

No worries, though. I can make do with my Santa’s helper outfit from years past. This year’s not the first that Brad’s asked for lingerie, after all.

The old outfit is a little bit sexy and a little bit sweet. It may not earn me a place on the naughty list, but Santa will definitely be checking twice.

husband meme

I am sick. AGAIN. Here’s a meme.

Don’t judge me. Be happy with what I am willing to give.

*************************

1. Who is your man?

Brad. And I dare anyone to say any different.

2. How long have you been together?

Married over 11 years. Together a little more than 12 years. Have known each other for nearly 20 years.

3. How long did you date?

Nine months.

4. How old is your man?

31

5. Who eats more?

He does. Although he never gains weight. It’s not fair.

6. Who said “I love you” first?

I think we kind of said it together. Probably in the throes of passion. (Did I just say that out loud?)

7. Who is taller?

He is.

8. Who sings better?

I sing better but neither of us sing all that well.

9. Who is smarter?

Um, he is probably smarter. He is a freak of nature with his intellect. But, like Slouching Mom and her hubby, Brad is the math genius and I am the resident dictionary, thesaurus, grammar police and spell checker.

10. Whose temper is worse?

I have a bad temper and tend to lose my temper more than he does. But when he really loses his temper, he is way scarier than me.

11. Who does the laundry?

I do.

12. Who takes out the garbage?

Our fifth grader.

13. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed?

Looking at the bed, I sleep on the right side.
14. Who pays the bills?

I do. He is a math genius but he somehow makes the bill paying process so complicated that it gets all backward and screwed up. So, I do it in my straightforward, common-sense approach and we are all happy.

15. Who is better with the computer?

He is because his major is in Computer Science and he used to program and now he oversees all sorts of software, etc. BUT, I know more html and CSS than he does and I am fairly ingenious when it comes to computers, myself.

16. Who mows the lawn?

The fifth grader.

17. Who cooks dinner?

I do, or else we eat out. I am amazed by how many other women have answered this meme and say their husbands cook all the meals! How can I get a husband like that?

18. Who drives when you are together?

He does.

19. Who pays when you go out?

Both of our paychecks go into a joint account. There’s no yours, mine and ours with our money. Physically, though, I usually pay the bill because I always have the money in my purse.

20. Who is most stubborn?

I am. Hands down.

21. Who is the first to admit when they are wrong?

I am. But we are both pretty good about admitting when we are wrong and apologizing. Unfortunately, it is usually after a knock-down, drag-out fight.

22. Whose parents do you see the most?

We see all of them about equally. We’ve seen his parents more of late because his mother was staying with us for a while while his grandmother was in the hospital.
23. Who kissed who first?

Hmmmm. I am pretty sure I kissed him first. He had a girlfriend when I decided I wanted him to be mine and I had to put my feminine wiles to good use.

24. Who asked who out?

I asked him to the prom my senior year but we were just friends. I don’t think we asked each other out when we started dating. We were best friends and always together anyway and our relationship just evolved into what it is now. One day we were best friends, the next day we were professing our undying love for each other. It just sort of happened.

25. Who proposed?

Well. I said, “I’m pregnant.” He said, “I want to go ahead and get married.” (We were planning on getting married in a year.) I said, “No.” He never proposed again and yet we are married.

So. I don’t really think there was ever a proper proposal from either of us.

26. Who is more sensitive?

Do you even need to ask? After reading my blog for all this time?

27. Who has more friends?

He has more acquaintances and not really any close friends. I have few acquaintances but a handful of very close friends.

28. Who has more siblings?

We both have only one sibling.

29. Who wears the pants in the family?

We work together as a team.

sleeping together

It’s always seemed to me that sleeping together — not sex, but actually sleeping together– is one of the most intimate parts of being married.

I actually spent a lot of time while we were engaged wondering what it would be like to fall asleep next to Brad. I was pregnant. So, it’s not as if I was naive about what happens in the marriage bed so far as other nocturnal activities. But falling asleep next to someone? That I was not too sure about.

I worried about the fact that I need lots of space and don’t really like to be touched — especially while sleeping. Brad liked to spoon and snuggle and fall asleep pressed close against me.

My worries weren’t completely unfounded, either. On the third night of our honeymoon, I took ten years off of his life when I sat up and screamed bloody murder in my sleep. That was just the beginning too. I’ve walked and talked in my sleep and had night terrors where I leapt out of bed and ran straight into the wall.

There was also the problem of his old, queen-sized mattress having a big sinkhole right in the middle where he’d slept in the same spot every night for God knows how long. It irritated me no end that we would fall asleep with lots of space between us, per my preference, and wake up smooshed together like sardines from rolling downhill during the night.

I thought we might never have a good night’s sleep.

This morning, I woke up to find that Brad had wrapped his body around mine sometime in the night. I got out of bed to answer the phone and, when I returned, he had turned over to his other side. I crawled in the bed and molded my body against the back of his, tucked my knees just behind his, curved my torso to the angle of his, and draped my left arm over his side. He’s a few inches taller than me so I kissed him right at the nape of his neck, where my head shared his pillow. He breathed a sleepy sigh and pulled my arm even tighter around him and we both drifted off to sleep.

As I drowsed, I smiled at the progress we’ve made. I’ve grown so accustomed to his warm presence beside me that I don’t sleep well when he’s not there. Sleeping next to him is as natural and necessary to me as breathing. He’s so much a part of me that I don’t startle or waken in the night when he rolls over and wraps me in his embrace. Rather, I snuggle into him and sleep more peacefully. And now, after eleven years, it’s me who is crawling into bed and snuggling and spooning against him to fall asleep.

More so than sex, at least to me, such things are the true rewards of partnering for life with the person you love.

TMI #1

We celebrated my darling husband’s 31st birthday on Saturday. And when I say “we,” I mean “Brad and I” because my in-laws drove an hour and a half over here Friday evening just to take us to dinner and they were kind enough to take our children away with them when they drove home late that night. The following day, my parents took the kids. So Brad and I had a whole weekend alone together.

I know that almost anyone who comes here regularly thinks Brad and I are like a couple of hormone-crazed teenagers. I don’t exactly disabuse you of that notion when I post pictures of us pashing* (like my Aussie slang, Jelly?) for the world (or the four people who read my blog) to see. It’s true that my sister-in-law once caught us making out in the laundry room during our son’s birthday party. It’s true that our kids roll their eyes and tell us to get a room when Brad walks into the kitchen and nibbles on my neck as I cook supper.

After all these years, we still got the heat! Yeah, baby.

But what you may not realize is that we’ve known each other for a very long time and we were friends for years before we were lovers. We are still best friends. We enjoy being together. We put the top down in the convertible and cruise around. We go to pizza buffets and stuff our faces together (especially on the cinnamon-sugar dessert pizza *drool*). We go to movies and order popcorn with extra butter and two large sodas and laugh out loud at all the same parts. We go shopping in furniture stores and spend too much money buying blingy collars for the puppies at the pet store.

We just like to be together.

That being said, I would like to take a moment to make this public service announcement:

Dear neighbor children and Schwan’s man,

If, on any given day, you see both cars in the driveway yet there is no answer when you ring the doorbell, PLEASE don’t keep ringing said doorbell, open the glass door and rap on the big door and, finally, bang on the door with all your might.

There’s a REASON we are ignoring you. You are not important enough for us to cease and desist from any recreation in which we might be engaged. If you insist on irritating us, we may be forced to answer the door in the buff and embarrass the hell out of you. Not to mention the fact that, if it is me who opens the door naked, you may be scarred for life and I can not and will not be responsible for your therapy bills.

Sincerely,

Heather and Brad

Also, an open letter to my husband:

Dear Brad,

Thank you for being my best friend for all of these years. I know I didn’t exactly appreciate your romantic interest in me in high school, but I am so glad you never quite managed to stop wishing I was yours.

But I am yours now, heart and soul, and I loved spending time with you on your birthday and I look forward to many more.

Love,

Me

*”Pashing” is Australian slang for passionate kissing. At least, that’s what Jellyhead tells me.

built for two

About six weeks ago, my husband and I purchased a jacuzzi bathtub that’s designed to fit in a corner. It’s 60 inches by 60 inches and it has twelve jets. There are two corner recesses with three jets each along the back, one jet on each side and then two jets opposite the corner seats which are perfect for soothing aching feet. It’s a lovely bathtub. I spend as much time as possible soaking in it.

Of course, plumbing the tub was a task more monumental than my husband was willing to take on and so we hired some plumbers to come in and get the job done right.

The master plumber sent over two young chaps and, from the moment they started working, I was entertained. It was like watching a well-rehearsed comedy show. Except it wasn’t. They were for real.

I stood in the guest bathroom curling my hair while they worked one morning. The more outgoing of the two liked to bark orders: “Go get my wrench out of my truck. And hurry up!” The soft-spoken plumber ambled lazily to the truck, rooted half-heartedly in the tool box and ambled back into the bathroom, holding out a wrench.

The blustery plumber took one look at it and his eyes bulged a little. “Not that wrench, you dimwit! The other wrench. I swear. You’re just about useless!”

Unfazed, the soft-spoken plumber ambled back to the truck, chose another wrench and took his time making his way back to the bathroom. “It’s about time!” puffed the blustery plumber. “I could have had this job finished in the time it took you to get here!”

Occassionally, the soft-spoken plumber would quietly disappear. The blustery plumber would quizzically glance around the room, swear a little, and march out the front door in search of his seemingly unmotivated partner. Usually, the wayward plumber would walk back in the house and set about working on the tub whilst his frustrated co-worker searched high and low. Blustery plumber would walk back in, do a double take when he realized his search had been for naught and bellow, “Where the hell’ve you been?” Soft-spoken plumber would just shrug and keep working. Blustery plumber turned a little red in the face and muttered angrily under his breath.

The constant tension between them would have bothered me if I hadn’t seen them leaning against their trucks, laughing and talking at the end of the day as if they were the best of friends. I figured it was just their way. But I must tell you that I was not too impressed with their intellect.

My opinion changed the day they came to install the water faucets on the tub. Blustery plumber politely asked me where I would like the faucet and handles installed. I asked him to place the handles on the side of the tub and the faucet in the corner closest to the handles. He nodded and set about installing the handles as I left him to do his work while I loaded the dishwasher in the kitchen.

I was surprised a few moments later when he appeared in the door way with his hat in his hand and a slightly embarrassed look on his face. I looked at him questioningly and he said, “Um, Miz —-, I’m not trying to get all up in yours and your husband’s bizness or anythang. But this here corner of this tub, where you want the faucet installed? Well, it’s one of the corners with jets. And seeing how this is a two person tub, I thought I should point out that, if one of you’ns is sittin’ here and the other is sittin’ there . . . well, someone is gonna have a faucet in their back.”

He sheepishly looked at his feet and twisted his hat in his hands as he finished his spiel. We were both quiet for a moment and then I told him, “I think it’s a good idea to put the faucet in the corner without jets. What do you think?” He smiled, “Yes, ma’am!” and jauntily sauntered back down the hall to install the faucet.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve prayed blessings on his head for his insight. And to think I ever questioned his intellect. He may not have been the sharpest knife in the drawer but he certainly understood the concept of a jacuzzi built big enough for two.

I’m fairly ambivalent about celebrating my birthday most years. I don’t know exactly what it is that causes some anxiety for me every year.

Maybe it’s that I am always pleased when my friends and family remember my birthday but am not sure how to respond to a big, hearty “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” Of course, I always say, “thank you,” but that doesn’t seem right either because I didn’t do anything. I was simply born 32 years ago. It was no great accomplishment on my part. Maybe my mother should be the one getting gifts and phone calls and cards and letters. (Not really. They’re mine! All mine!) Also, I always hate it when someone forgets about my birthday. Not so much because they forgot, but because I know they are going to feel bad when they realize they forgot. And really, it’s okay. I don’t expect anyone’s world to revolve around me — not even on my birthday.

Anyway, I always go into my birthday with an equal mix of anxiety and excitement and this year was no different. Last night, though, I was struck by the realization that, for many years, there’s been someone who has smoothed out the roiling emotions that plague me and made each birthday enjoyable and special.

And that person is my husband.

Shortly after midnight yesterday, Brad curled up next to me and silkily sang into my ear, “Happy, happy birthday, bay-bie . . .” in that silly-but-still-somehow-sexy way he has of flirting with me. When his alarm woke us at 7:00 and I shrieked and jumped out of bed (because I was supposed to wake up at 6:00 and be at the hospital to give an in-service at 7:30), he calmly got up and went about the business of waking the boys, packing lunches and whatnot. As I attempted to run past him on my way out the door, he lazily snaked an arm around my waist and pulled me to him to give me a good-bye kiss and a calming word to start my day.

At lunchtime, he complained not at all when I requested to eat at my favorite pizza joint even though I make him eat there all the time and he is sick of it. When he got home after work, he lavished attention on me asking, “How was your day, baby? Was it as wonderful as it should be?”

After dinner with my parents at my favorite Mexican restaurant, we went back to my father’s house and enjoyed a pralines and cream ice cream pie with caramel and chocolate topping which had Brad bought earlier in the day to surprise me, because he knows I love to have a birthday cake.

Afterward, we came home and I was the recipient of a special birthday neck and shoulder massage while watching one of my favorite shows. I was tucked into bed with tender care and fell asleep with his arms around me.

Brad’s attentions were not the only good parts of my birthday. My friends and family stepped up to the plate and made me feel very loved. But it is nice to know that the person who has treated me with such tenderness for my past twelve birthdays is the same person who will be around, God willing, to make the rest of them just as gentle.

nocturnal activities

Remodeling is not for the faint of heart. It’s certainly not for me, at least. I am excited about the end result but hate all of the work and worry that goes with accomplishing the end result.

At work the other day, I lamented to Brenda, “This remodel is bringing out all of my neuroses! My anxiety level is through the roof!” Brenda, in her traditional laconic style, plunged straight to the heart of the matter and said, “Your home, your safe haven, the one place where you are able to relax and be yourself is torn to shreds. Of course you feel anxious.”

She is so smart. Don’t I have smart friends?

But I truly think the stress and physical toll of it all was not finally fully realized until last night. It was late when we finally got to bed. We had worked all day and then had to work some more before we could fall into bed because, if we don’t clean up the sheetrock dust before sleeping, I wake up in the middle of the night experiencing the mother of all asthma attacks.

But finally, finally, we were able to sink into bed. Brad slid over close to me and nuzzled my neck. I protested, “I am too tired!” He asked, “Is there anything I can do to change your mind?” I answered, “You could rub my feet?” He replied, “I’ll rub yours if you’ll rub mine.”

It was a deal.

But from the sounds that followed, no one eavesdropping would have been any the wiser. A few of the phrases that might have been overheard:

“Oh, God! That feels so good!”

“A little more to the left. A little higher. Ahhhhhh, right there.”

“Please don’t stop.”

And, of course, there were a lot of these sounds:

“Ooooooooooohhhhhh!”

“Ahhhhhhhhhhh, yes!”

And my personal favorite:

“Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

Yes, the foot rub felt that good. And no, I am not sorry I chose it instead of other activities I might have engaged in with my husband.

And yes, I realize that we have hit an all time low. Talk to me about it after I have my safe haven back in one piece. Mkay?

 

building

I mentioned earlier that we are remodeling our master bedroom and bathroom. Brad is doing almost all of the work himself and is having trouble finding anyone he can hire to help him.

So, I got the pleasure of helping him tear down the roof yesterday so we could frame the walls of our new closet/bathroom addition. I also learned how to use a jigsaw and some funky drill bit that cuts a big hole in a 2X4.

He had me do lots of little jobs that would have taken him a few seconds but took me quite a bit longer than that.

He asked me to screw down some plywood on the floor of the construction. I promptly put a screw threw the plywood and missed the 2X4 beneath it entirely. At which point I called out, “I don’t think I’m a very good screwer.” He raised his eyebrows and retorted, “I beg to differ.”

I fell right into that one, I guess.

All joking aside, as we tore down old wood and brick so we could build something even better, it got me to thinking — as usual.

There was an instance in one of my relationships a few months ago where it seemed that everything solid was torn down. It was a scary feeling. It seemed there was no protection from the elements for a while there. But the foundation was good and strong and there were two of us to work on the reconstruction. The end result was something stronger and more beautiful than what we started with — and that’s really saying something.

That’s all. I’m done now.

My husband and I bickered this morning.

What happened is that I opened the door to the bathroom (our bathroom is tiny) and hit him with it. He yelled, “OW!” I was rattled a little by his reaction and, rather than apologizing, I shot back, “Well, you shouldn’t be standing there!”

He felt I should be more concerned about his injury.

I feel that, after nearly 11 years of marriage, he should know better than to stand where I can hit him with the door.

I mean, really. Sometimes the man has no sense at all.

sleep issues

I’ve written before that I have issues when it comes to sleeping. I walk in my sleep, talk in my sleep, scream in my sleep, and have night terrors where I am likely to jump up and run into a wall. I also have the tendency to wake up in the middle of the night and start putting on make-up and heating my curling iron before I realize that it is 2 AM and I have five more hours to sleep.

Good times, people. Good times.

A few nights ago, in the dead of night, a sound interrupted my peaceful slumber. It took me a second before I recognized the “Ech, Ech, Ech” as one of the dogs retching in the bed where they sleep on the floor next to Brad’s side of the bed.

One thing about being a mother is that we tend to jump into action when we hear that retching sound. At least, I do. Because there is nothing I hate cleaning up worse than puke. Especially dog puke.

So, I did what any reasonable, sane person would do. I sat up in bed (still mostly asleep) and flailed my arms about, accidentally whacking Brad right in the face. He did what any reasonable, sane person would do after being awoken from a sound sleep with a punch to the face and sat straight up, screaming, “Baaaahhhhhhh!”

Feeling that he was sufficiently awake and alert, I pointed to the floor and exclaimed, “The dogs gonna puke! Take her outside, quick!”

To which he replied, “Heather! You scared the SHITE out of me!”

In the time it took for him to chastise me, the damage was done. The dog puked right in her bed and settled back down to sleep. Of course, she was rudely dumped out of the bed so it could be carried to the laundry room and washed.

I fell back asleep immediately since I was never really fully awake. I have a feeling, however, that it took Brad a little longer to get back to sleep. In fact, he may have had to change his shorts first. Not sure.