Monday Madness and Minutiae

We did a little bit of Christmas shopping this weekend. It's been good for The Hubs and I to get out together. Christmas is a team effort. It has to be. You see, hour-wise, musicians work year around. But it just happens that a LOT of those hours occur in December. Believe me, I'm not complaining. I am absolutely 100% grateful that I get to do what I LOVE and earn a paycheck. But The Hubs and I have learned to approach this season with military tactic and strategical planning. To underscore this mentality, he bought me one of my favorite signs while we were out as a pre-Christmas present:

The Hubs gets me. That's why I keep him around. ;)
Gotta love that man!

Yours, keeping calm and carrying on,

Melissa

Monday Madness-Where Have We Been?

So sorry for our absence, dear readers. I had a major fundraising event a week ago Friday, Karen's been sick (Pneumonia? It's going around!) and then there was the election. All of that to say, yes, it's been quite chaotic as of late. And from all of these activities we go straight into the holiday season, which for the musicians, means a whole lotta work right now and not much after Christmas. Not that I'm tweaky about it yet or anything like that. :)

But today, I'm taking a moment to breathe. I'm doing the 21 day thankfulness challenge. And even though today's thankful list includes being thankful for steam cleaners and the extra time to clean up that coffee spill out of the carpet right away and the fact that The Hubs was not there to see me do it (priceless!), I still have to admit, we live pretty good lives. Yes, we all have inconveniences. And heart-stopping moments. We have even experienced catastrophic things. But we're still here, still chuggin' along, still finding things to laugh about. And for that, I'm thankful.

So go ahead- I dare you. For the rest of November- heck, the rest of the year!- find something every single day to be thankful about. Bet it just might do you some good.

Yours, thankful the coffee actually came OUT of the carpet,

Melissa

Monday Madness- My Thankful List

In the midst of all the madness, I still have a lot to be thankful about. Here's just a few...

-The hubs still thinks I'm cute.
-Chocolate chip cookies fresh out of the oven.
-Witty colleagues.
-Healthy work environment.
-A daughter who cleaned both bathrooms and helped with the kitchen WITHOUT BEING ASKED TO DO IT. (I do believe the heavens parted and angels sang!)
-A paper written by the Z1 listing his favorites. His favorite person? His mom. (Yes, I cried. Shush it, Karen!)
-A business partner who, when we started the business, we swore that we would stay business partners first and friends second. Yeah. Didn't happen. I'm glad friendship wins. :)
-Catching up on my paper mountain.
-Isight catchup with a good friend.
-A sale of something I've been obsessing over for 8 months. Buyer's remorse. A little. But I'm thankful it will go away as soon as the package arrives. :D

Yours, reveling in this crazy ride,

Melissa

Monday Madness- Introducing Humor

Typical Monday morning. No one wants to get put of bed no matter how many times I turn the lights on. The thought of going to school is unappealing. The thought of having to go to work even less than appealing. Who made Monday anyway? Oh, right. That would be a God thing. My Monday Moodiness is probably the least of His concerns at the moment, yes?

The Hubs and I have been doing something for the last year that has really made a breakthrough in our marriage, thus in family life. We laugh at things. We laugh at each other. We laugh at ourselves. We tick each other off by making fun at each other and laugh until the other person has to leave the room. This morning was no different.

He was fussy because it was Monday and he was taking The Lolanator to the vet. I had already gotten the speech the previous evening about it was not his dog, blah, blah, blah, and he doesn't know why, wah wah, waaaah,(insert Charlie Brown's teacher's voice here) wahh, wahh, and why should he have to blabbity blah blah. So this morning he announces he is taking my car (the one he prefers, nay, tried to con me out of by telling me how much better I looked in his car- FAT CHANCE BUCKO!) because he has to take the dog. So Z2 looks at me, rolls her eyes and says,"FUSS -Y!" to which he got even fussier. To which Z2 and I immediately pounced on and started making fun of him. So he had to leave the room. He comes back in to get Lola and sees that I have the pincher collar on her. She's not a bad or mean dog- she's a big teddy bear. But she doesn't realized her own strength, so the pincher just lets her know when she is going too far. I get lectured about that- how the vet always gives him a dirty look when she is wearing that collar.

I try to explain, but am promptly cut off mid sentence. So I change her collar. He makes it six steps out the door before she escapes and runs down the street. 

Yup. Sometimes you just gotta laugh!

Yours, thankful for humor,

Melissa

Monday Madness: It takes a DEADLINE.

We were sitting on the couch, The Hubs and I. Resting from beginning his latest project, he asked,"When are you going to believe me when I say that I am going to do something?"


"What do you mean?" I replied, slightly confused. "You usually do... when you say you are going to..."
We had just finished taking out the wet bar and tearing down the wall that separated the living room and kitchen. He made me karate kick the dry wall down. I felt like Sif from Thor. 


However, when the project was started, he was not in such a good mood. He was frustrated that the bar had not been packed. Having been through this type of thing before, I simply got brought him some necessary items and then said,"I'm going to get out of your way, but I'll be in the dining room working on my class prep if you need anything." A wise wife knows when to go in the other room, keep herself occupied and pray. It came out later that he was angry with me for not being ready to work on the bar. Of course, I didn't know that he planned on working on it at that exact moment (reading minds is not one of Sif's Goddess attributes) and so he was angry with me that I had not done what he had asked me to do.

Or did he? I recall him asking,"Honey, can you pack up the bar?" a few days ago. "Well, yeah. I can get that done." I said. "Okay," he said and walked away.
There was no mention of when. No words such as,"I'd like to take the wetbar out on Sunday afternoon and I will need it to be packed up by then."


When he explained that to me as we were sitting on the couch, that that's what he had MEANT when he asked if I could... meaning to do it right away... I couldn't help but giggle. 


"Honey," I said, choosing my words cautiously,"Just because you asked if I could, doesn't really imply to me that you want me to do it right away. I need a deadline. I am inspired by DEADLINES. Just because I didn't do it right away does not mean I don't believe you. It just means I didn't know when you wanted it done because you didn't tell me."


Yet ANOTHER clear example of the gap in communication that exists between The X Chromosome People and The Sif. 


Yours, wondering if that gap might ever be bridged,


Melissa

Friday Funny- Hey Lady! Did You Know...?

As an alum, The Hubs is a huge Mizzou Fan. In the words of Z2,"You have to know, he takes being a Mizzou Fan very seriously." So seriously, in fact, that my car has a Tiger Tail. I've resigned myself to it. I've thought about tying some purple ribbon on it (Go Wildcats!), but I know it would not be worth the heck I'd get for it. And actually, during football season, having the tail hang out of my trunk makes it supremely easy to find my car in the parking lot, which admittedly is NOT one of my strengths. 
Usually, we get some honks, or a toddler will pass by the car in amazement, believing there really IS a tiger in the trunk. The wonderment on their faces is priceless. Being close to St. Louis, where there are a plethora of Mizzou grads (we're only 1 1/2 hours away from Mizzou), people are accustomed to seeing things like this. But this September, it seems to have caused quite a stir. 


I've been flagged down on the highway.


Stopped in parking lots.


Had numerous people try to get my attention with different gestures. (I'm choosing to believe those gestures were signs of support).


Most recently, I had a man stop me in the parking lot as I'm trying to get home early one morning from an emergency milk run. 


"Excuse me, ma'am," he said in his thick, East Indies accent,"Do you know you have a tail hanging out of your trunk?"


"Mmhmm," I reply. "It's supposed to be there."


"Supposed to be there? You mean, you WANT it hanging out of the trunk?"


"Yes, I do. My husband is a Tigers fan," I explain.


"A Tiger fan? Why would you want a tail hanging out of the trunk?" he asked.


"Uhm, you know... Mizzou... Go Tigers!... Mizzou-rah?"


He looked at me like I was nuts. I decided to go with it. Wanting to get out of the conversation and get home without being thought of as rude, I looked him dead in the eye and said," Honestly, it's the only way I can control the tiger. If I open the trunk, he'll jump out and then, well, where will we be?"


He backed away, I got in my car and made it home in time to feed my kids breakfast before school. 


Yours, rooting for the Tigers (unless they're playing K-State),

Melissa

Friday Funny... In which The Hubs tries to convince me...

For those of you have been reading here for a while, you know that my full time occupation (beyond wife and mother- and let's face it, those are full time too!) is a musician/educator. God, in His infinite humor, paired me (a melancholy creative) with a very logical, left-brained, athletic organized man.

Yes, it's okay to laugh at that. I laugh at it daily.

The Hubs is the IT Manager for a larger sports supply company. That in itself is a hilarious twist of fate as neither of us are campers or hunters. We play golf. Seriously.... could you see me taking aim at a moose? Who would win THAT? My money's on the moose! (Sidenote: The Hubs is getting talked into being a den dad for the Boy Scouts this year. It's about to get interesting at the B House!)

Back to the subject at hand... He's been gearing up for today for weeks now. Today they take inventory. And after inventory, he will spend the weekend supervising the installation of the new software system. He's been trying to talk me into being there and helping out.

ROFLMBO! Seriously. Have you ever seen me work with a computer? That could be an entire sitcom series. It's just not pretty.

After one impassioned plea yesterday, I calmly replied,"My dear, you will be counting over 60,000 bins of product. You won't even let me balance the checkbook because I forget to carry the "one" occasionally and it throws everything off. Might I remind you: I am a musician. We count to 13 because that's all the notes we have. Thirteen is as high as I go."

Poetic justice, I would say, for all the times he's reminded me about how bad I am at the checkbook.

Yours, grateful on an entirely different level to be a musician today,

Melissa