Tag Archives: marriage

January 24, 2016 · 3:58 pm

New Year, Same Old Resolutions

It’s January—time to make a comprehensive list of all the areas in our daily lives that desperately need improvement, or at the very least, tweaking. For many of us, that means dusting off the list we made LAST year. I for one have taken an inventory of my shortcomings these past few weeks and pledge to keep at least a handful of the New Year’s resolutions I’ve made AGAIN, despite the unlikely nature of lasting success. Here are the highlights.

For starters, I’ll be kinder. More specifically, I’ll stop harboring ill will toward the people who seem to take an eternity to put air in their tires at the gas station. No longer will I wish that a chunk of space debris would fall upon their heads, effectively ending their stint at the pump, making my wait that much shorter. Perhaps instead I’ll use the time to meditate or make a grocery list. Who am I kidding? I’ll play the bazillionth game of solitaire on my smartphone or count the appalling number of Trump for President bumper stickers I see in the vicinity.

Secondly, I’ll stop enabling my kids. Even though it pains me greatly, I’ll refrain from harvesting gobs of toothpaste from their bathroom sink each morning, followed by removing wads of hair from their shower because, quite frankly, this practice has done nothing but teach them how to be unaccountable in life, not to mention, horrible at housekeeping. Instead, I’ll ignore their domestic failings (as intolerable as that might be) and bank on the notion that eventually they’ll become SO GROSSED OUT they can’t help but be inspired to do the job themselves. Probably.

Related: I’ll try to be a better parent. Translation: I vow to stop yelling: “THE YELLING IN THIS HOUSE HAS GOT TO STOP!” Please reference my Twitter feed or the previous paragraph for insight as to why such behavior might be warranted (i.e. my teens DRIVE me to it and my parenting tools are decidedly defective). Needless to say, the irony here isn’t lost on me and I recognize fully that I won’t be nominated for Mother of the Year anytime soon. However, I’d be thrilled if I could simply spend less time yelling about the yelling I do.

In addition, I resolve to spend less time using my iPhone and more time interacting with humans. More specifically, I’ll curb my penchant for texting and sending Facebook messages to those who happen to be in the same room with me, sometimes within arm’s length. In lieu of that, I’ll engage in actual face-to-face conversations with the people I love, allowing words and phrases to fall from my lips in a cascade of spontaneity. Technology be damned.

What’s more, in 2016 I’ll attempt to rid my world of unnecessary stress. No longer will I feel guilty about sleeping in or taking a mental health day on occasion, which, of course, will be defined by watching an embarrassment of HGTV while spooning with my dog on the couch. All day, if circumstances warrant. Don’t judge.

Furthermore, I promise to finish at least some of the projects I start, beginning, of course, with hauling our artificial Christmas tree and outdoor lights to the attic. With any luck, that will transpire before Groundhog Day. The most challenging project I’ll likely tackle in the coming year, however, will be indoctrinating my dear husband on the finer points of organization. Pray for me.

And because no one’s list of New Year’s resolutions would be complete without referencing the pathetic nature of a diet and exercise routine gone awry, I pledge to walk more in the new year as well as add more greens to my plate. I won’t give up my peanut M&M fix or my frappés, however.

I haven’t gone COMPLETELY mad.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live (welcoming a brand new year, striving to achieve the same wretched resolutions). Join me there, at the corner of Irreverence and Over-Sharing www.facebook.com/NotesfromPlanetMom.

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Filed under I Pretty Much Suck at Parenting, Welcome to My Disordered World

Tagged as humor, January, marriage, New Year, New Year's Resolutions, parenting, resolutions

December 9, 2015 · 6:23 pm

Merry and Bright. Sort Of.

I love indoor Christmas lights. Tiny white ones, more specifically—the sort that cast a soft glow at dusk, filling a darkened room with ambient warmth, reminding me that it was totally worth risking life and limb to hang them atop windows and French doors as I foolishly balanced on a step stool, the meaty arm of a sofa and once, even upon a tall stack of pillows that were strategically placed upon said sofa. Yep. Totally worth it.

My husband, by contrast, adores such festive trappings, but is less than enamored with the idea of wrestling with them for more than 27 minutes—the average time it takes to retrieve the tangled masses from the attic, arrange them in clumps on the floor and then wrap them around a Christmas tree in a manner that is both geometrically and aesthetically pleasing. What’s more, he can’t stand it when he makes the inevitable discovery in the thick of decorating madness (i.e. lights that won’t light, bulbs that are broken or flicker with the slightest bit of movement and entire strands of lights that are sporadically lit at best, a far cry from merry and bright).

Of course, these are the very same lights that functioned perfectly last year—the ones we tested before boxing them up and shoving them into the deep recesses of the attic. I’m convinced that something criminal happens in there between New Year’s and Thanksgiving. Something that can probably be traced to Elf on a Shelf, or an equally reprehensible little creature inclined to tamper with our trimmings. However, we don’t own any of the aforementioned elves, nor would I feel compelled to put them on a shelf or anywhere else because they creep the cranberries out of me. Nevertheless, it’s clear that something goes on in that attic that would explain our less-than-functional lights.

Yes, it’s possible they’re just chintzy, and that we’re too cheap to care.

At any rate, we are then faced with a dilemma—the one my husband and I experience each and every year. Do we ditch the strands of lights that refuse to cooperate completely, effectively ridding ourselves of the headache that is defined by tightening and checking ALL of the bulbs individually? Or do we stuff the dysfunctional segments of strands into the tree, where we hope no one will notice and subsequently judge our character?

And let us not forget the problem of what to do with the strands that won’t light at all. If you’re anything like my husband, you’ll keep plugging them into the wall socket and jiggling the wires, repeating the idiocy that is wrapped in denial. Admittedly, I am slightly amused by his antics, so I encourage him to continue trying. Again. And again. Eventually, though, he decides to part with the wretched strands, leaving them for dead. Meanwhile, I cram yard upon yard of half-functioning light strings into the tree, doing my level best to disguise the ones we’ve determined to be misfits this Christmas—because a) I’m too lazy to go to the store to buy more and b) I’m too stubborn to unravel what I worked so hard to position on the boughs in the first place.

“It’s fine,” I rationalize. “We’ll manage with the ones that DO work and no one will be the wiser.”

I have to wonder, as I cruise around town at dusk, peering into yellow squares of windows at fir trees and mantles aglow with twinkly, white lights—do rogue trimmings plague their households with the same ferocity as ours? Maybe we’re an anomaly. Or maybe the universe hates us. Or maybe, just maybe, our Christmas spirit is being tested. I suppose it stands to reason that we continue to pass since we rise to the occasion each year, making our home merry and bright in spite of the intolerable struggle that has become familiar if nothing else.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live, probably messing with Christmas lights. Visit me there at www.facebook.com/NotesfromPlanetMom.

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Filed under Holiday Hokum, Home is Where the Weirdness Lives, Normal is Relative, We Put the Fun in Dysfunction

Tagged as Christmas, Christmas lights, decorating, holiday spirit, humor, marriage

November 17, 2015 · 9:19 pm

If the Sock Fits, Marry It

I’ve been married some 27 years, 19 of which to the same wonderful man. In that span of time I’ve come to the conclusion that a successful marriage doesn’t have as much to do with an abiding love as it does with an ability to tolerate a disordered sock drawer.

That said, my husband’s socks are in a pitiful state of disarray much of the time. Again and again, I’ve tried to bring a sense of order and uniformity to the unruly heaps in his dresser by employing a variety of tactics (i.e. ditching the socks with holes, pairing those without mates and grouping them according to style or color), to no avail. Somehow the huddled masses return in a less-than-tidy fashion, yearning to breathe free. And because I’ve grown to understand the psyche of the disordered male, egregiously flawed as he might be, I’ve become a more compassionate mate.

By the same token, my husband accepts my flaws, and the fact that my sock drawer is a ridiculously organized space—complete with separate compartments for sweat socks, woolen socks and dress socks, nary a rogue in the bunch. The only thing it lacks is a coordinated cataloguing system inspired by Dewey Decimal. Needless to say, I recognize how difficult this must be for him, coming to grips with the sad reality that he lives with a closet neat freak. Of course, no one knows I’m a neat freak because there are no outward signs, unless you happened to be present on the day I purged our linen closet, hurling a disturbing number of blankets, towels and obscenities into the yard during a brief yet memorable fit of rage. Most of the time, however, I suffer in silence, allowing the tide of paraphernalia that comes with marriage and a family to consume me.

Admittedly, since the advent of children I’ve drifted from my well-ordered life and neatnik tendencies, much like growing apart from the distant relatives we stumble across at a funeral, decades later, squinting hard to try and remember who they are and how they once fit into our lives.

That said, everything in my world used to be neat and tidy. There was a place for everything, and everything was in its place. Even my food was logically aligned, tallest to smallest, labels facing out. To this day a tiny part of me dies whenever I peer inside our supersized refrigerator, the contents of which rest on shelves indiscriminately, as if they had been violently launched from a cannon across the room. But I digress.

Getting married and having kids changed everything. After years in the field, I’ve determined that about 90% of parenthood involves finding lone socks in obscure places. Plus there are even more sock drawers to deal with. Indeed, there is more stuff in general—stuff that is piled in our attic and garage, beneath beds and atop closet shelves, in cedar cabinets and the musty basement. Stuff that has no business being stuffed where it gets stuffed. Apparently appliance garages aren’t just for blenders anymore. They’re for lunchboxes and dog vitamins, too, leftover popcorn and tubs of butter that may or may not be encrusted with the remnants of a week’s worth of toast. And let us not forget the crumbs that gather there en masse. The ones that no one wants to clean.

What’s more, it’s been so long since we could park two cars in our garage I’ve forgotten what that even feels like. I suspect it would feel wonderful, much like it would to put china and only china in my china cabinet. Instead it houses prized artwork from my kids’ grade school experience and a decade’s worth of snapshots. Likewise, my refrigerator holds newspaper clippings, report cards and pictures of my favorite people and pets in the world. It holds vacation keepsakes and magnets with phrases I find particularly meaningful, too. Because that’s what families do—they fill their homes with tangible reminders of the love that lives there. And they tolerate the disorder, sock drawers included.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live, with way too many socks. Visit me there at www.facebook.com/NotesfromPlanetMom.

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Filed under Captain Quirk, Family Affair, Home for Wayward Toys, In the Trenches of Parentville, Love and Other Drugs, Normal is Relative, Rantings & Ravings, The Chicken Man, We Put the Fun in Dysfunction

Tagged as clutter, disorder, disorganization, home, humor, marriage, parenting

November 11, 2015 · 11:59 am

Dust Happens

I have an aversion to housework—especially dusting. It’s just so completely exhausting, what with all the moving-of-stuff and then with the putting-it-all-back nonsense. What’s more, I can never remember how I had it all arranged before I started to dust and when I’m finished, I have to REASSEMBLE it in a manner that is not only functional, but also pleasing to the eye. Because who wants to look at fake plants, vacation pictures and trinkets et al. if it’s arranged improperly? I don’t.

Admittedly, I’ve been known to photograph my furniture, with its corresponding décor sitting on top of it, so that I don’t have to recall how it was positioned beforehand. Stop laughing. I probably deserve a medal because it’s a technique that is both clever and effective. So is using a vacuum cleaner when the layer of dust on tabletops is so thick it is thought to be offensive to one’s sensibilities.

Of course, my dogs sneer at me whenever that happens, judgmental beasts that they are. Or maybe they’re simply confused. “Vacuum cleaner? What on earth is that? She’s never pulled that from the depths of the closet before.”

So if my dogs are acutely aware of my shortcomings as a housekeeper, it’s no secret to others that my home is far from impeccably clean. Sometimes, however, I live in the Land of Denial—ignoring written messages on the TV screen like DUST ME or the fact that I unearthed a pine needle from last year’s Christmas tree the other day along with enough dog fur to make a rug. Not a toupee. An actual RUG.

There’s nothing quite like an impending visit from guests, however, that stirs within me a very real sense of panic—one that propels me from the couch and inspires me to scrub, and to dust, and to exhume from the aforementioned closet the vacuum cleaner. It’s as if the walls themselves shout at me, YOU LIVE IN A HOVEL AND PEOPLE ARE COMING! CLEAN ALREADY!

I know it’s really bad when my husband picks up a toilet wand and starts scrubbing, usually first thing in the morning—plagued, perhaps, by the thought of our filthy toilets throughout the night. I am rarely plagued by such thoughts unless I know that guests will soon make landfall (see above). Or we’re on the cusp of yet another holiday (see below).

That said, I positively detest the thought of setting festive décor ON TOP OF DUST, although it’s been known to occur on occasion. Halloween was a perfect example. October 31^st sort of snuck up on me this year, finding me totally unprepared for the event. At the last minute, it seemed, I was pulling rubbery bats and warty witches from our tub in the attic to display around the house. Dusting was out of the realm of possibility. Reference paragraph #1.

Let us not forget another reason that dusting is such a royal pain, aside from the sneezing frenzy it often rouses. It is the idiocy of dusting the stuff that sits on top of the stuff you’re dusting—a hazard of the trade. Also there’s the awfulizing we do as parents when we ask our children to help out with the housework, dusting in particular, completely convinced they’ll break something in the process—another hazard of the trade. Plus there’s absolutely NO CHANCE they’ll return stuff to its rightful place in the universe—which is patently intolerable. Hence, my hatred of dusting and all that it embodies.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live (probably not dusting). Join me there, at the corner of Irreverence and Over-Sharing www.facebook.com/NotesfromPlanetMom.

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Filed under "S" is for Shame, Rantings & Ravings, Welcome to My Disordered World

Tagged as children, cleaning, dusting, home, housework, humor, lazy, marriage, parenting

October 21, 2015 · 12:00 pm

It Takes a Village…to Find My Husband’s iPhone

My husband suffers from a debilitating character flaw—namely, that he loses things with disturbing regularity. That is not to say that the items in question remain lost forever. Sometimes, when the universe is agreeable, he finds them. Or at least someone finds them. Such was not the case with his wristwatch, however, or his enV cell phone that went MIA in 2007. I’m sure that by now someone out there is greatly enjoying the ungodly expensive Bulova I bought him. The phone with the nifty little keypad, by contrast, is likely still inside my home, lurking in a faraway corner, gathering dust. Or perhaps it’s situated right in plain sight, also gathering dust. Either way, by the time it’s recovered it’ll be a tired relic and of no use to anyone.

Needless to say, our exhaustive search for the abovementioned items proved fruitless so we broke down and purchased replacements, both of which have been AWOL as recently as today. That said, my husband’s condition is not only insufferable, it is also chronic.

What really stinks about the situation is not only that my husband’s world is upended whenever he misplaces something deemed vital to his everyday functioning, but the whole family is miserable since we’re forced to drop everything to help him hunt for his stuff. Invariably, it’s the iPhone that sparks the most outrage when it disappears from the radar, fueling our collective frustration.

“How on earth can you lose something as large as A PIECE OF TOAST?” I implore him, incredulous and furious as ever, not only because his phone, quite literally, is as large as a piece of toast, but because he not-so-affectionately refers to the device as “a piece of toast.”

The irony isn’t lost on me.

Even the kids are baffled as to how he can remember an astounding number of obscure events in history as well as the names, faces and phone numbers of practically everyone he’s ever met, and yet, he cannot readily recall where he left his phone just moments ago.

“That’s not normal, Dad,” our progenies suggest. “Maybe you should just keep it in your pocket, like everyone else on the planet. Or clip it to your belt.” Of course, in a perfect world, advice like this would have merit. However, my dear husband has informed me he doesn’t do clips. Nor does he place the phone in the same pocket—like a sensible person. Instead, he prefers to switch the phone willy-nilly from pocket to pocket, jacket to jacket and sometimes even plops it inside a shopping bag. “That way I don’t actually have to carry it,” he defends.

My theory is that he secretly detests his smartphone with every ounce of his being and purposefully abandons it whenever and wherever possible. That way, he can practice quiet defiance while appearing as if he truly cares about its recovery by helping us search beneath heaps of mail, under car seats and between couch cushions seemingly forever. A clever ruse, yet not quite clever enough to fool me.

At any rate, when the iPhone in question skips town we repeatedly and desperately call or text his number, hoping we’ll hear its familiar ringtone from the depths of the refrigerator (or some other perfectly logical place to leave a phone). It’s all for naught though, since it’s usually set to “vibrate only.” Naturally, when he mentions this particular detail, we want to scream something about buying tickets to see a train wreck. Or find the phone and soundly flog him with it.

What the man really needs is one of those beeping, flashing gizmos that restaurants use to let patrons know their table is ready. He should then duct tape the stupid thing to his phone—or simply duct tape the phone to his forehead. Either way, it would qualify as an improvement.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live, in search of my husband’s iPhone. Probably. Visit me there at www.melindawentzel.com and www.Facebook.com/NotesfromPlanetMom.