Patience

I've been thinking about spouses lately.  Being married requires a lot of patience.  I'd say it's in one of my top five important things to a successful marriage.  Of course I usually think of this in terms of how much patience is required on my part.  I could probably make a long list of things about my husband that drive me crazy.  Whenever I find myself particularly annoyed I have this mental picture of myself as Debora from "Everybody Loves Raymond", rolling her eyes and muttering "idiot".  Now I know this makes me sound like a mean wife, and I fully acknowledge that I, as my boss so delicately put it, "have a low bulls**t tolerance."  I just see it how I see it, and feel free to share accordingly.  Somehow this has gotten me thinking me about the things I do that maybe, just maybe, cause Dave to exercise a great deal of patience.  In no particular order, this ones for you babe:

* Dave does not like to spend money.  What he spends on shoes, hair, and clothes in a year equals about 12 weeks of haircuts, coloring, and product.

* Before mentioned dislike of spending money.  When we got married, he had money for my ring in cash. He'd been saving because he knew eventually he would meet the right girl.  I spend money the second it lands in my greedy little paws.

* Dave has not had closet space since we got married.  In every place we've lived, he has had to share closet space with the kids.  We know have a rather large closet, he has part of a rod.

* I am a huge whiner.  If I don't feel well everyone around me knows it.  If I get a debilitating headache, I will not quietly retire to my room, I will sit on the couch with ice on my head demanding that everyone be silent.  (In my defense, laying down does tend to make it way worse.)

* Dave can be up and out the door in 15 minutes if need be.  I take an hour to get myself together, not to mention the time it takes me to wake up in bed, wake up on the couch, and eat.

* We are never on time to church. Or anywhere else for that matter.  Case in point: our children don't really know what happens the first 10 minutes of church.

* I view the speed limit as a suggestion.  I don't think why this bothers him needs explaining.

* I will flat out ignore him for a good book.  If he's lucky I'll nod once in awhile when he says something.

* I  will ignore everything I should be doing for a good book.  When I first read the Twilight series, I didn't do anything the whole time.  I would nurse Connor while I read, make Greg pbj's while I read.  When people wanted dinner, I would pick the farthest restaurant I could think of, and read while Dave drove us there.  Mind you I get extremely car sick, but it was totally worth it.

* I'm slightly bossy.

* And just a little opinionated.

* I am pretty much unable to finish a project.  Which means there are constantly projects in various states all over the house.  He usually just wordlessly moves them around.

* I usually load the movie que.  I like rom coms, foreign films, and weird documentaries.  If you know Dave, nuff said.

* I have tons of clothes, shoes, coats etc.  I leave them all over our room and the house (no one else is allowed to do this btw)  yet I never have anything to wear.

* I have too many shoes to fit in my shoe shelves.  He has zero shoe shelves, I have several overflowing. 

* I refuse to mow the lawn, check the oil, or change a tire.  I don't like manual labor.

* I make him run just about every purchase by me, this rule does not go both ways.

* I make a lot of random references to books or Star trek.  If he doesn't get it, I tell him the whole story, in detail.

* If I'm on the computer and need to do something that requires me plugging in a card or cord that I might have to move to get, I either don't do it, or make him do it.  I'll insist on keeping windows open until I get whatever it is printed.  This rule also applies to getting my phone or a drink, if I'm on the couch.  When he met me, my roommates called me T-Rex and he knew why.  So I don't feel too bad about this.

* I laugh at totally inappropriate situations.  Like wrecking the car or majorly over drawing the check book.

* When I hit the side of the garage with the expensive, heated mirror of our new (to us) car, I hit the gas and kept going.  Ripping the thing off in the process.  Then laughed hysterically. Dave did not.

* I make ten holes in the wall to hang one thing.  Then I hang it crooked and/or wrong, so he has to fix it.

I could probably make a much longer list if I thought harder, and took a poll.  But I'm way too lazy.  My dad always compares marrying off his daughters, to selling an old used car.  You love it, and are sad to see it go, but you're glad to not have to deal with its problems and quirks anymore.  I'm pretty sure that after 14 years of marriage Dave gets the joke now. 

Aunt Tara

This past week my aunt Tara lost her 5 year battle with breast cancer.  They threw everything they had at it, but sometimes cancer is more stubborn than us.  She leaves behind a husband and 4 beautiful girls.  The two oldest are heading into their teens, and are promising to be stunners like their mother.  Tara was very gracious, accomplished, and classy.  Her husband is my dad's younger brother Kevin.  When we were kids, Kevin was the fun, bachelor uncle.   He was the epitome of cool.  He went to Harvard, he lived in an apartment near the beach, he had a cool car (which to us meant not a minivan or station wagon).  Heck he lived in California, which was pretty much the coolest thing I could think of.  Kevin would fly two of us kids down at a time for a week filled with fun and all the amusement parks a kid could want.  But Kevin was still a Paulitz.  Which means major dorkdom.  Paulitz's are not smooth, in the best of social situations.  We are nerdy, clumsy, and lack any sort of filter on what we say.  So you can imagine my shock when, my senior year of high school, Kevin married Tara.  That he had somehow landed this woman, was beyond my imagination.  Our family joke is that we are the Idaho hillbillys.  We felt even more hillbilly-ish sitting in the backyard of Kevin and Tara's townhouse at their rehersal dinner. I remember being so impressed with how beautiful and elegant she made everything.    I was fascinated by how easy and seamless she made it seem too.  She even had outdoor heaters when it cooled off in the evening.  I thought she must be some sort of genius, she had every little touch in place PLUS OUTDOOR HEATERS!  I was seriously impressed by that rehersal dinner, because it was the sort of thing I'd love to hose, but never  would.  At the time, I was getting ready to go off to college, I thought if could just end up like her...Then I realized that I don't have an elegant or classy bone in my body and gave that up.  In her last years, I think Tara did everything she could to make sure she wouldn't have any regrets.  She knew her time on this earth was limited, but she didn't let it stop her.  She is leaving her girls with many beautiful memories.  I hope that she is at peace with her Lord, and happy with the life she lived.  Kevin was lucky to have landed such a kind and classy woman, and I'm pretty sure they both know it.