I'm not sure I can issue an ultimatum like that. I'm just not an old tomato kind of girl. I'll think about it, though.
Yesterday was a really hard day for S. because he thought he'd tear the old roof off the deck and put a new one on this w-e, and by yesterday at quittin' time he had managed to get only about 2/3 of the deck roof torn off, bruise himself terribly, and cover himself head to toe in black dirt and tar dust. At the beginning of the workday yesterday (we both had to work all w-e), he had sweetly said I could come "check on him" when I wanted to take a break, so I went over in the afternoon, and much to my chagrin he was hostile and reallllllly cranky, lecturing me about how he wasn't going to get anything done at this rate and he needed to start much earlier in the day, and that we wouldn't be moving Sept. 1 but Oct. 1 at this rate. I managed, somehow, not to personalize, said I was really sorry he was having such a hard time of it, and beat a hasty retreat. He came home at the end of the day and apologized right away. I rewarded his apology by going out and getting some takeout Middle Eastern food, which really hit the spot. Then we snuggled into bed and watched a movie, one of his very favorite things to do.
Today is S.'s birthday. He is 41. I am plagued by my crazymaker that SM will call today, so much so that I was treated to more dreams about her last night. In these dreams, worse than the ones I had last week, S. was trying to get rid of me and be alone with her. I slept OK but was really disconcerted this morning. S. still has not informed about the last e-mail from SM, and I wonder if he's waiting for T (Wednesday afternoon). HowEVER, I was being very sweet last night and this morning and pledge to be on my best behavior for S.'s birthday and beyond. We had planned to drive out to the beach today, but the deck fiasco and my own looming deadline has precluded doing anything, so we took a rain check. I have no idea what to do for his birthday - this is the first one I've been invited to (the other years have been "off" times, perhaps not coincidentally). I think I'll either get him a nice birdbath for the house in Vermont or a tree for up there. We go up this weekend.
Otherwise, I'm plugging away at my big deadline - my biggest project (650+ pages) has a first-batch turnover date of tomorrow, and I'm in decent shape (despite and because of having put in 12-14 hour days this past week, including Saturday and Sunday). Unfortunately, the second batch turnover is a few weeks away, so no rest for the weary until it's all finished (and I can get back to my other, neglected projects). Basically, I'll have no time, ever!
I've had no exercise since I left the mountains last Saturday. Ugh. Probably contributing to my state of crazymaking...
J- Just one word of advice for today - if you can squeeze it in at all, bake SO a cake!
I know, seems silly, but it just means the world to my H. Something he didn't always get as a child, I guess. And one of my H's friends is married to a Swedish woman who doesn't believe in celebrating birthdays - you wouldn't believe how grateful he is when we bake him a cake every year. So get a mix and some canned frosting, it really only takes a minute to put it together - and will insulate you from the "you didn't love me on my birthday" accusations. Trust me on this.
Ellie, I just got back from having lunch with S. on his stoop, then running to the corner store, where I bought a box of cake mix and some canned frosting, and here I sit down to your post!
Great minds think alike. The cake might be the grossest thing I ever put in my own mouth, but S. loves sweet desserts and so I think he'll be happy. The effort will please him more than the cake.
One night last week I made dinner, and pulled out some frozen fish sticks he had left here and forgotten about. (I'm a vegetarian 18 years now and I don't cook meat or fish, ever.) I threw them in the oven, and when he saw them, tears literally came to his eyes! He couldn't stop thanking me for the little extra effort it took me to hold my nose and put the fish sticks on a cookie sheet and into the oven. I wish he'd do that when I wash and fold his laundry! but anyway, he was so touched that I would think to do that, when he knows I don't cook creatures. Goes to show.
This from a man who doesn't "need WOA from anybody." My foot! He is so WOA it's ridiculous. And he eats them up.
BTW he told me today that his old college friend from Switz called to wish him a HB (and left a message - didn't talk to her). This woman knows SM (through S.) and so perhaps it was the tiniest little baby step that he would feel OK enough to tell me FF called? On second thought, he probably has completely forgotten that I know that FF knows SM and it's my own brain making the connection. Never mind.
Quote: One night last week I made dinner, and pulled out some frozen fish sticks he had left here and forgotten about. (I'm a vegetarian 18 years now and I don't cook meat or fish, ever.) I threw them in the oven, and when he saw them, tears literally came to his eyes! He couldn't stop thanking me for the little extra effort it took me to hold my nose and put the fish sticks on a cookie sheet and into the oven. I wish he'd do that when I wash and fold his laundry! but anyway, he was so touched that I would think to do that, when he knows I don't cook creatures. Goes to show.
Good for you but crap for me...wish I hadn't talked myself out of making that meatloaf tonight (a meal I do not enjoy) because I was too freaking spent.
I'd love to meet up when you get to my neck of the woods.
Sage
Relax. Appreciate. Be calm. Laugh. Enjoy. Be secure. Be loving. Be loved. Don't personalize. Don't ASSume. Accept. Be grateful.
Soooooo, Betty Crocker, how'd the cake and birthday celebrations go?
To think a year ago you were venturing quietly out of your Queen of Darkness status to leave a card & rosemary sprig on his doorstep . . . I'd say lots has happened in the intervening 365 days!
Well, the cake turned out to be the collapsingest, sickeningly sweetest, doofiest looking cake ever. I didn't have the right pans so I stuck it in a 10" Springform and it cooked up high on the edges and made a nice huge hollow in the middle. I was thrilled, because it made me laugh, and I knew it would make S. laugh, too. So I tossed the canned icing, which was inedible, and instead whipped up some butter cream frosting from scratch to which I added maple syrup and nutmeg for my favorite little Vermonter (besides Rudy Vallee, of course!). I slopped it on there and dug out some yellow decorating icing I had from a GF's baby shower, and wrote Happy 41 on it, as well as drew the likeness of a chicken (our mascot). It was THE ugliest cake you've EVER seen, I guar-awn-tee it!
So after the day's work S. decided he wanted to go to our local for dinner, so we did, had a lovely time (they had live washboard jazz, which was fun because the guys were good), a nice talk, and S. even snatched the check when it came (I had to resist feeling his forehead for fever) and insisted on paying! Of course I heaped gold stars upon him, and we walked home to have UgliCake with the boys. We had a good laugh over it.
The container trucks roared in around 4 a.m. (there are three houses being renovated right across the street from mine), and so we were awake... what better time to ML? So we were feeling all cozy and snuggly until around 8:30 this morning, when Mr. Cranky reared his UgliHead and lit into me for the "tight deadline" over at the house and how "I want I want I want" but I don't want to come up with any solutions. I had simply mentioned that we would probably need a W&D, and then he accidently kicked a box of his clothes on the floor, then my landlord showed up to take a look at the bathroom he is going to renovate when we move out, and S. couldn't get into the bathroom, and so all this set him off and he went into a rant (above and about not liking being at my house all the time, how uncomfortable it is for him). This time, I couldn't avoid personalizing it (hard as I tried) and cried some, saying I didn't think he needed to talk to me that way after I'd tried as hard as I could to make him comfortable over here while the renovations are going on, making space in my drawers and clearing a spot in the closet, even taking off the mattress topper because it was "lumpy" and he couldn't sleep.
Honestly, these two temper spats I've never seen from him before - I guess the stress is really getting to him. Of course I could never say, "Well, if you'd gotten started 6 weeks before the contractors came, like you'd planned, instead of 2 days before, you'd be in better shape." So of course this is all my fault, this deadline, and everything he's doing is for ME... anyway, I just have to learn to check out quickly when he starts ranting, and heap praise on him when he isn't. Geez, it gets so tiring, babysitting these WASs!
So I went downstairs and for the umpteenth day in a row washed all the crap in the sink from the night before (this time it was the dessert plates), and while I was putting the last things into the drying rack he came up, put his arms around me, and apologized.
Anyway, on to you, H2H, I was JUST thinking about that b'day card this morning! I had forgotten the rosemary sprig, though... your memory is going to get you into trouble one of these days, StaplesHead.
And Sage, I'll let you know when I'm heading up there. Would be great to meet up (hold the meat loaf, please! )
Quote: Mr. Cranky reared his UgliHead and lit into me for the "tight deadline" over at the house and how "I want I want I want" but I don't want to come up with any solutions.
What kind of solution is he expecting you to come up with? And why, with such a tight deadline, is he doing grunt work like pulling up the decking, when any logical person would pick up some day laborers to help with that and concentrate on the doing the more skilled labor himself?
It seems that not REacting has been serving you well when he gets like this - he has been coming and apologizing to you later. Is this a Venusian communicating style coming from him - he just wants to vent, doesn't really want you to leap in with options and solutions? Or is there something he wants you to say or do specifically - change the move-in date to the day before your due-date, or kick in money to pay for some laborers, or ??????
Quote: So I went downstairs and for the umpteenth day in a row washed all the crap in the sink from the night before (this time it was the dessert plates),
Is this the start of an issue? Living together does require all these little negotiationsover irritating things like dishes. Don't get started on the martyrdom path - it seldom works out well. Either accept that he's not big on getting the dishes done the night before, or usea little honey or humor to get him to do them with you the night before.
Because, Ellie, he is the millionaire next door. He doesn't want to pay anyone for anything, he wants to do it all himself. Nothing I can do about that.
I don't know why I posted "for the umpteenth..." I have no issue whatsoever with washing the dishes in the morning. S. is actually quite good about helping. I was probably vying for a little BB sympathy. Consider me busted!
The solutions thing he was referring to the W&D comment. There is really no place for one, except in the basement, which we would have to go outside and then downstairs to access. He had said maybe we wouldn't have one for awhile, and I said we would really need one. I was really just jawing, not lecturing or anything, but I realize he was reacting to my saying we needed one when he'd just said there was no place for one. Honestly, it was more about the noise at my house and the inability to get into the bathroom and the box of crap on the floor than it was about the W&D.
Quote: Is this a Venusian communicating style coming from him - he just wants to vent, doesn't really want you to leap in with options and solutions?
No doubt he is a Venusian in a lot of ways, Ellie! I really think he just wants me to recognize him and heap the gold stars on for all the work he's doing. He wants constant WOA, and I have to get better at feeling natural about doling them out.
He's cranky and stressed (by the way, he just showed up again to apologize again and give me a kiss on his way back to his house from the hardware store). I just have to stay out of his way and avoid hot topics for awhile.
Ellie is full of great ideas, but I have to say that I was really relieved to hear that you ditched the canned frosting. There's a limit.
Whatever else may be going on in your R overall, I keep thinking that, with an impending baby, S. would have to be crazy not to be freaking out on some level and feeling like life as he's known it is flashing before his eyes. Even in the most planned and wanted pregnancies, there's an element of terror in the prospect of new parenthood. Of course, if the parents experience it and express it differently, then that adds something else to freak out about.
Good luck with all your work. Be sure to squeeze in some meditative yoga, okay?
So we were feeling all cozy and snuggly until around 8:30 this morning, when Mr. Cranky reared his UgliHead and lit into me for the "tight deadline" over at the house and how "I want I want I want" but I don't want to come up with any solutions. I had simply mentioned that we would probably need a W&D, and then he accidently kicked a box of his clothes on the floor, then my landlord showed up to take a look at the bathroom he is going to renovate when we move out, and S. couldn't get into the bathroom, and so all this set him off and he went into a rant (above and about not liking being at my house all the time, how uncomfortable it is for him). This time, I couldn't avoid personalizing it (hard as I tried) and cried some, saying I didn't think he needed to talk to me that way after I'd tried as hard as I could to make him comfortable over here while the renovations are going on, making space in my drawers and clearing a spot in the closet, even taking off the mattress topper because it was "lumpy" and he couldn't sleep.
)