It's the Little Things

A friend of mine, Betsi Mandrioli,  wrote a song called "It's the Little Things".  (If you go to her site, you can click on a link of the song on the right-hand side)   In the song, she talks about all the little things that make her relationship with her husband so special.    He leaves the porch light on when she's out.  She hands him Advil before he even asks, because she can tell he has a headache.  

Most good relationships are like that.   All the little things that make your love so real. 

My hubby is the king of "the little things".   One of my favorites is the cup waiting on the counter near the tea pot in the morning when I get up, complete with tea bag and spoon.   It shows me that he's thinking of me before he leaves for work.

This past week has been horrendously stressful at work.  Hubby has been the soul of patience, listening to me blab along about all the drama.   He knows I needed to relax, so he told me he'd give me some TLC last night.

And so he planned, shopped for, cooked and cleaned up a wonderful dinner for me.  Not only was it a dinner, it was all my favorite things:

A beautiful salad



Wine

Marinated chicken on the grill with mushrooms!

Homemade mashed potatoes

Steamed Broccoli

The thing about this meal is, it didn't just relax me for the evening - it finally made me realize how stupid I've been.  How crazy I am that I've allowed situations beyond my control to overshadow the most fantastic thing in my life.   That no one in the world has a Hubby like mine, who loves me so much and is willing to do anything for me.   Why have I been wasting my time with stupid crap, when I have so much that's wonderful in my life?

Everyone is a work in progress, and I'm no different.  I'm going to try, once again, to change my attitude and count my blessings, rather than my aggravations.  

And when I'm stressed out at work, I'll think of grilled chicken and mashed poatoes.

20 Weird Things

My good friend Joan over at  How To Be A Housewife  put up a post called "20 Weird Things" about herself, having been challenged by a friend of hers to do so.    Joan, in turn, challenged her readers to do the same.    So........here they are, in no particular order:

1.  My sheets and blankets have to be smooth and square on the bed or I can't sleep.  If the blankets become messed up at night, I have to get out of bed and re-make the bed before I can go back to sleep.

2.  I love the smell of coffee, but I drink tea.

3.  I like most things toasted very dark, almost burnt.

4.  I can't stand anything soggy, but I do like the soggy bread in a bowl of French Onion Soup.

5.  I like to read a real newspaper, and a real book vs. online newspaper or e-reader.

6.  I suffer from mono-hiccupitis.....the tendency to hiccup just once after the first sip of a carbonated beverage.

7.  I adore penguins.......real, stuffed, photos or videos.

8.  I can say all the United States alphabetically.

9.  I have a cat that thinks he's a dog and looks like a cow.

10.  I started doing Child Care and worked in the field for 30 years, because I didn't believe it was good for my children to be in daycare.

11.  If I get the hiccups once in a day, I will have them three times before the day is over.

12.  I got my first tattoo and went white-water rafting to celebrate my 40th birthday.

13.  I was the best man at my brother's wedding.

14.   I have a daughter who plays professional football.

15.  I say Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit at the beginning of each month to insure good luck for me for the whole month.

16.  I learned to play a card game called "45's" at the age of 5.  This game is played only by people living in the Merrimack Valley area of Massachusetts.

17.  I like to go to the beach in the middle of winter, but not in the summer.

18.  I married a hippie, who is the love of my life.

His contributions to the list - things he thinks are weird but that I find perfectly normal:

19.  I read in bed, on my side so that the book is sideways.

20.  I love to cook on the grill  and he doesn't   (he thinks that's a "man thing")

21.  I can watch repeats of the same TV show over and over (I also can read the same book more than once if I really like it).

So there you have it.   21 Weird Things about Me  (I gave you an extra).   Now make a list and leave me a comment with your blog address, and I will link it to my post.

Cha-ching??? Not really

It's "tax season", and I'm sure everyone is diligently putting together all the crap they need to do their taxes.

For the past few years, I've used Turbo Tax. With a condo that didn't generate enough interest payments to get me over the standard deduction, and no other considerations, it was the easiest and fastest way to go.

This was the year I thought I'd need to dole out the dough for someone to figure our taxes, what with the selling of the condo and the buying of the house.   I was anxiously delighted to find out what kind of tax break I'd get for losing thousands of dollars on the sale of the condo.

But at the last minute, I couldn't find it in my heart to fork over $300-$400 to have a professional do it, and decided to give Turbo Tax a try.  I paid the extra $20 to do the upgraded version.  

Sadly, it turns out you don't get a break on a personal loss.  If I'd been a business and sold a property at a loss, I could have gotten something off my taxes.   Go figure.

Anyway, after punching in all the numbers and answering all the questions, I came up with a return of over $2K between the federal and the state ( We have to pay MA state tax cause Hubby works there, even though we live in NH  -   the bastards).

Cha-ching!!   $2K!!  Until a friend reminded me that it was my money in the first place, and they've just been holding it, interest free.

I'm So Done.......

I'm so done with being polite.   There's holding your tongue to avoid conflict, and then there's being walked all over.   And I'm so done with it.

When someone is infringing on our personal space, why don't we do something about it?

A person in a restaurant is speaking loudly on their cell phone.   Do we go over and ask them to please take their conversation outside?    No.....we roll our eyes and complain with our companion.

A person is smoking within our breathing area.  Do we ask them to please go smoke their cigarette elsewhere?  No.......we wave our arms about and try to give a "hint" that the smoking is bothering us.

A person is loud and obnoxious and annoying at the movie theater.   Do we ask them to tone it down?  No.......we sit and become aggravated because our movie is being ruined.

I'm one of the worst offenders of this kind of non-confrontational behavior.   The scenarios I've described have happened to everyone, and for some reason we cannot get up the chutzpah to do something about it.

We don't want to be rude.  We don't to offend.  We don't want to make a scene.   

It might take me some time  - but I want to grow a backbone -- I want  to stand up for myself - I want to recapture my personal space and assert my rights.

Anyone have any ideas how?

Seriously?

I know money is tight these days, but here are some real-life scenarios that happened in my office:

1)  Phone Call

Member:  I have a question about my bill.

Me:  (thinking she means her membership bill) Let me check that for you.

I check her account and see nothing amiss.

Me: What seems to be the problem

Member:  My car was towed, and they charged me for 6 extra miles and it was only 5. 
They overcharged me by $4. 

Me: If it was 5.1 miles, they would have charged you for 6.

Member:  Oh no, my husband and I each went out seperately and measured the distance in our cars with our odometers and it was just 5.

Seriously?   $4???

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2)  In the Office

Member:  I'd like to buy Disney tickets.  I need a whole bunch of them.  I need 2  2-day passes, and 2 2-day Park hoppers, and 2 2-day water park passes.

Me:  Are these all for different people?

Member: No, they're all for me and my wife.

Me:  Sir, it would be much more cost effective to buy 6-day park hoppers with water parks.  With Disney tickets, the more days you buy on one ticket, the less you pay per day. 

I do all the math and demonstrate to him how, if he does it my way, he will save over $250.

Member:  Wow, thank you so much.  You saved me a bundle of money.

That afternoon - on the phone - same member:

Member:  I made a mistake.  I should have bought 5 day passes.  I don't think we'll use 6 days.

Me:  Sir  - the difference between 5 days and 6 days is $8 per ticket.  (I'm thinking now I have to void the whole sale and do it over again)

Member:  yea, so I'll come in and change them tomorrow.

Seriously?   $16 on an $1100 sale?

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3)  My very favorite:

Member:  I'd like you to explain these charges to me on this receipt.  My husband bought these gift cards and movie tickets two days before Christmas.

Me:  Well, it looks like I charged him as a non-member.   Let me check.

I check the account and sure enough, his membership was cancelled in July.   Her membership, however, is valid.

Member:  He shouldn't be cancelled.  I didn't cancel him.

Me:  Let me check with Membership.

I call membership, and they assure me he was cancelled.  However, they can re-instate him as of today.

I explain this to the member and she says, "oh no, you can't reinstate him.  He died Christmas day."

Seriously?  You spend time 2 weeks after your husband suddenly died sorting through receipts and confronting a company that you think overcharged him by less than $20?

Seriously??????

If It's January

If it's January, it's time for Hubby and I to go to the beach!!    We've always loved being at the beach in the off-season, mainly because neither of us can stand the traffic and crowds.   Also, we like to swim and the water in New England is pretty cold all the way into August......so when it's hot, we'd rather go to a lake so we don't fry on the beach with no way to cool off.

A tradition of going to the beach in the cold was started on our third date, when I dragged Hubby to my favorite seafood place in the middle of March.   The temperature was about 10 degrees, and yet we still went out onto the beach.  I wouldn't really call it a walk on the beach, as we lasted about 3 minutes.   We just thought it would be romantic....and it was!

Nowadays, we go to the beach for rest and relaxation and to clear our minds and enjoy some time together. 

We're bent over because the wind was so strong, we'd set the camera for automatic and by the time it was ready to take the shot, the wind would blow the camera over!

Having Fun the 4-year-old Way

We babysat our four year old Granddaughter Emily tonight....and this is what we did: