When understanding is difficult...

Tuesday morning we learned that my husband's cousin, who he was very close to, died of unexplained causes on Monday night. He would have been 34 on Tuesday. It's been a rough few days for my husband and for me by proxy. This sounds selfish, I know, as it's not about me and I wasn't the one who lost a loved one. A little background to explain what I'm going to talk about here; my husband is an emotional introvert, I am not, normally when faced with an emotional overload my husband tends to retreat psychically and emotionally. In the past this included disappearing into a bottle of Jack Daniel's Whiskey. A habit he has thankfully kicked for over five months.

It's been a rough few days for me, obviously part of it's because he hurts and therefore I hurt for him as well. Mainly I've been off because of how I would react in a situation like this. As on a basic level I'm more of an emotional extrovert, his introverted tendencies put me on edge. I worry about what's boiling under the surface, what he's not talking about and then selfishly if he's not talking because he doesn't feel like he can open up to me. I try my best banish the last thought from my mind, as again I didn't do anything wrong, and the more I let it bug me the more I'm likely to do something wrong.

My first reaction upon hearing the news was to think of my husband, and how he was feeling. After dealing with him and then getting a reaction I start to think of myself, how I would feel, how does this affect me, how would I react? etc... I don't feel too bad for thinking this way. Simply because in my opinion you can't control how you feel but only how you react. Also in my opinion how I feel is part of a cultural application of the "golden rule" that I grew up with. The "Golden Rule" summed up is: treat others how you wish to be treated. Through watching other relationships, individuals, and myself (note: I am not a psychologist and I have not performed any controlled tests to confirm/deny my hypothesis) I've come to believe that this "golden rule" is applied in a more self-interested role than it was originally intended.

Example #1: I feel that my husband is hiding things and not opening up, which I can find hurtful. Why? Personally I would be explaining how I feel in the reversed position and expect him to treat me the same way.

Example # 2: Friend A wants to throw a surprise birthday party for her husband, who is very anti-social (not in a Serial-killer way) and would hate a party. Why? Friend A really wants her husband to throw her a surprise party, and hopes that by throwing him one he'll return the favor.

Example #3: Person D purchases their sister a book that they've been eyeing for months. Why? Person D wants to read the book and can justify purchasing it only if it's meant for a gift.

What I'm getting at is this: We see things through our own eyes, experience only our own experiences, and sometimes it can be hard to relate to someone who reacts; sees and experiences different than we do. There's nothing wrong with how you initially feel, it's all in how you react. ..... that would be a D- essay right there probably.

Anyway: Go call your loved ones up, tell them you love them, apologise for something insignificant if you need to, take the blame if it'll get the lines of communication open if they're closed, don't take them for granted, and just drop a line to say "hello, thinking about you". At the least, it'll make someones day and sometimes that's all you can do.

Size of Schnauzers

I really meant to update daily, and even do a funny post (a.k.a. I think I'm sooo funny and need to subject the interweb to me posts) today. But sadly I have a gawdawful sinus headache, and just learned of a death in my husband's family. So you will have to be entertained by:



Enjoy! This has been playing through my head ever since last Wednesday when my boss decided to start singing it and playing it on his computer.

Meow

So I got a kitten,
Who smells of poo,
Wooo,
He's black and white,
and speckled all over,
With no name,
But a pechant to whine
Oooh I have a kitten,
Wooo

In one sentance...

Sometimes he just looks at me and says something normally insignificant, yet in that instance it defines a feeling I shared, and in that moment I think “Wow, we’re really going to make it.”

And then we shall blabber

When diarrhea of the mouth strikes: In a comment to a photo of my husband’s grandparents cruise along the Panama Canal six years ago, they stopped in Belize where we had our honeymoon and wanted to share, I uttered the words “Wow (insert grandmother’s name) that’s a Bow-chicka-wow-wow look your husbands giving you in that photo!” Apparently my husband did not find it as funny as I did and was morally offended on the behalf of his “old-fashioned” grandmother. In my defense, her husband was laying down on the bed in their room aboard the cruise ship, in a semi curled position. It’s actually a joke I would have said to either of my grandmother’s and still fail to see the big deal about it. But out of respect for my husband’s family… I’m going to try and keep a better watch on my mouth.

My true verbal diarrheal issue came when I almost blurted out “gang-bang” in a joke to my new mother-inlaw, her sister and my husband’s sister. That would have been an epic fail.

Dorky girl experiment # 1

I love coffee. Some mornings I don't feel like myself till a sip of caffeine goodness has passed through my lips and there are days were the caffeine has to be issued in regular doses throughout the day. When I returned to work from my honeymoon I came back to a grave realization that there was no coffee and the creamer shortage we'd been experiencing was still in full swing. After spending two days making excursions out to a local coffee shop, and purchasing my frilly, expensive but oh so sweet and wonderful coffee confections I determined that it was not an expense I could keep up. So I buckled and brought in some grounds from my own stash. Everyone rejoiced, and the first cup was great. The first sip into the second cup reminded me of my love for creamer. Or milk, when I'm cheap and it's closest.

We were out though and I really did need something to break up the pitch black coffee. So I thought, "hey, I brought some yogurt in for breakfast. It's dairy, so it'll work right? Yogurt's just milk... right?" So I said what the heck and threw in two-three globs of the yogurt, stirred it up and watched the results. At first it was ok. The yogurt broke up in the coffee into little carmel colored granules adding the illusion of creamer to my coffee. It also added a kind of cool vanilla yogurt aftertaste to my coffee. Of course I had to boast about my accomplishment, which was when things turned downhill. I first noticed that the "yogurt layer" was staying near the bottom of the cup and hiding under a layer of black coffee. Then I saw the chunks at the bottom. Which completely ruined the whole thing. There's clearly an in-grained survivalist knowledge that tells me that chunks of a dairy product is not a good thing.



Aren't the chunks attractive? Apparently not all dairy is created equal.

In response to a demand to "Worship me!!"

But I can’t worship you, I worship too many things as it is. You know things like, chocolate, sleep, TV, blogs, coffee, satirical writing, bad fanfiction and etc... If I throw you into the mix I’m just going to get confused. I’ll start trying to sacrifice chocolate to the TV and writing really angsty love stories to my coffee.

Starting out

This is just another dorky girl here logging on, signing up, beaming in, blasting out, speaking out loud in written textulation of my daily actions and thoughts. Expect the ride to be... adventursome and chaulk full of spelling errors, gramatical missteps and made-up words.

Ces't Le Vie, eh?