Clay has been on vacation since Christmas.  It’s really great having him at home, except for the massive piles he creates.  Like this pile of Andes mint chocolate chip cookies, it’s not so bad, but it’s HUGE!  The bad thing is that I will eat a lot of them. (Sorry for the blurry photos, my phone takes very suckalicious photos….and let’s not forget that I own it, which means it’s going to be a pretty bad photo regardless.)

After he was done with the cookies I handed him this pile.  It’s his In-Box.  It drives me crazy.  He knows exactly what’s in it….so he says.  I shuffled through a few papers in it and guess what I found?

That would be a parking ticket.  Clay looked at it and said, “Well, would you look at that.”  Yeah, it’s been paid and then went in his In-Box where it promptly got buried.

I’m trying to organize our tiny office, so he’s sorting through his pile and I’m just looking at the little room wondering what the heck I should do to make it more functional.  Clay has already proclaimed that his In-Box will most certainly look bad in a few weeks so I shouldn’t put it anywhere visible.

Here’s what a I need for that room and it all needs to be as close to free as possible.  Hahahaha!  I’m serious.  I need drawers or at least a filing cabinet, but it has to fit under the counter top which is too short for a regular file cabinet.  Okay, now discuss this amongst yourselves and then tell me you have the perfect answer for my office space.  Until then I will be sorting through piles of crap.

I hope you all had a beautiful Christmas and I wish you all a very happy and organized 2012!

Clay and I have been hunting for new jeans to replace the two pairs of shredded fabric he’s been wearing around for the past couple of months.  I took the advice of a friend who is married to a tall skinny guy and I drug Clay to The Buckle.  I haven’t shopped in that store since I was a teenager.  I think I know why too $$$$$$!  Every store in town had amazing post Christmas sales except The Buckle and my guess is that they know we needed their jeans.

WE ARE SUCKERS!

Now Clay owns two pairs of the fanciest pants I’ve ever seen on him.  I can’t stop laughing at his embellished butt.  We picked the two least embellished pairs we could find.  I felt so old when I told the Cameron Diaz look alike that was helping us that we needed jeans with less holes because we were buying jeans to replace the jeans he wears that HAVE holes.  You see the problem right?  She responded with, “Well, a lot of dads come in looking for distressed jeans.  So, you don’t want any holes?”  I just laughed, because we were obviously out of our element, nothing I was going to say was going to make me sound young and hip to this girl.  I wanted to pat her on the head and tell her she was cute.

I texted a picture of the jeans to Ellen, our 18 year old daughter, and she said, “Is he trying on women’s jeans?”

Exactly!

So, now I have a 42 year old man frying up bacon in my kitchen wearing overly embellished jeans and to top it off he’s listening to Michael Jackson songs.

I’m a little concerned what these jeans are doing to him.

Clay and I tried to attend a Sunday school class on marriage the last couple of weeks because we love the teacher, but then we decided we couldn’t go for several reasons.

1. Clay said he wouldn’t be able to make it through a class without snickering.

2. In one of the classes we had to compare our marriage to baseball.  If I did that then I’d have to say, “Uh, so what you’re asking me to do is say marriage is miserably boring and makes me want to eat hotdogs?”  Yeah, I don’t do sports analogies in a positive light, ever.

3. The teacher described sarcasm as something that tears down a marriage.  I leaned over to Clay and said, “The foundation of our marriage is sarcasm!” and then we spent the rest of the class laughing and making fun of each other.

That’s when we decided we shouldn’t attend that class anymore.  We are marriage class drop-outs.

So, if we were to teach the class here’s a few tips we would give to couples:

1. It’s a good idea to like the person you’ve chosen to spend the rest of your life with more than yourself.  Clay is way cooler, sweeter, kinder, loving, gentler, blah, blah, blah than me all the time and if you asked him….he’d say the same about me, or he’d say, “I say what makes her happy and then we can all live in peace.”

2. This is the best advice ever, so remember it. Fart around each other before you get married.  Did I seriously just say that?  Yes, gas is natural and if you don’t let it out you are going to be miserable. Also, farting is always funny, especially making fun of the other person farting.  I’ve known couples that never fart around each other and I don’t know understand that.  Just let it out and then spend 15 minutes laughing about it.  Crude, yes, but you’ll live and your stomach will thank you.

3. Find stuff that you both love to do together.  It can be simple things like watching movies, going out for dessert, walking, talking, gardening, sports, whatever….latch onto those little things and do them.  I think this is one of the hardest things for couples to do when they get busy with kids and work.  Last week Clay and I found ourselves on the couch alone which never happens.  Our two littles were in bed and our older two were hanging out with friends.  We had picked out a movie to watch, but ended up talking for a couple of hours instead.  Those moments where we can catch up with each other are my favorite times.  I love talking to him more than any other person.  I find him fascinating.

4. Forgive quickly.  It’s okay to irritate your spouse and to get angry about stupid things, but you also have to learn to forgive and ask for forgiveness.  I think there is plenty of room for sarcasm in a marriage, but there is zero room for a stubborn, selfish, arrogant, self-serving attitude….that person needs to be a single person.  There are two words that you need to learn and use sincerely in a marriage, “I’m sorry.”  Chances are you are going to hurt the feelings of the person that loves you the most and that person is going to hurt you.  Mend those wounds quickly and don’t be an idiot by waiting too long to say your sorry or ask for forgiveness.  Anger can fester, so put some salve on it so it can heal fast.

5. Have fun.  Enjoy each other.  Laugh at each other, laugh with each other.  Find your happiness together.

6. Choose your spouse.  You are the one that decided to spend the rest of your life with that other person it’s only right to choose them again and again and again.  Make an effort to raise the quality of your relationship. Choose the one you love over the distractions of this world.  Cherish that one person.

That’s it.  That’s what I know and it seems to be working.  We’ve been together 23 years and married 19 years.  I love him more today than I did twenty years ago and I didn’t think that was possible.