New Year's Day is supposed to be a day of relaxation, of family time, of black eyed peas and football. At least that was how I was raised. On Wednesday I battled the frantic shopping carts at the grocery store and stocked up on treasures for our special meal: a chicken, black eyed peas, Heritage Dr. Pepper made with pure cane sugar. I buy only the necessities.
Having stayed up past midnight with my eldest daughter, I was not in the get-up-and-get-em kind of mood yesterday. My pace was slow, at best. But there was a mysterious peril looming in our house. I had a motivated husband.
He was not raised as I was raised, where you spend a relaxing day with your family around the dinner table, the television, and a huge, challenging puzzle. At 8 am, he was ready to work. I believe, in retrospect, he was trying to eliminate every possible chore for all of 2010 on day one. It was kind of terrifying.
He got the girls to working on their rooms right away. I secluded myself to the confines of the dining room, where I was reorganizing every Christmas item into better boxes. I was also purging various Christmas items that I never want to see again. Roxy got a headache from all her cleaning. Darby got her room done, but was afraid to turn on the TV because it would bring attention to the fact that she is no longer cleaning. No one talked to each other - at all. We don't know where the motivated tornado will hit next - basement, attic, living room - AACK!
Being the kind and thoughtful mother I am, I take off for a movie. I leave Scott as he is pulling out all of the living room furniture, vacuuming behind and under and over and through it. When I get home, the house is calm. I begin to cook dinner to find that the entire pantry has been thoroughly reshelved and the cabinet of baking pans has been restructured, too. The Tornado sometimes hops in to the most surprising of places.
Dinner turned out fine, even good, and the girls enjoyed the relaxation of helping me with it. By 7:00, Scott did not know what to do with himself. The Peril of the Motivated Husband had lifted, and he was somewhat listless without anything to clean.
My dear motivated husband had worked himself out of a job. Thank goodness. I'm glad he embraced the cleanness of 2010, and I'm glad I have no more chores for another month or so.
Will you please send that Godsend of a man over here? He could teach another one a thing or two...
ReplyDeleteI was not out of control. I restrained myself from cleaning the fridge, though I wanted to. And I don't care what you say, olive oil goes next to the balsamic vinegar. That's the only logical place to put it.
ReplyDeleteI just stumbled across your blog this afternoon and cracked up reading this. Scott is my dad reincarnated!!! Sounds like New Year's Day in my house growing up.
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