The bearded eye-roller

My hubby, he's such a funny man. Not funny like me, but funny, nonetheless.

As I've mentioned in previous posts, he's had problems sleeping soundly lately. He's been waking up at all kinds of wacky hours, and going to work at even wackier hours. Today is Saturday. He went to work at 5 a.m.! Of course, when he's out of bed for the day, I can't sleep anymore. We'll just call it empathy. I'll never admit that I've become dependent on my husband as a security "blanket". I can't wait until the peak season is over.

I thought I'd try a little experiment on Thursday. I decided to use some of the relaxation techniques I've learned through my Hospice experience. It's similar to hypnosis.

Thursday night, we got into bed and I rubbed his back until he was good and relaxed, and breathing that deep rhythmic breathing. Then I started telling him very softly that he was going to sleep very soundly, not wake up until 6:30, and not wake up during the night. I told him this in several ways, several times while rubbing his back. I could tell that he was in that twilight zone between being awake and sleeping, and that is the perfect time to do this.

It worked! He slept through the night and didn't wake up until 6:45 on Friday morning. I told him that he could thank me for that. He scoffed at that. Can you believe it? He didn't even remember me suggesting these things to him the night before.

So last night, he fell asleep at some insane hour like 8:30. I wasn't ready to go to bed, so I stayed up. Last night he wandered about the kitchen (Rolaids and something to drink) in the middle of the night, and this morning was up at 4:30 or so. I commented that he didn't sleep so well last night, so he asked me if I performed my "mojo" on him. MOJO? These are some serious relaxation techniques, you scoffer!

Just for that, I'm going to make him cluck like a chicken tonight.

When my husband and I first started dating, I liked his cologne. Then he changed to something different. I didn't like that one so much so found a nice way to tell him. I said something like, 'Hey, I really like that cologne you wore when I first met you. What was that?'

He got a sheepish look on his face and told me that he was very embarrassed to admit it, but it was Old Spice. Ok, so he was embarrassed to admit it, but I was even more embarrassed that the cologne that turned my crank was also the cologne that my GRANDFATHER USED TO WEAR.

We both got over our embarrassment and he resumed wearing Old Spice.

One day, still early in the dating process, I was at the mall. I smelled that familiar smell and got all dreamy-like. I turned around to see where this scent was emanating from. I almost fell on the floor laughing, because it was a little old man, all hunched over and hobbling along with a cane. True story, I swear.

Yep, apparently I like 'old man' smell.

BJ has been dealing with a lot of high stress situations at work lately. One of the side-affects is that he has a heck of a time getting a good night's sleep. Case in point; up at 2:am Thursday night wandering the house. Since he couldn't get back to sleep, he decided to just go into work at 3:30. It was odd to get email from my husband's work account at 4am. I hope he sent a few to his boss at that time in the morning...

I wanted this weekend to be all about him. I wanted to ensure that he had a relaxing weekend, and got lots of sleep. It started off rather shakey, because as we were out on a road trip Saturday, he got a call from the office. Since we were close, he asked if we could just go together and he promised it wouldn't take long. Ummmm, four hours later we resumed our weekend.

I decided to end the weekend with something that we both always really enjoy, but don't do often enough; and that is to watch some of our music DVDs. We have a growing collection and really enjoy them. I figured that saying about music soothing the savage beast must have some truth to it. Sidenote: No, he hasn't been savage OR a beast (dammit! thinking that could have been kinda fun..)

At first, he didn't seem too excited about the idea but he ended up really enjoying himself. About half way through the Michael McDonald concert, I asked him why he didn't pull out the air guitar (something that I find absolutely hilarious), and he actually said, "I don't know the song well enough."

I was on the floor! What? You have to *REALLY* know the song to play air guitar? The man has never played a real guitar in his life. If he'd of played real guitar, I could understand wanting to get the chords right or something, but it's all F.A.K.E:!:

I think he's going to be teased about this for many, many days....

PS- he had THREE full night's of sleep in a row. Yep, I know what I'm doing!

I was just thinking about a Halloween tradition I used to have with my dogs. I dressed them up in costumes every year. Now before you go calling PETA, I'll have you know that they loved getting dressed up. My husband used to tell me that it scared him that it would even occur to me to do such a thing (yet he married me anyway. WHAT was he thinking?)

What is so wrong with this? Don't they look like they're having a good time?



Sadly, Missy died last year after a long illness and I gave Cleo to another family because she was making Missy miserable.

I guess I won't be scaring my husband at Halloween anymore.

My third child/husband's (boy) best friend is here. They're playing x-box golf. I'm on the computer reading blogs and such. Suddenly I find myself in a mushy mood. "Go home husband's best boy friend", is what I'm thinking! ha ha.

Anyway, I had a 2.5 hour commute to work yesterday. I decided that I was getting a bit too stressed out over being late, so popped in a CD that I haven't listened to since the early dating time with my husband and me. The time before I knew that *this* was real and was really going to happen. Wow. It made me smile the rest of the way to work. It was Bryan Adams. I think I played that CD every time I went to his house when we were dating. I was totally into the Bryan Adams compilation CD I'd made at the time. The lyrics just spoke to me.

So, as I fought that 2.5 hour commute, I remembered how much I internalized some of the lyrics in the songs in those early days.

1. I'm ready To me, that symbolized how I really was ready to give up the "I'm never going to love anyone ever again" stage in my live
2. I will always return The lyrics are so about long distance relationships (at least to me!). Beautiful music and lyrics.
3. Nothing I've ever known Pretty much sums it up.

I dunno... I really thought I was done with love and all that stuff. Even when I felt things for my husband in the beginning, I fought it. I didn't want to get hurt; I've had a lifetime of that. He fought it too. He's not had the greatest of experiences either. Boy, did he fight it and was very honest with me about it. The thing is, I took him at face value. Was I surprised when he proposed. I honestly didn't expect it to happen. I certainly NEVER pushed it.

Yet, here we are. We've been living together for 13 months, married for 5 of of those months. I still get giddy about seeing him. I get butterflies when I hear his car pull up in the gravel driveway. We still have those "I can't believe that this is STILL this wonderful" conversations with each other frequently. I'm not kidding when I say we tell each other this at least weekly. At least twice a month we sit on the couch for a couple of hours and tell each other how much this relationship means to us. Who knew? I sure didn't. When I'd see couples who seemed to adore each other, I thought it was fake. Now I know better. We just click. It's SO easy. I wish I'd known how easy it could be and had the strength to give up on those awful relationships I'd had in the past. I'd of saved myself a heck of a lot of heartache. But then again, I have to think that I wouldn't fully appreciate what I have now. Catch 22 I guess.

So, a 2.5 hour commute turned into something really wonderful. I was able to go back in time and look at myself back then and smile at all the worries I had about getting too close. I was able to look at the actions that my future husband showed me (vs- the words that said he would never get to this place), and nod my head. I was able to tell that scared person I was, "ya know, it'll be ok- everything is really going to work out. You just wait and see..." I'm smiling now thinking about that . Too bad we can't all have a crystal ball, huh?

That same night, I had a night class for Hospice. I got home at 9pm. He heard me drive up the gravel driveway and greeted me at the door. He held me for a while and then kissed me and told me to go get comfy. So I did. I came out to find a plate of dinner that he made for me sitting on the table. It almost broke my heart to tell him that I already ate. He just took my plate, put it all away and cleaned up the kitchen. What a sweet man, huh?

I just kissed and held him when I saw that. Especially after the experience I'd had that morning. I told him over and over again how lucky and blessed I felt that we were together. That lead to another one of those hours long talks about us. He loves to gush too. How cool is that? Sigh....

So, this is what it's like. I had no idea that *this* really existed. I'm starting to settle into the fact that I can expect this to be wonderful for many years to come. I sure must have done something right to be this lucky, ya know?

Yep, I'm madly in love with my husband. How wonderful is that?