Interplay

How do you laugh a lot, get exercise (over 4 hours on our feet and pacing), spend more money than you should, and entertain others all in one trip? It's simple: just go eyeglass shopping with Leon and I. We both needed dark glasses (cataracts are on there way because we don't wear dark glasses anymore, oops), progressive lenses for everyday AND safety glasses - now that is potentially 6 pair of glasses and more money than we have to spend. We actually had to take a lunch break in the middle of our shopping to regroup and then grab coffee and a muffin afterward to have energy to get the hour or so back home.

Add to our usual banter with each other an optician (male) with his own banter, another female willing to jump in occasionally, then interruptions as we said, "go wait on that customer", and just plain cutting up - like telling the male optician (who was dressed very stylish) that someone else must have dressed him that morning if he thought the glasses he said were sophisticated weren't really just plain gaudy!

We actually had fun, the four of us bashing each other -- until he told us the total cost for just three pair -- and that was with a discount. I think that is why an overwhelming exhaustion came over me as we walked out the door -- either that or that I had been "on" and wired the entire time we were there. Let's suffice it to say, we had so much fun, the female employee said we needed to come just hang around the store to keep them all entertained.

We left having ordered Leon just two pair of glasses, trying to save taking out yet another mortgage on the house. He got one ugly pair of safety glasses (being practical) and had to settle for his second choice for everyday glasses because they came with magnetic dark lenses and saved him the cost of a third pair. (And trust me, talking him into getting safety glasses instead of just putting the sides on his normal was quite a feat for me to pull off! I pulled the, "You are supposed to wear them for work anyway; we took the Community Emergency Response Team (C.E.R.T.) training, what if there IS an earthquake, do you want to have to fight those goggle things over your glasses while you are trying to help people? And you can even wear them in the yard so your good glasses don't get ruined. . ." I think it was the C.E.R.T. that tipped him to my way of thinking because during the practice drill the safety glasses over our glasses was a pain!)

I left ordering one pair that I fell in love with. They popped more than I would normally choose, but I was in a want-to-be-different mood and had tried on nearly every style in the store, many more than once -- LOL. I, too, had to settle. I found a pair of safety glasses that looked like normal glasses and the tag said clip on dark lenses were available. . . but the optician was not so sure they really would be. So, who knows.

Of course, they may just pass the glasses through the door at us when we go back to pick them up. . . or offer to mail them!

Interplay - House work. . . sigh

He finally broke me down, talked me into doing housework, more like bribed me by taking me yesterday BACK to La Conner to walk around in the stiff breezes by the water, BACK to the tulip fields, but new one, and out to the island to hunt for and dream about a little teeny tiny cabin in a forest with peekaboo views of the water. He did this even though we can't have it for a multitude of reasons, both to make me happy (the nice guy he is) and to shut me up about it (the practical guy he is. . .). He got his reward, an ice cream cone meant for a giant at a road side stand near La Conner on the way home. Today, while I fought my computer and did entries for four blogs, he scrubbed my kitchen top to bottom. . . now I have to jump in and work. . . I think the nice guy thing has worn thin. . . and if I WERE to be honest, I couldn't blame him at all.

So, Here's to Leon. . . an awesome husband, and I can say that with out having to make it up.

Monday Interplay

This will be the day Leon participates in the future. I admit to being both organized and unorganized, sometimes simultaneously, I doubt he would admit to it, but it's true! He's just a better actor than I. We both agree that many times organization does beget creativity, besides the obvious finding things and getting things done. I, like this blog, am a work in progress. (Such freedom that gives.)

For now, correcting labels and learning more HTML to change things up a bit is progressing slowly. My post schedule, set in stone until I learn to wield Leon's 5 pound sledge hammer better, will become my Thursday Thirteen this week, why not?

As for the interplay, I'll have to recreate one for now. This weekend we played well together, we actually agreed on where to put which flower and move the tree. We didn't agree on which trees to buy, however, or which restaurants to go to, it was typical of us:

Me: Let's go to this restaurant.

Him: Not today.

And later. . .

Him: Where do you want to eat?

Me: Don't care, anywhere, I'm just hungry.

Him: But where do you want to eat?

back and forth until. . .

Me: I already gave you my suggestion earlier and you said no, so it's YOUR turn to decide. You didn't want to go where I suggested! You decide.

Nearly 33 years of marriage and we STILL have this discussion. . .and I am sure we both have perfectly good reasons for NOT wanting to decide -- well, I do -- but at least it has tempered a bit, so to speak, over the years.

Just for the record: Sometimes one or the other of us actually makes a decision before we leave the house, before the question even comes up. Imagine that.

Yes, Leon. . .

I do love lists a bit too much -- and as much as I intend to actually use the list for their intended purpose -- they become just another form of personal expression via writing. . .like poetry, short stories, my novel-in-progress. I write them, go on to write more, look back at some I have written and another thought just becomes words that tumble out!

Hence the title I chose for our blog. . . at least occasionally they come out more like they have been polished rather than just falling down a hill picking up mud and sand spurs or out of a dryer when you open the door, half dried. OK, so you did 1 entry, 2 more to go tonight. . . Guess that means I have to do housework. . . but I did 45 minutes yesterday. . . OK, 35.

But first:photos to post (done) and poem to post. . . and browse. . . and sign up for a few things. . . and then continue working on fixing all these labels. . . and hooking up the printer. . . oh, and a list, I mean write a schedule. . . . and I really should do my Thursday Thirteen.

So, I'll post a poem I wrote the other day. . That will save at least 5 minutes. . .

okokokokok

OK, so I am not posting as much as I should or would like to, but I have a good reason and here it is. I have such a tough time each day dragging my size 13s around I just don't have any energy left at the end of the day. No really, I am just now, at the age of ?, getting comfortable with a key board and can now type a whole sentence in just under an hour, well maybe not that slow, but you get the idea.

Soooo, Marcia has made yet another list? ( for me again ) This one I can't let go by without a comment or two. Marcia is so into list making that she has a list of her lists. Don't get me wrong, I believe in a good list, but a list is not something you make and then put in dark, cold place to age and mature into a I don't know what -- and then pull out every once in a while to see what it has become.

Marcia , just a suggestion here but, try a shorter list ( for you ) keep it to 3 or 4 items and when you complete an item on the list, then and only then, you can add one more item back to list.

As to the house keeping promise, I don't believe it for one minute but I will if you would like, make you a list of housekeeping chores that need to be addressed. :)

Expect Leon

I stumbled on Finding Life Hard and will return to read more of her escapades, but there I also found a link to Dave Walker's cartoons.

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

OK. So, that should be me in that cartoon. I'm the one with the 6 or 6 1/2 shoe size. I'm also the one that never pays attention to where I'm going.

Shoe sizes -- Leon's are more like 13, but you get the drift of why he and I don't always see eye to eye Well, the shoe thing and him being around 72 inches and me only 64. . . and he's a Brit and I am an American. . . then there is that male versus female thing going on. . . I'm intelligent he is street smart. . . (Oh,Leon, you decided to read today) -- and he is intelligent!

He has gotten away with not posting much, so I have now put us both on a schedule. Ha! It may work. . . On Tuesdays he will post. (Oh, he will, because if he is responsible for the three blogs one day a week, then I will have no excuse not to play housewife) and who knows if he will be ranting, raving, or proving he can take photos. Check back to see.