My dear husband declared blogging isn’t fair. He didn’t think I should make fun of everybody  in the family and nobody could pick on me.

I welcomed him to become a guest blogger, but he said he has back surgery every day for the next year. Or, maybe, he was going to paint stripes on the highway, or expand his string collection. He had some good excuse so didn’t take me up on my offer.

 

I decided to do it for him. That’s what good wives do, they do all the things the husbands should do and could do and would do if you  waited a year or ten. As a good helpmate, I will help him and make fun of myself.

 

Sad to say, these things are true, unexaggerated, and a fair show of the abuse I take around here.

I blog in kind retaliation, I don’t start it.  Really, I don’t.

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  4-2009   I treated myself to a rare experiment in pampering, a haircut by a stylist friend with a shop in her backyard. She washed, cut, and fixed my hair, curling each long strand in a gorgeous do’.

I was ready to stun my family with my grand entrance.

Instead, I was stunned.

Grace,  my Amazing Grace, greeted me with wide-eyed enthusiasm. “Wow, Mom! Your hair looks just like DNA!”

“DNA?” my husband asked, thinking he missed some new rad teenage term. “What’s that?”

” A DNA strand, ya, know, like in Biology.”

(Of course, I don’t have a picture of me looking stunning with curled hair.)

 

  5-5-2009   I snuggled with Beka in her bed, enjoying her comments on how much she loved me and how she thought I was so pretty.

Suddenly she shuddered, jerked back a little, and said, “Ooh, sometimes when I get too close to you, you look scary. But, then when I get far away again, you look normal again.”

She’s right, I look a little scary close-up.  I think I scared myself.

 

Like mother, like daughter.  She can look a little scary up close, too.

8-2009   While on vacation in Montana, I relaxed. I really relaxed. I didn’t wear make-up and I didn’t fix my hair. I spent a lot of time on the dock sunbathing and reading. The day we were going into town I decided to fix my hair and put on make-up. However, because of the dryness of the air and the slow speed of my mom’s hair dryer, I had a hard time getting my hair styled the way I wanted it.

My Dad greeted me with enthusiasm I mistook for admiration. “I’m glad you fixed your hair today,” he began.

I waited in anticipation for my daddy’s adoring compliment to make all things feel better. “It reminds me that I need to buy a new mop.”

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9-2009   Scott, addressing me, of course,  “You should have been born a cat. You are SO finicky.”

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9-16-09   I expressed frustration to my husband that one of our kids had messed with my camera. This was the same day one of my kids left my van key, the only key we have to the minivan, in her friend’s car, a few towns north of us. Another kid left the weed-wacker and a bicycle outside after they were told to put them away. This same kid didn’t take out the roast to thaw, so we had no meat ready for dinner. My world is always being messed with or kept from rotating perfectly.

My husband, as always, had the perfect solution. “I think you need to be on a planet where it’s only YOU.”

Get me on the next flight!

Proverbs 17:22

 A merry heart does good, like medicine,

But a broken spirit dries the bones.

 

(This is a show of true humility, I’m sure, because I normally choose the best pics of me, not the worst.  But, since I have vowed to keep it real on this blog, here’s the real deal and your medicine.)

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