Jack Dear

I have been busy writing some other things lately or I have been operating on auto pilot.  It's a whole sick kid / not enough sleep thing.

In my distracted state, I missed writing something important.

Most of you know that Jack's birthday was last week.  I am not sure he is so happy with aging, but I am so deeply grateful for every single year, every day he has.

A few weeks ago, I found and read all the correspondence between us from the spring and summer before we got married.  I sometimes forget being wooed.  Oh my, but was he charming.  I also forget how much he gave up for us.  Before we got married, he was doing a job he was passionate about, that mattered.  Over and over in those letters, he talked about his work. Jack gave up a lot when we married, more than I understood.


Jack is so smart, so talented, but we live in the country where theaters do not abound.  We live a life that is on a school's schedule.  I tell him that we could adjust, but he knows it would be hard and that he wouldn't see Bell much unless we homeschooled and kept his schedule.  I wish I could give him that perfect job that would allow him to have it all.

There are so many little day to day things he does for us and when the day is done, those things have made a huge difference in the peace of our household.  He begins his day with lap and cartoon time with a little blond thing.  He ends his day tucking in that same little blond thing.  And the rest of the day?  Making sure our household runs smoothly and that his girls know they are loved.

I know that 47 seems like such a serious age, yet when I look at him, I see a man who has retained his charm and grace, but has exchanged some of his cynicism for the gentleness and patience of a husband and father.  I see a man who is every bit as handsome as the one I knew at 32, just a tad bit mellowed.  I am so very glad that this man exists, that this life exists, and I will honestly try to make cake more often, not just for birthdays.

Puttering with Jack

Puttering seems to be an old people thing to do.  It seems to indicate not accomplishing much.  Today, it was more about getting quite a lot done, but in a slow, meandering way.

Jack Dear got the groceries bought and stored yesterday, along with the first half of the laundry done.  That meant I had the option of luxuriating over coffee and Words this morning. There was a brief spurt of energetic house cleaning.  Jack hung a few pictures.  I have been poking around in the kitchen, making bread and prepping food for the rest of the week.  A little more laundry was finished.  I finally got all of the past year's bills and records stored away.  Jack made a wooden house for some of Bell's toy animals.  ( this was my project - Jack rescued me when I was in  over my head). I will paint it later.

What I really needed, though, was time to do all of it as whim struck, rather than having to go at a list in a dead run all day.  Thanks to Jack, that is exactly what happened.  I had time to do the work, but I also had time to read up on pumpkin planting.  I window shopped at J. Peterman and read some blogs.  Bell has been asking about our wedding, so I got down the box with the dress and hat.  Bell was properly impressed with a fancy dress, but she was more impressed with the craft box that had been on top of the wedding box.  She spent the next hour making something out of scraps of ribbon.

 While looking at the dress, I also found all the letters that Jack and I had sent each other during that courting summer.  As I flipped through them, I was soon soon sucked into reading whole passages, remembering the magic of that time.  I had forgotten how good of a writer Jack is.  I had also forgotten what we were before we were us.

I am a ponderer, but I prefer not to ponder about what other lives I might have lived instead of this one.  We used to be young enough to wear those pretty wedding clothes, but I much prefer the us who stayed home today to putter around.   That man I married is still perfect enough to give me days like this and to know when I need them.

Not Quite Enough Weekend

I am not sure if there is such a thing as enough weekend, but if there is, it surely did not happen here.

Every week, I find myself in a battle of trying to get the house scrubbed, groceries done, meals prepped, papers graded . . . . The list is never ending.

This weekend, I did a marathon baking.  A friend gifted me with a bag of the biggest, fattest lemons I have ever seen, so lemon cherry muffins rolled out of the oven.  Lemon chicken and pasta.  Not to be lemon limited, there was also a batch of espresso chocolate muffins.  ( AAUW ladies, I hope you are in a muffin mood Monday).  Harold was out of cookies and hinted to Jack that he wished I would make some. He got good ol' chocolate chip.  I did find time to walk  the yard with Jack Dear and pick out spots for the pea patches and raised beds.  We figured out where the berry bushes would go.  I squeezed in a workout and a dog washing.  Jack pitched in with laundry, kitchen, and kid help.

Today was going to church, having family dinner in Loco, digging up the berries from the old house and moving them here (should have been done in October), and coming home to a skunky dog.

I gave Huxley a tomato juice bath, though I had to purée a few cans of tomatoes first.  I must have  missed some since there were whole tomatoes trying to clog up the tub.  He had a citrus pet shampoo bath.  He had a bath with my shampoo.  Now?  He doesn't smell much if he is still.  Just don't get him rowdy or the wafting happens.   Somehow, in the chaos of keeping a very unhappy dog covered in tomato from leaping out of the tub, I whacked my forehead on the corner of the counter.  Blood and tears.  Oh, and a few indelicate words.  It really was Lucille Ball moment, though I don't recall any episodes with wet dog hair.


The bathroom has been cleaned.  The dog is dry and very soft since he had one bath yesterday and a multi part one tonight.  I spent the evening with an ice pack.  Jack did the bandaging and graciously got food together, though he did say I looked terrible.

What did not happen?  Grading.  Wine drinking.  Finishing off the disc of Sherlock.

Jack is going to buy groceries for me next week so I have a little more time.  I may move quizzes to Monday so they are not hanging over my head all weekend.  Whatever we do, I am determined to reclaim some us time.  I want to have time to dig in the dirt.  I really want to invite a friend for dinner.  You know, weekend stuff.