Well, there are three pains keeping me awake right now, yet again.

Number 3: I got my first cavities in my last teeth. In other words, my wisdom teeth are so far back in my mouth that it can be painful to brush them and I wound up with a cavity in two of them (upper right and lower left). I’ve never had a cavity before, so I’m scared, even though they say it’s no big deal and just small surface cavities… I know fillings crack, fall out, the tooth can rot behind the filling and it may need to be redrilled, and I know I’ll continue to have problems with my wisdom teeth because they’re tiny, craggy, and really really far back. But the dentist refuses to pull them as requested and instead is filling them. Ugh.

Number 2: Money. I just spent $5000 between my dentist, old bills from my hospitalization (they sent 12 bills for different days, but the same amount, as well as 8 additional bills and I misunderstood and only paid 1), and car insurance. Our master bath needs to be fixed. We need to keep eating and living in our home and doctors and meds keep costing money. I’m trying not to worry – money from my grandmother will cover that $5000 – but… well, I’m trying not to worry.

Number 1: Physical Pain. Yet again, I can’t sleep because I’m in too much pain. Heat is too overwhelming for the upper back and vicodin wore off. I think it’ll be 1 more vicodin and a few lidocaine patches so I can go back to sleep. Tomorrow, I may just stretch at home and get what sleep I can and wake at noon for my various appointments. I worry that I’ll have to clean up the guest room enough so that I can use it on days when it hurts to think that my motions are limited or I might get any physical pressure on any body part due to pillows, cats, or a stray, lovingly cuddly limb. <sigh>

This is really screwing with my attempts to achieve better sleep hygiene.

Luckily, I’m exhausted and nearly ready to apply that lidocaine, take a vicodin, and curl into bed with my hubby and kitties.

We have a tiny master bathroom with relatively old fixtures. Additionally, we’ll need to do a little patchwork or completely replace the bath tub before selling. In fact, we’re not even using that shower right now (which is a nice change, since it’s a little claustrophobic with a cloudy shower door.

Now, we’re not necessarily moving anytime soon. However, we don’t want to put wear and tear on another bathroom that we may eventually (after a year or two) discover we’ll have to make the same decision over. Plus, I keep leaving my towel in the other bathroom.

I spoke with my mortgage broker and we have 2 options when we refinance at a lower rate: we could refinance the entire mortgage and wind up paying a few hundred (2-4) less each month OR we could add $5000 to the principal and pay $100 less each month. Either way, we pay less. The $5000 would go toward landscaping the front for curb appeal and less maintenance AND redoing the shower-tub of the master bathroom.

I think we should actually redo the master bath. On average, a bathroom remodel brings in 100% of its cost and could get a home to sell faster. If we do it now, we can enjoy it too. Basically, nothing too fancy or expensive or taste-specific, no moving things around, just something nicer/less dated than what is there, which will make the room more appealing. What I propose is, since we’d have to tear out tile, why not make the room seem larger? We make it a large shower (no tub) with new, higher fixtures (but relatively inexpensive). If we put in some frameless sliding doors, it could look like part of the room rather than a giant wall. In addition, since we’ll need more tile and the white tile with brown flecks always looks dirty, we could put in ceramic or porcelain tile that looks like pale ivory marble. We can paint the walls a slightly darker tone than the cream we have (so a pale, warm brown) or maybe the cream color will make it flow more seamlessly. Otherwise, the flooring is fine, so no need to change that, but if money’s left over, maybe a new vanity or  vanity top or new sink faucet, and definitely spend a buck to put a new pull on the vanity door. It could be sooo nice to use while we still live here, and “updated master bath” is often a big eye-catcher, which could get us more traffic and a better sale.

Or we can use a whole lot of caulk and scrubbing and hope potential buyers will just be happy with it as it is.

If we stay here a year and a half, we may pay back some of that $5000, and we’ll still pay less than we already budget for. Once materials are in place, it should only take a couple of days, so it wouldn’t put us out much.

Then again, a few hundred less to pay a month could pay for caulk, patchwork, and landscaping. So it should be interesting to see what my husband decides (I’m putting the decision in his hands – he has 1 week).

January 23rd was our 6 year anniversary (1-23-04). We didn’t exchange gifts this year, or even cards. Instead, we spent time together and played nice. We indulged in a lunch at Red Robin (my favorite burger joint), played video games, watched TV, ate dinner at home, enjoyed some intimate time, and did our best not to bring up things that are unpleasant or could cause us to argue. So we didn’t clean the house at all, the cats didn’t get their much-needed baths, and I kept controvertial issues to myself.

I don’t know if this means we’ll argue tomorrow or are saving things for when we see our new couple’s counselor on Monday. There is certainly a lot to talk about: our potential move and its timing, Peter’s desire to change his vocation, organizing/fixing /cleaning the house, vacations, my fibromyalgia… I’m sure I could think of other things, but those are definitely the biggies. Despite the lack of discussion, though, I did talk twice to a mortgage broker about refinancing at a lower rate, with very favorable results.

At least it didn’t feel like we were ignoring the tap-dancing gorilla in the corner of the room. It was more like we were focusing on enjoying each other and just chilling out.

Hopefully, the rest of the year will go as smoothly and enjoyably and productively. Yes, a girl can always hope…

I have come to realize that one of the largest issues with harmoniously living together and cleaning up both the house and my car is dealing with “my room.” You see, the townhome we own has 4 bedrooms: one is the master bedroom, one is the guest/cats’ room, one is Peter’s man-cave, and the fourth is my room, an office/reflection room which was to hold all my toys and educational materials and give me somewhere to sit and quietly read. The feminine version of a man-cave.

In the summer of 2008, I cleaned it up and organized it and began to use it again. But once I got a full-time job doing curriculum work, it once again became a dumping ground.

I’ve been finding quite often that I wish I could have somewhere to go and read, or just remove myself from the living room but not hang out in the bedroom (where I’d inevitably fall asleep). Furthermore, because I don’t have a room of my own to go to, Peter’s activities seem to be cramped by my taking over the living room.

Although I could probably sit in the chair by the window in my room, entering the room and maneuvering around in it is quite hazardous to my health. It’s not that it would take more than a couple of hours to clear up, but then I have more stuff that needs to go in, and a lot of it is on-the-floor work, and it does involve moving some heavy stuff. Also, some things need decisions to be made about them, and some things need to be stored (else I’ll need another bookcase). Then there are the things in my car and in the kitchen, all of which would need to be gone through and possibly would belong in my room. Perhaps I can have a bookcase and storage of some sort in the rec room in the basement, where things could go without being “dumped” there.

Regardless, I cannot physically do this on my own. In fact, in order to remove the table from my room and bring it downstairs (which I’d hoped the burly 1-800-GOT-JUNK would do, along with moving the romance novels and bookcases into the basement, when we decided on a date and I properly prepared for it… but the next day it was sprung upon me with no notice, and I just occasionally hope that this part of my walker or that large gold-framed mirror were not taken).

I find myself looking at various rooms and considering tasks, but discarding them because (1) too much physical labor is involved, (2) I can’t do it alone, or (3) I worry a large part of the task would involve putting items in a room that can’t fit anything.

So, I’m going to selfishly ignore the kitchen and our bedroom and the guest room and everything else (just trying to maintain the living room) and focus on doing a tiny bit in my room each day. I assume that, once I’ve organized to a certain point, Peter will help me out if I can say definitively and concisely what should be moved elsewhere (with a plan for storing/organizing it), what can be thrown out or donated, and what I need help putting away.

However, I’m on my own with going through it. My husband won’t help me, no matter how I ask. My mother will only help by hiring help – I begged her several times in the summer and fall to come help me, but she was overwhelmed by my brother’s move and the holidays and now just either offers to hire someone or argues about my husband not helping and has even asked me to help her go through my grandmother’s stuff. Oddly enough, my older sister is the only person I can think of who might be able and willing to pick up and come down and help… in fact, my car would probably wind up empty & clean, but it would probably all wind up in the basement, and I don’t know if she’d be able to help me sort my stuff or understand saving this item or that book…  but I am definitely keeping her in mind if it’s March and I still don’t have an empty car.

In any event, I’m focusing on my stuff and my room and the rest can just wait. After all, once my room is in order, I can decide what to do with other items (although now I’m definitely thinking a giant bookcase in the rec room with inexpensive cubby-bins would be awesome). This also will give me something to focus on that doesn’t get edited depending on whether we’re moving this summer or next.

I’m off to Amazon.com now to research inexpensive big bookcases and cubbies.

Most women don’t worry about becoming a Stepford Wife. Then again, most women have never been in a loving, functional relationship and endured several candid discussions with concerned peers or supervisors about how they really aren’t being abused in any way.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I grew up in a town where girls had to stand up to their parents and peers and announce they were not going to college to get an MRS degree (i.e. – to catch a husband). However, most of my difficulty finding a balance falls closer to home.

My mother may be a neuropsychologist, but she hasn’t practiced for 30 years. She focused on her children and her husband. As such, she tended to do some little things the way my father preferred, if he showed a preference.

Furthermore, my mother was raised by her mother and didn’t fully shake everything her mother deeply believed, nor did I (since she visited every other weekend, for my entire childhood). I may not have mentioned this before, but my maternal grandmother had a conviction that men were to be served by women, they were to be feared or revered, but always above us. It didn’t really hit me until I was old enough to notice more quiet dynamics within a household, which also coincided with my mother having my baby brother. Suddenly, I was not the spectacular darling I once had been, but (when he was around) a spectacular tool to help her serve my brother. She loved me; she adored him. At the funeral, we joked that she would have been horrified if she’d been there, that my brother was forced to shave, choose a clean slightly-itchy black sweater, and go alone to BUY a pair of pants – she’d have said he could wear anything he was comfortable in, like what he wore the days before: his 3-week-dirty jeans and warn-out shirt were wonderful and his stubble manly.   She would sit on the floor or stand, so a man could have a chair. She would flutter around the room trying to divine their needs for food and beverage (or anything else) before they even thought of it themselves. All this despite having 3 brothers.

So I grew up with this hiding in my head, waiting for just the right man to bring the crazy out. My husband wound up being just that man. I guess it was the only way I knew for a woman to show affection for a man without hanging all over him… or it was my idea of being a good mate. It was a bit visible to others when we were in college, but it really came out when I came to live with Peter, immediately after graduating from college. In a new city far from home, my whole world became graduate school, our two tiny siamese kittens, and Peter. So I came to discover what he preferred and how he preferred it and did my best to anticipate his needs. I felt like a failure when I did not deliver and forgot something when grocery shopping or didn’t immediately hand him the remote or didn’t drive as he would have driven (I quickly decided it was easier to have him drive, which helps tame his road rage). When I started student-teaching, and would suddenly rush to leave and bring work home (due to my perfectionist ways) because “he doesn’t like it if I’m not there to greet him,” people began to worry that I was being abused. It’s hilarious because the worst thing he might do is get grumpy, but the abuse was all me-on-me in my pursuit to meet unvoiced desires and be the perfect pseudo-wife.

Don’t get me wrong – this didn’t extend to cleaning the house obsessively (or at all) and wearing an apron. It was just all in little things to make his life easier so that he would be happier, because  I loved him.

When I work, I become very student-centered and stop coming home on-time or grocery shopping or being willing to make love on a school night (unless there’s plenty of time for me to get a good night’s sleep and I was planning on taking a shower the next morning anyways). That will have to change too, because if I could sleep in my classroom I might not have come home some nights. When I am in pain, I do nothing. I don’t get up to greet him, I don’t cook, I don’t shop, I’m hesitant to be intimate…

But right now, I’m back in my obsessive need-meeting mode. I want Peter to be happy and to be happy with me. There is so much I need to make up for and so much stress and strain on him right now. I’m going to try to temper that, but I don’t know whether I should or how much or in what ways. But I guess it’s more the mindset I should cool down than the actual actions. Making your husband happy is good. Wanting to make your husband happy is good. Self-flagellation after not meeting an unspoken desire is not acceptable. Physically cringing and having nauseating fear over in any way adding to (or not resolving) whatever is making or may make your husband angry (or grumpy or pissed or whatever you want to call it, an unpleasant, tangible fog fills the room) is not healthy.

So I’m really really trying to improve my reaction to and anticipation over my husband’s reactions. And I’m trying to find little, everyday ways to show my love aside from gifts or routines. And somewhere, deep in there, is the balance between Stepford Wife and absentee wife.