How's that for supportive?

About 8 months ago, my husband stopped drinking. Life was getting hard to manage, our marriage was in a terrible state, and we were both running from our problems in different ways. His involved a lot of drinking. One horrible night it all changed. But it's changed for the better. He decided to stop drinking entirely. No easing off a bit, no cutting back. Not a single sip of alcohol in over 8 months.

I'm very proud of him. It takes a lot of courage, and he's done it with grace. He still hangs out with people who drink, he never tries to make anyone else feel bad about their drinking. He not preachy about it. He just sits quietly and drinks soda.

I've tried really hard to be supportive of his choice, and not add to his stress level about it. I generally don't drink around him. It's had the side effect of my not drinking much at all. Generally 1 or 2 drinks out with friends, and then I'm done. We don't hang out at bars together, and I try to encourage him to go out to activities that don't focus on drinking (while his dart league is at bars, it's still an activity he can focus on rather than just drinking). We don't have beer in the fridge anymore, and only wine that I use for cooking.

Anyway, there's a point to this story. I thought I'd been a good wife, doing all the right things to support his decision. And then he comes down stairs this morning.

Husband: "That new soap in the bathroom... it doesn't smell like pink grapefruit".

Me(slightly irritated, why doesn't he like the freakin soap, it was on sale!!): "Yes, it does. What do you think it smells like?"

Husband: "It smells exactly like Southern Comfort".

Me:(really irritated) "No it doesn't. But if you want, we can switch it with the one in the kitchen."

Husband: "No, seriously it does. I'll prove it". Goes to the cabinet, pulls out an old bottle of SoCo, and makes me smell it... at 9am.

Me:"Oh God! I can't believe all these months of sobriety, and I'm sabotaging it with the hand soap!!!!".

It's true. Method brand hand soap, pink grapefruit scent smells exactly like Southern Comfort. Eeeek! That poor man, I've been sabotaging him all week with his greatest weakness... the scent of SoCo. Bad wife, bad, bad, bad!

Lists

I'm a list person. So are most of my friends, Exhibit A: First comment on my blog, listed 1-3, gotta love the logical mind! I have random lists all over my house and at work. Grocery lists, to-do lists, home improvement lists, self-improvement lists, some are random things to remember. Occasionally I find lists that are months old floating around that have completely lost their context. My favorite was a few years old on my desk at work:

1)Fear
2)Surprise
3)Ruthless Efficiency
4)An almost fanatical devotion to the Pope

Today's list is a little less ambitious:

1)Write blog
2)Vacuum!!! (They can no longer be called dust bunnies. They're woolly mammoths)
3)Visit Gram at the nursing home
4)Lunch with Mom and Auntie to talk about Gram's health care. Remain calm, mediate, do not get emotional.
5)Weed the front walkway
6)Laundry
7)Log in to work and finish estimates
8)Find a new recipe or two and plan out dinners for the week

Item 4 may actually require fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency...

Just for Cheysu...

Ta-da! The creation of a blog. Unfortunately, I have not written a single item that I've been proud to put my name in approximately 10 years. Worse still...I highly suspect that the journals/stories/articles I wrote then were quite bad. I was young, and full of angst that all seemed so very important, but now feels extremely mundane. When, I ask, WHEN did I grow up, lose my flair for the dramatic, and become such a boring person?

Oh well, I guess I'll give it a try. 30 days of blogging to see if I can find my voice again. It's got to be easier than Sudoku, right? Right?