Maybe we need a little vacation?
Good morning … this is me. It is already 9 am on a Saturday morning and we haven’t done too much yet. We didn’t wake up until about 7:30 or later. We had a cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal and tried our best to snuggle Sweetie Pie. He is a difficult case sometime because he wakes up thinking what he has to be doing. It’s hard to convince a guy bent on getting the clothes washed, to come join us back in bed. HMPF!
By now Sweetie is arranging the stuff in his SUV (still renting) and we waited around too long … we were getting very discouraged, so we came back in to write. We both got clothes together and we both took showers – separate … but, only he got dressed. I figured that I wasn’t going anywhere so why go past a clean pair of pajamas. Hmm, he’s in the kitchen now, but we’re in kind of a pouty neglected mood. We might have to go back to bed for a while. Feeling kind of down. Like we could cry at any moment. It’s just that he didn’t have anything on the schedule for this weekend so I thought we might get some time together. But, then he started filling things in … he’s got a charity card game going on this afternoon at two with his friend Bob, and then there is a match for his son tomorrow evening about 5 pm.
I know he has cleaning and errands in mind in between.
Sweetie said something about maybe watching a movie together this evening.
Ok, it’s now about 10:30 am. We’ve gone through some kind of melt-down and we’re on the way up again. I had thought Rich had left, but he came back in the living room and we were crying. We said we just miss being with you. We didn’t offer any other complaints, but then he got upset and went into about 20 things that were wrong in his life including blaming me for being like his wife and wanting time. I know that when he starts going into all these extra things that I’ve toppled his stress levels and buttons go off across the board. I said I want him to do what he wants to do, but then he left the room and came back with his book, and he said this is what I want to do just sit around on the couch for 2-3 hours and read. I don’t want to do the laundry, or go to the library, or do the grocery shopping.
When he does stuff like that, which isn’t often I get scared. Because I feel the amount of pressure he seems to be under. He said a whole lot of stuff about being under the gun in so many ways, but always is the scary stuff like “this is the way it used to be and its happening again.” That’s more in reference to his married life. It is a very harsh thing to be compared to an old relationship. I know that he is working off steam, but it is still hard, because he left that relationship and now I think he feels stuck in another relationship that is also being mean to him.
I think there is going to be a lot of figuring out in this relationship. I know that if I miss him, that it would sometimes happen that I cry. But, it seemed like both the crying and the missing him stressed him out to a high end. I need to be able to think that it is ok to have feelings and that it is natural to cry. During our better time, we have to work on that us not being happy is affecting him, because he is at a way out level where everything seems to add up to him feeling very bad about everything. I think one of the things that I need to remember is that we have Dr. Marvin to talk to and blow off steam with and Rich doesn’t have that. He seems to wait until I’m unhappy with something, then he lets loose all the problems he is having in life past and present. At times like that he says, “See, I knew this was going to happen.” That’s the point I feel most terrible I think that I’ve pushed him to not wanting to be with me, because I’m no different “bad for him” than his wife.
The time where he was going back at me, he complained about me not doing enough around the house, not exercising enough, not dieting good enough, etc. But, I know that those are also the things that are frustrating him. We were both looking at his schedule earlier this morning. It’s been about 2 months since he’s had a Saturday with nothing on the schedule. He’s frustrated that the floors are in bad shape (neither of us did them) and that running during his game last night was so difficult, and that he isn’t losing weight either. I know just because he’s focused those problems as to my successes and failures, it’s also giving him a chance to vent on his own personal frustrations. He also brought up some concerns about work – in that he’s trying to obtain $6000 through a big contract and that it isn’t going well. Added to that is that he yells at me for trying to take away his independence in visiting kids, being with the guys, or even not getting to golf, because he’s got such a heavy fishing schedule. We aren’t complaining about all that, we’re just saying that we want some time. It gets confused too, because we have a hard time remembering when the last time we were together sexually, but we’re thinking that its been like a long time … mostly because not all the parts are being upfront about when “they” had sex.
I know we’re getting a little personal, but that part is still hard on us. Though he said something about him not use to staying in bed longer than 30 seconds after he woke up. He said he would get up, jump in the shower and start his day. But, now he’s saying that he’s giving me time with him because he lets us stroke him for 15-20 minutes before getting up. We said is that a bad thing? He said that if it were he would have stopped it, but at the same time it is using up his time to be productive.
We’re not sure of the balance yet. At this moment what seems to be of most problem is that even though he wasn’t here when we cried, he did come back, and when we said we missed him, all of these other things came out. He got very upset and that made us feel worse. We are then just in need of hugs, because I get to thinking the one complaint about missing him led to an expression of all the problems that was on his mind whether conscious or unconscious. I think those are all important things to talk about, but the means of communicating isn’t very good. He waits until we are “over the wall,” and then he converts that frustration to speaking about all the things that frustrate him, and although not saying it as directly, makes us feel bad, because he has to do everything for the both of us and it seems to be tiring him. He brought up stuff like shopping for two, doing laundry for two, and the housekeeping. He could have as easily brought up that he was cooking for two as well. That is about when he went into a whole lot of issues about me not doing enough for our health. In that way everything that is going wrong becomes what it feels as if to be our fault.
Hmm, we just picked up the living room … there wasn’t much, but then at least it allows me to let go of a tiny amount of guilt for not doing enough. Before he’d woken up we’d started the dishwasher, and I thought Pshwoo … at least we’d done that much. If I were playing it safe, I might use this time for getting some other things accomplished, but then he knows too that we need some time for writing, though I’m not sure if he really understands it, because he called it time for me to be playing. When I’m roaming around looking for tidbits of news, I could call that playing, but we’re very serious about our writing and told him that it was more than “playing.” That it is most often pleasurable to be doing the writing doesn’t discount the fact that it is often hard in the sense of sitting down and
concentrating on it for 8 hours or more. We wouldn’t stop doing it just because it was work, but we are in need of conveying that this is what we do in life that makes our time special. I like to read and I like to write. Both consume hours of time.
I think he thinks of it as something that I do when he is gone. I don’t think he understands the sacrifice I make in the mornings when I go to massage him rather than write. I did tease him this morning in that I told him if it weren’t for him, maybe I wouldn’t have so much to write about. But, that is tongue in cheek, because the fact of the matter is that we’ve been blogging for four years, and we’d started writing even before that … though our other work started by stacks of yellow legal pad, gradually went over to long unruly emails to him, and then again ended up as documents to ourselves and a few others, but primarily we learned to write to a general audience, especially of ourselves, more than to Rich in particular. We hope that one day he can go back and read our thoughts, but we can’t focus on just writing to him. It’s more in the vein of when we talk to Dr. Marvin. Here anything and everything we think of has to be allowed out without sensorship or worry of how things might be perceived by others. This has to be primarily number 1 our thoughts, to our selves, about ourselves, and with ourselves.
Rich glanced at the picture I had of our blog from a couple of days ago when we’d posted the pictures of the place in Michigan. He said, see this is why I have to work so hard – because we want so much. That made me feel terrible and I’m not sure if he meant us to feel worse or not. I think a lot of times Rich says stuff to make me feel guilty. Even though he might have a similar dream of living in a house such as the one we were looking at. It was him who had the great need to live on a lake, if not THE Lake Michigan.
Man-o-man … we just took another look at the pictures of the last “cottage.” It is so gosh darn cool it’s just unbelievable. I don’t know if it has a basement or garage, but at this point they’d just be like bonus additions. We figure we’d even give up the glass display cabinets to the fishyman’s lures or such. The place is just phenomenal. How could one have so much – luxury, woods, and lake? I know the place is $450,000, but it seems like such an extremely good deal in comparison to half a million dollar homes around this area. Knowing that such things exist, I could never buy anything here in the Chicago area. Yeeks maybe that is misspoken.
I could never want to live here in Chicago – I would prefer Rich buy a place in the woods and Michigan seems ideal to us! It’s the small details like the wooden four season room perched in the sky from which to write and the island separating the dining area from the cooking area. 2/3rds o it might be stove, but the other side would be for us to sit and watch fishyman do his thing. I can’t tell you how pleased I would be with so many windows that open our space into “living” with the woods and lake. I’m thinking that Fishyman’s first impression was good, though I’m guessing he would get fitted shades for all the windows. Believe me … I’d want them entirely open as much as humanly feasible. One just doesn’t live in that much beauty to have it cut off. Mmm maybe we’re speaking too far gone in that there may be other cottages too close by, but for the moment we are imagining the best and that it is like a secluded spot. The place is absolutely beautiful!
Oh man oh man … I have to live with the thought that maybe it really is out of the budget … but I am so not dealing with that now. My mind has stepped onto a mental plain where I can see nothing but from the views of someone who might live in such a place. I told fishyman that I would work on grant-writing or something of equivalence to do my share of supporting this kind of living. I’m pretty sure that life couldn’t get any sweeter. Hmm, did I mention there was a FIREPLACE!!! I couldn’t imagine me seriously living anywhere permanently without one. Hmm, I know I know … this is the same person who figured she’d be living her retirement in a nursing home. Might still be if I’m not taking care.
In this regard, Sweetie is right. We don’t do enough to be very good at our health.
There we did a little something. We emptied the dishwasher, and then filled it up again and we made sure the kitchen counter was cleaned off. If Sweetie is going grocery shopping he would need this much done. We still need to get back to that chair in the back corner of the dining area and put away those towels that have been sitting there for so long. Then we need to go into the back bedroom and straighten that area. There are some clean clothes out and there’s still a suitcase not completely emptied from 3-4 weeks ago. I know … we’re not keeping up with our part. I should also check to see if there isn’t anything I can remove from the kitchen table. Just a few extra things leaves it seeming cluttered. I could probably stop in the bathroom too, because I think there are a few dirty towels in there that could be collected.
I have to tell you honestly that I’m thinking now as if I really did have a nice place in Michigan with all the windows and I’d have to think through how I would live if I had a place that was so open. Obviously, we couldn’t leave it always a mess. I’m not saying that our place is always messy, but things like the couch’s cushions being disarranged could give it that whole terrible appearance. Now, I fall to looking at my desk. How would it be different if we were living in Michigan. Hmm, probably have to remove some of the clutter, but I’m not sure which. The speakers stay naturally as does the calculator. I’ve got my nifty little box with note cards. That would have to stay. I like my little stuffed friends too. They are part of “my thing.” Maybe the hand braces could find a home when I wasn’t using them. There’s the timer … that has to stay as does my hand sanitizer. Hmm, that leaves the dental floss and the old batteries and pouch of paper clips. Well, I suppose I could move all of those … Last there is that pouch that holds bills. I’m not sure if I’m using that so wisely. I would have to go through it to check, but for the time being that stays. Oh and one more thing … the calendar picture of Sweetie being the 2006 Angler of the Year. That would HAVE to stay. It’s my pictures of him doing “man-things.”
Ok, beside all that. Ok, put away a few of the looser things, cleaned up the towels and blankets on the back chair, put away the suitcase and loose clothes, and we cleaned up the paper towels the kitty’s devastated. I still need to fix the bed covers back there and put away some dirty towels in the bathroom. This should all make Sweetie Pie happy. Oh yeah, and we put the new bag of dried cat food in its container and fixed up the wet pouches on the plate rather than boxed on the counter. That was pretty much all I could do in one outing. I think I’m doing pretty good though. Just a few more moments and then we’ll go back to finish up.
I did another sidewise glance at the living room and fire place. They don’t have a lot of clutter, which maybe the way they live, or maybe they had it spruced up for the pictures, or maybe they were halfway moved out. Not sure. But I’d sure like to have a place like that that wasn’t overly cluttered. Everything about it is so perfect. *Sigh*
Ok, you … now back to reality? We’d have to figure out a way to pay for that kind of a house. Maybe we better schedule in that we need to do some grant-writing or at least grant-reading this afternoon. Sweetie has to be at his card game about 2 pm and it’s already 12:15. He’s going to be coming in and out at a rush. I was glad he found his keys before leaving. He had thought he’d lost them, but they were really tucked deep into his briefcase. I’m glad for that. We’re thinking though that we’re going to need eating pretty soon. I didn’t think about it, but it would be nice to have a sandwich with Sweetie pie, but I have to consider the diabetes.
Hmm, no fruit eaten at 10:30 … maybe I could have a grapefruit now and wait a little longer. He’s going to need eating too. Ok, let’s plan one more up time to do some work first … then maybe leave a grapefruit here for when we get back. Ok, that’s a plan … let’s go!
AHA! It’s now 1:15 … the last hour happened in a swish. Sweetie came home as we were finishing up and he brought 3 loads of groceries with him. He seemed to be in a better mood and so were we. It helped to be doing some work. I think he appreciated the effort, but we told him we would have done it even without him making us feel bad. We would have wanted to surprise him with us having worked while he was working. I think he got around … probably checked the mail on the way to the library. I know he came home with two new books. Sweetie almost always reads before falling asleep. He has some favorite authors. Hmm, but I can’t say what goes on in his mind when he is scanning all those books. I know that he also goes to different libraries, so has a pretty good feel for all of that.
One way or another lunch got eaten. He made sandwiches and I prepared some grapes and lemonade slushes. It was a pretty good deal. He thought he had 15 minutes to spare, but then his friend called and said the games start at 2 and that he had to be there first. Rich said he was only going to play one game, which meant he said that he would be home about 6 pm. He and his friend took separate cars, because I think the friend is thinking he’ll be out until 2 am. Yeeks! Rich said we weren’t to cross our fingers that he’d make a lot of money, but I think its ok to hurrah him on!
Hmm, I need to stop looking at the house. It is seeping into my mind as something that we can’t live without, but as far as I know we could be looking ten years out and even at that … we might not be able to afford a place this nice. The one thing I hold onto is that is the cost of places here, and both Sweetie and I know that this place is SOOOO much better. Can’t get a lake view living in the suburbs. I think too that it is an optimistic sign that when Sweetie saw the place that he had to admit it was very nice. That’s half the battle if we are both looking for something in the same direction. He did mention stairs, but I think that would serve as an incentive to us. I would much more like to plan living with stairs rather than thinking I HAD to live without them.
Man-o-man … just gotta quit torturing ourselves. I’m not sure if by the time we can afford a $450,000 house that there will be one like this available for the price. I did however read in the news yesterday that the housing market is in a turmoil.
People are selling like crazy and the banks aren’t loaning to people like me who have shaky credit. Things are being affected especially in the line of houses, loans, and credit cards. The interest rate is shooting up and there are mortgage places that are needing to sell out, which meant that if you caused any ripple of non-payment, the owners of accounts will come down on you hard. It might be a couple of years before things become more affordable. I know that one of the houses I looked at in Brookfield had a so-so yard and garage, it was also on split levels, had a jazuzzi, and was very nice, but I wouldn’t take it over this other place even if it wasn’t on Lake Michigan and they were asking for more than half a million.
Plus, this place was in a very common neighborhood. Maybe this is my type of neighborhood, but I’d still like to be putting my money elsewhere.
Hmm, ok … it’s now 2:42 pm. We’ve been looking around at Saugatuck. Yeah, like right … is there anything else more important in life to be doing? Hehehe. We found the place we want to stay, but we’re going to need convincing Sweetie Pie to take off a few days during the week. I don’t know if he could manage that plus the cost. The nice thing is that it isn’t way over the top cost wise if we go after labor day. In particular it looks like there is availability September 9th (Sunday) through the 14th (Friday). I don’t think Sweetie would take a full 6-7 days off, but the rate is only $150 … AHA! But, for what you ask? Well, this is the really cool part. The place is located right on the lake. Sort of like being in the middle of a dock. Literally there are boats right out the front window. They have a bedroom, full bath, full kitchen, living room with a fireplace, balcony, AND JACUZZI!!! Oh yeah PLUS the incredible lakeside view. For $150?? It’s a steal!
For posterity the place is called “The River Suites.” There are only two suites, you get the North one or the South one. It’s phone number is (269) 857-8899 … BUT, don’t steal my dates!
Hmm, we’re going to post now just to get in the shots, but come right back, ok?
This next set of pictures is of the south side suite ...
This set of pictures is the north side ... really either or would do ;)
Ok, so … we’re back. Did you get kind of the common thread here? I think that we need to live with more windows and open space. I’m feeling closed in. Rich says he likes to be near the water … well you can’t get much closer than this? Did you see the boats in the front yard on the first picture? Hmm, actually, I think those are yachts! I’m not sure, but looking at the picture, it seems there is an upper and lower floor. The suites seem to be on top, so we’re thinking there is either a marina or a food place rented out down below. On the web site there was mention of “Riverside something.” Wouldn’t be so bad to have a restaurant below, but even if it was just a place to sell worms, it would not detract from having that gorgeous view up top.
Hmm, seems as if someone is going to need working for it. I think we’re going to use the washroom, find the lap blanket, and get down to some serious grant reading. It’s almost 3:30 now and I would like to do something before Rich comes back. Ok, then girls … sounds like a plan. No your silly dreaming isn’t a bad thing … everything comes in its own sweet time. Maybe even staying for a few days at the suite! SHHH … but, maybe not. Let’s be patient. Because you know what? This seems a little like spending Rich’s money again. I know he said we might do something in the fall, but maybe we have to be considerate of his time, schedules, and money. Let’s not be disappointed? Let’s just have some nice dreams, ok? Beside putting the pictures in the blog is about the next best thing to being there. Hmm? Ok, now scoot!
posted by Ann Marie @ 8/25/2007 02:57:00 PM
Comments: 1
