Married Life: While I Was Away

I’ve just returned from five days in the Philippines with Ford – far out it was fun! I’ll share more about that later (the above picture was taken while I was there). It’s always a bit of a juggle managing family life when I go away (which isn’t very often). It’s usually a combination of my husband, school care, my teen children and family. My husband and I have developed a good pattern for managing all the things involved with running family life. We have systems and we both just pitch in and get stuff done. If we’re talking percentage wise, I would do more because I’m home more, but in general, we both take responsibility for running family life, and I love that. He he cooks, I cook, the teen kids cook. We both do washing; sometimes I put the wash on and he hangs out/dries it, or the other way around. We both clean as we go or pitch in on housework days.

In a house with six people living it in, I’ve had to become more relaxed about how things are done because I believe in NOT micro managing everything (which I write about in greater detail here: Saying No to Micro Managing). In saying that, there ARE some particular things, I’m…well…particular about. While I was away, my husband was with the kids on the weekend, and he randomly sent me these images with no commentary, and it made me laugh so much.

Picture 1

What: Rag over sink

Story: One of my PET HATES is when the kids and husband leave the kitchen cloth sitting IN THE SINK and then people plonk dishes, tip milk/water/whatever over it and I JUST HATE IT. As I said, I’m actually not that picky in the house, but it’s just one of those things for me. After use, the cloth should be rinsed and either folded next to sink or on the spout like this. So when my husband sent me this, it was a message saying, “Hun, everything is on track here.”

Picture 2

What: New quilt

Story: I don’t know how it happened, but our quilt got some rips in it, and it progressively got more and more ripped as our feet caught on it. It was so bad that it was pretty much a pile of wadding at the end. We often joked, saying we must have had some wild-wild times. Ha. But seriously, no idea how it happened. We have had plans to replace it for a while, but it was just one of those things that got pushed to the end of the list. 

Picture 3

What: New sheets

Story: When either of us is away, we always make the bed nice for when the other one gets home. It’s just so welcoming to come home to your own bed freshly made. AND new sheets for the win. On sale baby!

Picture 4

What: New iron. 

Story: Our iron broke a few months ago and we have been surviving without it. I hardly iron (you can read about how I avoid ironing uniforms here: How I Organise Everything to do With School Life). My husband irons his own clothes most of the time so he uses it more. We had a conversation about buying a new one; I was going to but since he uses it more, he preferred to shop and pick the iron. 

Picture 5

What: It took me a few looks to work out what this was. Then I laughed and laughed. It’s a bra.

Story: My husband has wrecked many bras by throwing them in the dryer. He also used to hang them out without shaping them first (so they would be all misshaped once dry). Of course he wasn’t to know (he doesn’t usually wear bras himself). However, with four women in the house, three who currently wear bras, there ARE a lot of bras around the place and he has adapted like the wonderful man he is and leaned how to wash bras too. The skills the man has! Bras are washed, then hung over the bar in the middle to dry.

I enjoyed getting these little snippets from home. It made happy. It made me laugh. It made me feel relaxed knowing everything was okay. It made me feel glad that I have a partner to do life with. This weekend my husband and I celebrate 17 years of marriage. There have been some tough times for us over the years, but there is a lot of sweetness too, and a lot of growth as a partnership. Good things. Grateful.