Time to be "sirius"

You know every once in awhile I need to do a reality check. Step back..... look, think, and appreciate.

Yesterday morning Joel had to drive out of town, still in WV granted, but good Lord to a place I had never heard of. Poor thing. One way trip was 2 hrs. I worried. That was a given, I'll always do that. So by 2pm I was in a bit of a panic because I hadn't heard from him. Of course the most horrible thoughts were running through my mind. Car accident, broke down.... ya know, Anxiety. I seriously think I may need to look into medication. I've always been this way for as far back as I can remember. Makes me wonder.

So, finally he gets back into town and he sends me a text that he is at Wal-Mart looking at a Sirius radio. He's mentioned looking into getting one since he's on the road and in a lot of areas where he just can't pick up a good radio station. Not that there are many good radio stations in WV anyway. Most of them play honky tonk, but we won't elaborate on that :)

I give him a call and he tells me that he's went ahead and bought one. I'm thinking "Ok, good. Now he'll have radio no matter where he goes." He meets me after work and hands me over his paycheck (go ahead ladies, envy away). We've been trying to plan this wedding and even though it's not going to be anything fancy we still have purchases we need to make. My dress, his tux, flowers, preacher, and let's not forget the most important..... HONEYMOON!!!! He's so excited about this radio! He's so cute when he gets this excited about something, I love it. So he heads home to "set it up" and I head to the bank. I stopped at a little store to pick up a few things and then home. He meets me at the car and says "This thing cost more to activate than what I thought.", and just gives me a look. Hard to describe really, kinda like little puppy dog eyes. He tells me the it cost $166. Ok. I'm a little confused. It's $166 including the $50 for the system? He says no.... it's $166 in addition to the $50. My jaw dropped, I do believe. I'm not much on understanding all this technical crap.... hell, I still don't have a clue what a friggin iPod does???

I didn't become angry, not at all. A little frustrated, I believe. But not angry. Of course the first thoughts running through my mind is... no dress, no tux, no honeymoon, no wedding. Hence the reason why I think I may need medication, see? He says to me, "We have 3 days to cancel without any kind of obligations. I can call them back and cancel the service and then in a month, two, or three call back to activate it." Now at that very moment I remember that excited look in his eyes when he showed up at work with his little toy. Boys and their toys, eh? I tell him no, to go ahead and leave it that there's no use in having something and not even being able to use it. So I immediately sit down to do up our checkbook and see what's coming out and what bills HAVE to be paid. He comes into the Living Room 3 or 4 times with this worried look on his face. I make a few calls... the insurance company, the phone company... to confirm the least amount we can pay to continue with service. Now granted, I was planning on making these calls anyway, had nothing to do with his radio. He kept reminding me each time he came into the Living Room that he had 3 days to cancel, he was so cute. The bottom line didn't look as bad as what I thought it was going to look, so I told him that it was fine with me to go ahead with it and that we were going to be ok. I did mention to him the next time either one of us go out and spend $200 that we should check with the other person first. He agreed, but then reminded me about my little shopping spree when he was in South Dakota. Ouch, that hurt. But ya know, he was absolutely right.

This morning as I look at his desk and see that little radio sitting there I just gotta stop and think..... he works so hard, never wants anything. He's content with the car he drives, the clothes he wears, packed lunch with ham sandwiches 5 days a week.... and I acted like a schmuck on impulse when he told me how much this thing was. Now this is a wonderful man, not a man out blowing money on strip clubs, gambling, booze, or drugs... but a man that works hard every day and just hands his check over to me to pay bills and buy what our family needs. How could have I reacted the way I did? I'm embarressed about my reaction. I have an absolute wonderful man who is dependable and sensible. Time to step back..... look, think and appreciate.

Time to be sirius.

The Sesame Street Personality Quiz

You Are Ernie

Playful and childlike, you are everyone's favorite friend - even if your goofy antics get annoying at times.
You are usually feeling: Amused - you are very easily entertained
You are famous for: Always making people smile. From your silly songs to your wild pranks, you keep things fun.
How you view your life: With ease. Life is only difficult when your friends won't play with you

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Ok, I'm officially hooked. There are so many cool things on this website!!!!!

How Sinful Are You?

Your Deadly Sins

Envy: 80%
Sloth: 20%
Gluttony: 0%
Greed: 0%
Lust: 0%
Pride: 0%
Wrath: 0%

Chance You'll Go to Hell: 14%

You will die a boring death. While dying, you will be jealous of those who die dramatic deaths.
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LOL. Cool link. I needed to laugh.

http://www.blogthings.com/howsinfulareyouquiz/

Jealousy?

I just got done reading an article, written by a male, about jealousy. What I like to refer to, in my case, as low self-esteem. Yeah yeah.... jealousy is the bottom line. I don't know, for me it comes naturally, like I don't even have to struggle with the thoughts. They just roll into my mind naturally, without any effort on my part. This article, though cleverly written by a male, kind of brings light the jealousy a lot of us struggle with...... and those wonderful partners that put up with it.

He writes:

A Suspicious Letter

Diane left some letters on the kitchen counter for me to mail, as she always does, and as I walked down the steps I quickly looked through them, as I always do. Among the endless bills was a hand-addressed envelope to a man at an address I didn't recognize in another state.

I thought for a second about asking Diane who he was, but I didn't want to appear, y'know, suspicious. So instead I went down to my office and acted suspicious, searching the name and address on the Internet. I finally found him on a government scientific Web site. And while I tried not to jump to any conclusions, I couldn't get my mind to stop considering the possibility...

Is my wife cheating on me with an algae researcher?

I wrote down the name and address on a Post-it (easier to eat if I had to destroy the evidence), mailed the mail, and went about my business. For the next two days I thought about how to bring this up to Diane. Then I got an e-mail. It was from the researcher. Oh my god. I clicked it open and there was just one sentence:

"Did you get the swizzle sticks yet?"

That mystery letter? A check Diane had written for something I forgot that I'd bought on eBay.

Okay, I'm an idiot. I'm also a jealous guy. Always have been. Probably always will be. If nearly 20 years of marriage to a woman who loves and completes me hasn't cured me, nothing will.

Jealousy is one of the few emotions that husbands have always been expected to express. Unfortunately, most of us express it really badly -- often for absolutely no good reason, and sometimes with disastrous consequences. It might be the only emotion that wives wish husbands would suppress.

After the swizzle stick episode, I started asking my basketball buddies about jealousy -- what Shakespeare called "the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on." (I didn't mention Shakespeare specifically because I didn't want anyone to throw the ball at my head. It was bad enough I was asking them to admit they actually had feelings.)

I was most interested to hear from one guy because I knew he and his wife had just entered a scenario rife with betrayal possibilities. After many years of being home with their kids, his wife took a job at a small company with a lot of younger single people. I was at a party recently where I saw her with some of her new male colleagues. They flocked around her, almost flirtatiously, I thought. It actually made me feel a little jealous on my buddy's behalf.

So I was amused by the way my friend denied the role of jealousy in his marriage. "Not as big a deal now as it was 20 years ago," he said, "but I've always had more to be jealous about than my wife, because she is a first-class flirt." Then he added, a bit irritably, as if the facts were irrefutably in his favor: "Look, her coworkers are all much younger and/or gay. And the one person she is hanging out with lots is 10 years younger, with a pregnant wife."

Oh, okay. Good thing you're not feeling threatened. And, of course, guys never cheat on their pregnant wives.

Why I'm a Jealous Guy

How he stays calm I don't know. I get jealous over much less. I'm not what experts call "morbidly jealous" -- I don't get aggressive or have much of a temper. But I do feel more jealous than any happily married man should. And it comes out in all kinds of little ways I'm embarrassed to admit. Besides occasionally checking out the mail (or, okay, the cell phone bill), I definitely do the "husbandly hover." I pay a little too much attention to whom Diane talks with at parties, remaining far enough away to be inconspicuous but close enough to stealthily intercede in any conversation that seems suspiciously long.

Why do husbands do this kind of stuff? During our first few years together I believed my actions were well-founded responses to something real -- perhaps a carryover from fighting off other suitors to win Diane's hand. Like many husbands, I felt I had married someone way better than I deserved and needed to diligently protect myself against losing her. I still feel that way and can see how Diane attracts people: She's smart and disarmingly funny and, at 50, still turns heads (sometimes all the way around) in just a T-shirt and jeans.

But I have also come to understand that most of my jealousy is unfounded and unprovoked -- something I brought into the marriage, like that ugly brown sleeper sofa.

According to social scientists, husbands and wives are jealous in different ways: Supposedly, men care more about sexual fidelity and women care more about emotional fidelity. And, in a more important sociological indicator -- bad movie dialogue -- it is usually "did you sleep with him?" versus "do you love her?"

Now, I've always been troubled by this notion that men care more about possessing women than loving them, treating them like toys that nobody else can play with, while women will overlook sexual indiscretions as long as he loves her best (Lori adds: Are these women idiots?? "Like hell", that's all I'm gonna say on this remark!!!). So I'm glad to report that recent studies show jealousy is becoming a more equal-opportunity obsession. Men are now scoring as more emotionally jealous than ever before, and women as more sexually jealous (Lori adds again: I must be a raging lunatic, they both sound horrid to me). Our worst relationship fears have all begun to even out. This could mean men are learning to love more or that women have finally wised up about the old "I slept with her but it didn't mean anything" line, or both.

As for us, I consider myself lucky that after 20 years together my wife is still kind of flattered by how possessive I can be. Even now Diane recalls as "funny and cute" how, during our courtship, I used to show up "coincidentally" at restaurants where she was dining with friends. ("Funny and cute?" a friend of ours gasped when she later heard about my extreme wooing. "He was a stalker!")

When I recently fessed up to Diane about the algae researcher incident, she found it "hilariously touching." I guess that's because she appreciates the upside of jealousy in a marriage. And no matter how many times she has to deal with me waiting up for her like some '60s sitcom dad on the few nights she goes out with the girls, I can think of only one thing worse for our relationship.

And that would be if I stopped being so jealous.

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It's funny and oh so true. Sad to think I have this in common with the male species (or at least some of the male species). It's like you don't even look for things, then BOOM. They hit like a brick wall. I guess for people like me, little things that really mean nothing turn into meaning a whole lot more. It gnaws at you, or, at least it does me.

"Oh great. Here it comes again. Brace yourself. Hurt. There's something your not saying or doing right, or something or somebody you're not or never will be. Way to go. Well, what else did you expect, eh? It lasted longer then what you could have hoped for."

Even though the article brings a smile about jealousy, the feelings I feel do not.

Yeah, I hate this about me.

Ixnay on the Amadray

After the last few posts, you just gotta wonder what's gonna be next. Well great news! No more drama. So.... I, ummmmm, had a moment or two. Geesh already. You know what the Bible says, don't ya? "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone". Yeah, now that's what I'm talkin' about!

Now we will tune you into our regularly scheduled program "The REAL Blog"

Ahem. Glad that's all behind us now....... moving on.