50 Years Ago

The Good Wife’s Guide
Housekeeping Monthly 13 May 1955

Have dinner ready. Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal ready, on time for his return. This is a way of letting him know that you have been thinking about him and are concerned about his needs. Most men are hungry when they come home and the prospect of a good meal (especially his favorite dish) is part of the warm welcome needed.

Prepare yourself. Take 15 minutes to rest so you’ll be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your make-up, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh-looking. He has just been with a lot of work-weary people.

Be a little gay and a little more interesting for him. His boring day may need a lift and one of your duties is to provide it.

Clear away the clutter. Make one last trip through the main part of the house just before your husband arrives.

Gather up schoolbooks, toys, paper etc. and then run a dust-cloth over the tables.

Over the cooler months of the year you should prepare and light a fire for him to unwind by. Your husband will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you lift too. After all, catering for his comfort will provide you with immense personal satisfaction.

Prepare the children. Take a few minutes to wash the children’s hands and faces (if they are small), comb their hair and, if necessary, change their clothes. They are little treasures and he would like to see them playing the part. Minimize all noise. At the time of his arrival, eliminate all noise of the washer, dryer or vacuum. Try to encourage the children to be quiet.

Be happy to see him.

Greet him with a warm smile and show sincerity in your desire to please him.

Listen to him. You may have a dozen important things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk first – remember, his topics of conversation are more important than yours.

Make the evening his. Never complain if he comes home later or goes out to dinner, or other places of entertainment without you. Instead, try to understand his world of strain and pressure and his very real need to be at home and relax.

Your goal: Try to make sure your home is a place of peace, order and tranquility where your husband can renew himself in body and spirit.

Don’t greet him with complaints and problems.

Don’t complain if he’s late home for dinner or even if he stays out all night. Count this as minor compared to what he might have gone through that day.

Make him comfortable. Have him lean back in a comfortable chair or have him lie down in the bedroom. Have a cool or warm drink ready for him.

Arrange his pillow and offer to take off his shoes. Speak in a low, soothing and pleasant voice.

Don’t ask him questions about his actions or question his judgment or integrity. Remember, he is the master of the house and as such will always exercise his will with fairness and truthfulness. You have no right to question him.

A good wife always knows her place.

Unwarranted Indeed

I'd just like to follow up my last post.

Now that we've survived the weekend, I'm glad to report that it never rained and was only slightly windy on Saturday afternoon.

But thank god our gas tanks are full and every store within a 100 miles has zero water and bananas.

(you could cut that sarcasm with a knife)

Unwarranted Hysteria

They say the population of the Dallas/Fort Worth area will increase by about 1 million people by Sunday.

I-45 has been a parking lot for over 24 hours.

People are waiting in lines at gas stations and grocery stores for at least 30 minutes, closer to at least an hour.

Fuel stations are running out of gas.

Grocery store shelves are bare of milk, bread, water and more. My mother said that daddy exclaimed "Where's all the bananas!?" at Wal-Mart last night.

Hotel/Motels are booked solid. Reports are that the nearest vacancies are in Oklahoma.

I've yet to see any of this first hand, but I gather I will before the weekend is over.

Miss Rita isn't going to hurt us one bit. The masses of people will. And the panic of Dallas/Fort Worth residents. It's like the freaking apocalypse down here. Meanwhile, we'll have a nice breezy thunderstorm over the next 2-3 days.

It's insanity. Just as outrageous and irrational as people get when we get a freeze and all the milk and bread disappear from the grocery store shelves. As if we'll be stranded, frozen in our homes for weeks and weeks. *rolls eyes*

This is just silly. Everyone needs to just calm the hell down. And have some sympathy for those who have to come here from the coast. Leave some damn water and bread for them!

Old Friends Renewed

Within the last few months I've had the opportunity to get in touch with some friends from long ago. Some of them were able to find me, and another I've found myself as well as reaching out to a friend who I only hear from once every several months or more.

Lets start with Cory. Cory moved to my home town when we were all in 4th grade. After 8th grade he moved to another town in the area and spent his 4 years of high school away from us. We kept in touch through part of our high school years, but as things go, we eventually lost contact. One of his best friends during middle school was a guy named Shawn. Both of these boys ran with me and my best girlfriend and after Cory moved away, Shawn and the two of us girls still hung out. Shawn and Cory never lost contact after he moved away and not too long ago they were having a conversation about me and did the general "I wonder what Sarah is up to and where she is..."

So Cory took the only number he had, my parent's number and tried it. It worked, because my brother lives where that phone number rings and Cory left a message. I got a call from my brother and he said "Dude, check this out" and played the message. I promptly jotted down Cory's cell number and called him.

About two weeks after our initial contact we went out to see a band together and have a drink. It was a good time. It was nice to see him again and I genuinely am happy that we've found each other again. On that night we went to a bar, and one of the bartenders is the brother of another old friend of mine named Cassie.

I took a leap and asked him to give her my phone number. He did that and also gave me her cell number.

Cassie was my bestest girl friend during my senior year and several years after high school. Without getting into all the details, I basically lost contact with her due to my ex husband and her ex boyfriend. Young minds are easily influenced by asshole boys and I was persuaded to sever ties with her. Unfortunately I had a young mind at the time and let her go.

She and I have played phone tag the last week and a half, but last night I was able to get a hold of her and we gabbed for almost an hour. We easily cleared all the old dead weeds that had cluttered our path to each other and were giggling girls like I had seen her yesterday. With squeals and wiggles, we ended the call with "I love you's" and we'll be seeing each other very soon.

Cory and I saw each other again last Sunday for lunch and Shawn came along too. I was just as comfortable and happy with the two of them as I was 15 years ago. Altho I think they aren't quite as comfortable. They can't seem to grasp why I have a man who doesn't mind if I go out for lunch or to a bar for beer with other boys! Hopefully they'll get over themselves. :p

To say the least, this feels fantastic. I can't wait to see Cassie, and I hope to see those boys again soon. I may actually have the basis of a small circle of friends again!

The only thing that can make this even better is if my Honey and R.A. like these people too. :D

…………...

I’m a baseball fan! But it’s Halloween, so *GRRRR!!*

I’m a basketball fan! But it’s Halloween, so *SNARL!!*

I’m a football fan! But it’s Halloween, so *ROAR!!*

Those might be the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.

Ahhhh...

Work is so much nicer when I'm not running around like a crazy person trying to get caught up with 2 month old data because of the stupid new system implementation. Can you say, run on sentence? That's how I talk tho, so that's how I type.

Anywho, for the first time in about 3 months I haven't stressed over what I have to get done at work. I don't love it and I would certainly rather be somewhere else, but I don't HATE coming here anymore.

It feels good to know I can come in, get several things finished for the day and go home stress free and feeling accomplished.

School is nice and easy too. We have small reading assignments and journals to write, but it's pretty simple if you can interpret what these old philosophers wrote. Hehe

My life is calm again, for the time being. I hope it remains this way through the rest of the year. I don't wanna panic again until our next annual audit at work! I'll keep my fingers crossed. ;)

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In other news
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My sister has been assimilated into the blog world. I dunno if she’ll keep up the posts, but I hope she does. You can visit her brand new blog at http://utahbound.blogspot.com/

And no, she isn’t yelling, I just can’t get her to stop typing in all caps. :p She writes in all caps, and generally does whatever the hell she wants to do, so if you wanna read her blog, you’re gonna have to get over the caps. Painful as it may be.

Later!

Two Weeks Later

Man! I suck. Time flies by too fast some times. I can't believe it has been 2 weeks since my last post. I can hardly remember what has happened since.

Mostly work and school, but I did have some fun over the Labor Day weekend. It started pretty crappy but got better. I was supposed to have Friday the 2nd off but there was so much to do at work, I came in anyway.

Between a tantrum while stuffing envelopes and violently faxing papers, my boss told me to go home. I had only been here about 2 1/2 hours. He said he didn't care if I got everything done on Tuesday, we'll just take it as it comes and I should leave. So I did.

It took me the rest of Friday to shake off my bad past 3 months of work funk, but by Saturday morning I was good to go. I loaded up some clean panties and a tooth brush and went to my parents' house to hang with them. My sister and her two daughters were already there and the day was filled with shopping, crafting and giggling.

I stayed the night on an air mattress in the living room. When I woke the sun wasn't quite up (normal) and daddy was sitting at his computer playing a silly game and watching Bonanza. He gets TV on his 'puter. I got up and we sat in his office talking quietly over Bonanza, making up our own dialog. It's hard to try and laugh quietly. When it was over we sat on the porch and watched the world wake up.

Soon everyone was awake and momma was making breakfast. We ate and loaded up the car to head to my brother's house for swimming, grilling and playing with his 4 daughters. I got to see ALL of my nieces. :D We played in the pool for hours and ate yummy grilled kabobs and corn.

Dad and Tory

Sammy, Hannah, Aly, Paige and Mom

Abigale

Sammy

When I got home Sunday night, Honey was crawling around under my desk trying to figure out why my PC wasn't working. The power source went bad. So with some tech support from Dell we got a tech scheduled to come fix it. (it's under warranty) I actually just spoke to Honey and the tech called while we were talking and was on his way.

But I digress. Monday, Honey and I spent all day together. We got out of bed late and went to lunch out. When we came out from lunch my car wouldn't start. That battery went dead too! So again with the warranties, I took it to the dealership. Long story short I spent too much time and too much money, but my car is working again and all is well.

It was an eventful holiday weekend. Some parts were great and some were not so great, but now that my head is well above water at work, I can look back and feel good about the little extra time I was able to take off.