I am so lucky to be married to someone who cooks, and who is always trying new things to improve the recipe. That was a creative idea, putting the pizza crust into the freezer for a little while before adding the toppings! So what if the warm dough/pan turned an ice cream cake into a milkshake cake? Totally worth it!
I am so lucky to be married to someone who cares about the environment. It doesn’t bother me that we now have an impulsively-improvised “compost bin” balanced precariously on top of the kitchen trash can (how long until the cats knock rotting food all over the floor?), blocking 3/4ths of the trash can’s opening and also ruining one of the new bins I recently bought for the kids’ toys. Nor does it bother me to hear that soon we will be involving worms in this project—possibly before someone moves the project OUTSIDE where it belongs.
I am so lucky to be married to someone who continues over the years to be an active student of life. If the children’s Etch-a-Sketch has to be taken apart to harvest parts for an interesting new project, that’s a worthwhile investment. Some people’s husbands watch TV as a hobby. That must be…..a wonderful dull way to live.
I am lucky my husband is not one of those slobs who has to be shoved into the shower. When he takes a 30-minute shower that leaves me no hot water, that’s CONSIDERATE of him to keep himself so fresh and clean.
It’s good he’s having so much success on his diet. He’s really dedicated. It impresses me when I bake cookies and he eats just one and then daintily refuses any others, while I hoover up one after another.
ANYONE might accidentally think straight bleach was a reasonable cleaning supply. How is he supposed to know what we use to clean the bathroom, when he’s NEVER DONE IT BEFORE?
He’s so good to do the dishes when it’s my turn. Even if they still have visible crusty food on them, it would be nitpicky of me to criticize what is, after all, a GOOD thing for him to be doing. Effort is worth something, right? Assuming that doing an objectively crappy job—when the person involved is a fully-functional, fully-sighted adult—counts as “effort.”
Shouldn’t you be grateful that it’s your bathroom his cleaning, your cookies he’s eating, your kitchen he’s making wormy??? And not some other hussies?! ;)
My husband takes things apart too – it makes me nuts because they never work the same again, even though he swore he’s made them better.
Snicker snicker snicker.
My husband thoughtfully did A load of laundry…by picking out a few articles of clothing he wanted to wear that day and washing ONLY THEM.
LOL …. and loading the dishwasher in a way you’ve been nicely asked NOT to do so 1000 times is still helping out because you are after all loading it. Even if you’re about-to-pop pregnant wife has to reload it EVERY SINGLE TIME so things actually get clean.
Men are just great like that, aren’t they?
My favorite thing is when we get home from someplace as a family and I am the one to take off all shoes, coats, and make something quick for starving kids to eat before someone falls apart… all the while my husband is in the bathroom. I mean, he is a grown MAN for heaven’s sake, he can’t hold his pee until the kids are taken care of first? Then he saunters out when everyone is taken care of like he has all the time in the world. Sigh.
LMAO, well you certainly made me appreciate my hubby’s efforts. ;)
Too funny. And too true. *sigh*
He is Doctor Evil’s brother Mr. Swistle and this is all part of his nefarious plan to get you to shout “don’t ever do anything around the house again!”
Come over here and rub my belly please. It aches from laughter over this post.
“… might accidentally think straight bleach was a reasonable cleaning supply…”
Really?
REALLY?
I’ve said it before – I don’t know how you do it. I would be on the news.
Wait are we talking about your husband or mine? I am in total agreement with annenahm, I know they are doing it to try and get off the hook. Unfortunately for my husband, I am more stubborn than he is and I will not say that.
You are hilarious. Yes, we really might be married to the same person. Mine also does that whole, “at least I DID the dishes” thing, complete with pouty face, when he did a half-ass job at whatever task. I want to say, “Yes, I WOULD rather you not do it at all if you’re just going to do it half way.”
HOLY crap!
That was f*****g GREAT! I can totally relate to these teeth-grindingly considerate and thoughtful tasks that husbands decide to partake in. They are SO HELPFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ahahhahhahhaaaaaaaaa hahhahaaaaa (manic laughter)
ooh, straight bleach yikes. All the other stuff is good though.
I was going to hit you with “at least it’s YOUR house he’s not cleaning well and using all hot water in!” by AndreAnna beat me to it. Dang!
There’s something to be said for getting out of chores by being incompetent at them.
As for the compost: I have a good friend who put worms in an indoor compost bin in her home’s kitchen. A kitchen she shared with multiple roommates. I don’t think they were too happy the day the worms escaped.
Stop him before it is too late!
LOL
The cookie thing gets me every time. It doesn’t help that my dh is the same size he was in high school. *sigh*
Bwuahahaha! Oh (Sigh). What is really funny is that MY HUSBAND could have said all of those lovely things about ME. Heh.
(Smiling sheepishly).
Good God – I love you Swistle.
Ha ha ha.
You mean that straight bleach isn’t a good cleaning agent? Hmmm…
Whoever came up with the phrase “it’s the thought that counts” clearly was dealing with someone a little more thoughtful than the average joe…
My husband is living his other life at your home I think. When someone tells me how they would love for their husband to make “efforts to help” around their house, I say No. No you don’t.
Sarcasm is one of the greatest joys in my life – keep it up! This is why we love you.
HA! Andreanna so beat me to the “thank goodness he’s at your house” comment. Darn it.
Ugh, men.
I’m so grateful that when we decided to homeschool, my husband meant it when he said he wanted to be a part of it. So, when he saw the dead squirrel on the side of the road, I’m so grateful that he brought it home to dissect, skin and cure! Yeah, science!
… and it’s wonderful that he compiles the laundry to be brought downstairs, and especially that he thoughtfully combined loads in the middle of the pile so you now have pink spotted clothes that are all two sizes too small because they went into a super-hot dryer as well (did I mention he switched loads, too?)
Oh, he and my DH are sad, sad cousins.
oh ho ho!!
A good one.
*rubs hands together*
I can’t WAIT for the 50’s style anons to come out of the wordwork on THIS one!
ps. Bleach as a straight cleaning supply made me laugh right out loud.
I, uh, meant STRAIGHT BLEACH as a cleaning supply.
Bleach as a STRAIGHT cleaning supply sounds a little…odd.
I should probably re-read BEFORE I hit publish.
I feel like I’m always walking a tightrope when it comes to criticizing “help” because I have to decide whether half done is better than not done at all. . .
It is sad how many of us can relate.
You sure you aren’t talking about MY husband?
The New Girl- Oh, shoot! Sorry, I deleted them! I thought we all might be tired of those crazy comments, but now I think maybe I should have left them in there for comic effect? Well, next time!
Too funny, Swistle. I love it!
Did you REALLY delete them? Someone(s) had the NERVE?? Really?
Erica- Yes, truly, I deleted them. I do regret it now: the comments were so INFORMATIVE, we ALL could have learned. For example:
1) Paul is MY HUSBAND.
2) Marriage is not supposed to be PERFECT.
3) He is not supposed to be THE SAME PERSON AS ME. (Does he have to be different in the “not removing food during dishwashing process” way, though?)
4) I am using sarcasm because I can’t admit to BEING WRONG. (Thing I am wrong about: unspecified.)
haha gotta love the lemonade-making going on Chez Swistle this morning!
My husband is actually a good cleaner (and I take advantage of that a *lot*) but laundry is decidedly not his forte. I have finally convinced him that towels to not get dryer sheets. However, I figure that for every ‘hand wash only’ of mine that he ruins, I get to go buy a new one. If he doesn’t like what it does to the bank account then maybe he’ll take the time to read the labels, right?
Wait, I have a question. Was Paul ALWAYS like this? Or was he good and useful and proactive about these things BEFORE you were married and then somehow LOST those skills after you were married? Being engaged, the answer to this question is VERY IMPORTANT to me.
Yes, yes, yes, and yes. Glad I’m not alone. And you do it with 5 kids there too! Ahh! And reading the comments here have been great. What Nellyru said…uh huh, Mimi…here too, Erin…amen, sister! I could go on and on. Too funny.
Jess- I went into it with EYES WIDE OPEN. We lived together for a couple of years first, and I nearly broke it off a couple of times because of the housework issue. Finally I decided that fighting over housework was worth getting the guy himself (still is).
HAHAHA (*wipes away tears*)
how is it that men never figure out how to clean? It isn’t rocket science. I’ve come to accept that my husband can’t/won’t be as thorough as me but I don’t understand the total lack of common sense . . .
I can relate to so many of these and have been feeling very bitter this morning about the lack of help. Thanks for the laugh, I needed it!
definitely leave the super INFORMATIVE comments next time – we all need to be REMINDED of how very LUCKY we are to have such devoted partners who just want to HELP.
(my favorite part of the conversation involving things like washing all colors of baby clothes together because “they’re all baby clothes” after all is when my partner says, “well, i just won’t do anything then!” and the part when the pouting starts. i love it.)
Due to these sorts of problems, Jim and I basically have an arrangement wherein, other than picking up his socks off the floor and loading his own dirty dishes in the dishwasher, he is NOT TO TOUCH ANYTHING without specific instructions as to the procedure.
Other than vacuuming, I should ammend. He does do a bang-up job of that.
Well, that’s certainly ONE way to look at it. ;)
Thanks for the laugh! I suspect I’m guilty of some annoying housework quirks, too, though.
So, what are you saying? I should THANK him for dusting the ceiling fan in the kitchen so diligently while the dust floated down to the muffin batter I had just prepared? Well, now I just feel so ungrateful.
We should all be so blessed ;)
Oh, and my husband the lurker said he couldn’t understand why I found this post so amusing. He said you didn’t sound sincere at all. I told him I’d let you know to work on that. :)
Yes, my favorite was when my husband specifically picked through the delicates to find things of his to wash and left my stuff behind. When confronted with the complete and total assitude of that move he tried to tell me it was because he “can’t remember which of my things go in the bags.” (those washing bags for hose and bras and stuff). At which point I called total bullshit on that informing him that he can remember everything from high school biology, but he expects me to believe he can’t remember to put bras and nylons in a bag? Forget it. Since that blow out he hasn’t done that again, but I still do most of the laundry (mainly because I like my whites white, not grey or pink). UGH.
Wow – you have made me realize just how “lucky” I am too!
Oh darlin’, you are lucky.
Almost as lucky as I am…
Oh – but really, composting is great. He just needs to find a better place to keep it.
:)
then again, I’m the rot master of OUR house. :)
OMG! That’s hilarious! Now I need to compile a list of “thoughtful” and “considerate” things my hubby does for me too! hahahaah
i log in now and then to read your adventures in husbandry making and just blogging life.
fortunately, my husband is really good at most things, laundry, dishwashing, ironing, cooking, socializing, bbqs, dealing with kids. you name it. unfortunately, i do much of that and i not so good, really.
but i do put my best effort into housework etc.
Mimi – i cracked at your post because it is so darn true! he just always huffs and puffs if he has to be told to help me unpack stuff. he always takes care of his stuff and i get the worst jobs – dealing with my crap. not his fault, but seriously, why does he have to just move boxes, while my job is to de-clutter, sort and throw away! lot more tedious than moving 20 heavy boxes don’t ya think :)
I’m back reading your older posts and I swear if I had a few more children we’d be the same person. Esp the dieting. God. One night I made dinner, he came home late, looked at it and told me “I’m trying to eat healthier.” I didn’t speak to him for 24 hours. I wanted to stick his head in the oven.