Yesterday I made some wonderful discoveries and had some hard knocks. It was an odd day all around. Let me ‘splain.

It sort of began with Sunday. Sunday was LightHusband’s birthday. We tried to make it a special day for him, but circumstances piled up against us. There was, of course, the brutal hockey game. Afterwards we stuck around for a scheduled Capitals practice … but they didn’t show.

We drove home exhausted and made plans to go to a new Indian restaurant in town for lunch, but by the time we got home everyone just needed a nap. So we changed that to dinner. By then my newly delicate stomach was in revolt at something I’d eaten earlier in the weekend … who knows? Stupid pancreas. So, Plan B. Pick up kabobs at our favorite stand … which is in a gas station near our house. LightHusband and LightBoy went out to hunt and gather our kabobs. No such luck. The stand has closed. Out here in Backsasswards County, authentic Pakastani kabobs didn’t do so well I guess. Pheh. So … Chipotle.

LightHusband loves to gather the family around and watch a movie together. He loves to make popcorn while watching the movie. So we did. We decided to watch “Return of the King.” At first it took a while to find the disc. By “a while” I mean at least half an hour … maybe longer. We had given up. Movies (among other things) are not organized the way I would like them to be. I’ve given up. The rest of my family does not seem to mind these long searches when we want to watch a movie. It bugs me. So we watched the movie. Correction … we watched approximately two-thirds of the movie. The disc (because it is not properly cared for or kept in a proper case) is badly damaged and has been rendered unwatchable. So … that too was a bust.

In the midst of all that frustration, LightHusband was also working. Fielding e-mails and phone calls from his employees who were busily preparing the building that was being grandiously opened yesterday. Yesterday was one of the biggest days of his life with this company. He left the house (he works primarily from home as a contract manager) early in the morning and returned approximately 13 hours later. As he left, he said, “When I get home tonight we’ll finish swapping the livingroom and family room furniture.” Of which only one piece had yet traded places. Finish was sort of a misnomer … we really had yet to begin.

So I called two friends. BlazingEwe and another friend we have taken up with lately. I’ll call her TallDeerWoman. I told them the story of LightHusband’s birthday and how I wanted him to come home to a calm house with dinner cooking, etc. They cheered. They both love LightHusband too. So we spent a couple of hours moving and rearranging the furniture. We also vacuumed both rooms thoroughly … so thoroughly that TallDeerWoman even went after the cobwebs high on my family room wall. She turned and said ferociously, “Spiders piss me off!” I even learned that you can vacuum lampshades. The lampshades on my lamps were embarassingly clogged with ubiquitous red clay dust … but I found out that they can be vacuumed and look as good as new! Those are good friends … friends who teach you to vacuum your lampshades without laughing at you when you are more than 40 years old. But, you don’t know what you don’t know.

LightHusband was pleasingly astonished when he walked in. No … he was thrilled. He was so happy that all he had to do last night was change his clothes, sit down in a favorite chair with a glass of wine and eat his dinner. A favorite dinner too – white chili (actually … every dinner is a favorite dinner, he’s easy 😉 ).

It made me think about our relationship and how different it is.  We take care of each other, but we don’t let gender roles get in our way.  By that I mean we just do for each other what needs to be done and care for each other’s hearts.  If what he needs is for me to move the furniture, then I do.  If I need him to cook dinner for several months, he does and with a cheerful heart.  It’s a gift from one to the other.  My hope is that our children are learning from this.  I hope they are learning that it is more important to give of oneself to one’s spouse than to live within the confines of a gender role.

It was good to know and be aware of these things as I did some reading in the blogworld.  I took some hits.  I won’t say where.  I will just say that I becoming more and more aware of a persistent desire for hubris in the world of the church.  I don’t have these issues among my non-church friends.  I only have them amongst so-called “Christians.”  This problem where people read what I wrote and decide for me what I wrote, despite it being something completely different from anything I ever intended and then they go so far as to impute motive too.  I am rapidly losing any sort of desire to have anything more to do with Christians.  There seems to be some sort of innoculation that occurs in youth that allows them to put people into boxes.  Or something.  I’m not certain what it is.  I’m also not certain I care to find out anymore.  I am certain of this … I tired of feeling like Frodo at the Battle of Weathertop.  If you’re interested in what I have to say, then actually listen to me, but do not impute to me the ghosts of your past … and leave your sword at home.