Month: September 2008

I did something a little naughty, a little sneaky yesterday. I revealed something to my husband that I’ve been hiding since May.

Let’s backup and I’ll start at the beginning.

My husband called me at 9:30 yesterday morning. His grandmother has been in the hospital for the past few days because of pneumonia. She was supposed to come home over the weekend, but she’s worse off than they thought and now they are keeping her for another week. Poor woman.

So, he suggested we meet for lunch and then we would make a trip up to the hospital to see her.

When he called, I was still in my gym shorts and without makeup (which, I’m embarrassed to say, is usually the case because I like to get all of my sweaty work – working out, housecleaning – done before I get cleaned up because hello?! Who wants to take two showers in one day? Not me!). I jumped into the shower, got all dolled up and he came to pick me up. We ran to Hallmark, picked out a nice get well card for her and then headed to San Francisco Oven to have an early lunch. (I had the chicken salad on a croissant – why yes, it was as good as it sounds. *grin*).

We had a really nice lunch. Actually, we always have nice lunches. As mentioned, my husband and I are great friends – we always find stuff to talk about.

ANYway, on our way to the hospital, I looked over at him and said, “I have a surprise for you.”

And judging by the look on his face, we weren’t exactly thinking the same things – if you know what I mean. *nudgenudge*

I pull out a check and hand it over to him. He takes one look at it and then chuckles. “You sneak! How long have you been holding out on me?”

“Since May,” I tell him and immediately feel an overwhelming wave of relief wash over me. I don’t like keeping secrets from my husband but sometimes? It’s necessary.

I just finished another school website. But my husband didn’t even know I had been working on another project because I hadn’t told him. And I hadn’t told him because whenever I’m working on something, he tends to nag question me about it a thousand times a day.

And that just puts too much pressure on me. I’m VERY easy going when it comes to business (HINTHINT). I prefer to have the project finished before I accept (full) payment because I want to make sure we’re all happy with the results. Nothing freaks me out more than doing a project for someone, presenting it and they think, “I just paid x-amount of money for this crap??”

Just the thought of that makes me break out in a cold sweat.

I also don’t push people. They will get back to me when they have a chance. I hate to be a bother. (See? Very easy going). And I figure, if people need to make payments on the balance due, then so be it. It’s all about the budget, we all know this.

But the husband. *sigh* He’s an accountant and very task-oriented. And he likes to get things DONE. As in NOW. As in YESTERDAY. So, he doesn’t QUITE understand my laissez faire attitude about my work.

So, I’ve found it’s easier on me if I simply don’t tell him anything until everything has been completed and I have the check in my hands.

I wasn’t sure how he would take the fact that I kept this from him. At first, he was amused. Then he was delighted (it was a nice chunk of change, after all). But then, he got to thinking about it and he became a bit annoyed.

“This makes me wonder how many more things you’re keeping from me.”

Ah, if the man only knew. *wink*

So … I’m learning to keep my mouth shut. Not only in regards to my projects, but in parenting, too. I’m finding GD opens up a lot more to me if I just simply SHUT UP.

For instance …

MK had to stay after school yesterday for pep band practice (he’s LOVING it btw. The music is really kicky and fun). So, it was just me and GD. I asked him the obligatory questions, “How was your day? Did you hand in your graphic design project …”

And I got the obligatory answers, “Fine. *grunt*”. You know how it is with teenagers.

We got home and I went about my business. Out of the blue, and completely unexpectedly, GD walks up to me and tells me about his good marks he received on his weekly Japanese tests (he has two – written and oral – yes, he has to speak Japanese, in front of the class!). He’s quite proud of himself (as are we!); he’s getting a B+ in the class (this is the same boy who failed Spanish).

After I praised him, he went on to tell me about the conversations he was having with an online buddy of his who is Japanese. They were chatting with each other in Japanese. How cool! And how cool is it that he volunteered that information to me??

And then later, as the husband and I are watching “Mad Money” (that show is COMPLETELY over my head but Jim Cramer amuses me because he’s so dramatic), GD shows us the graphic design project he’s been working on.

It looked professional. And I’m not just saying that because he’s my son – it honest to God looked professional.

We were very impressed.

So I think it’s safe to say that this school year is going very well for GD. And I think he’s enjoying himself. I can’t TELL you what a relief that is to me. I mean seriously, GD hasn’t shown this much interest in school since second grade.

Thank you God.

GD and I will have a little more “alone” time today. I have to pick him up from school and take him to a dentist appointment. They are prepping his bottom teeth for a retainer – he has a pretty narrow jaw and if they don’t put a retainer in, it will gradually shrink back and throw his bite off.

I had to give GD a note to give to the attendance office this morning. This meant *gasp* he would have to make a trip to the office and get a pass so he could leave class. I’m curious to hear how that process went.

At 11:15, he’s supposed to walk out of class and meet me. I’ll take him to his appointment and grab something for him to eat while he’s being worked on. We’ll have lunch together afterwards, I’ll coax him into taking some Tylenol (because his mouth will likely be sore) and then take him back to school.

He was a little bummed because I wasn’t going to just allow him to take off the rest of the day, but he’ll get back to school at about 12:45 – leaving a good two hours of school left before he’s dismissed. It’ll be easier for the boy if he’s there as opposed to taking the initiative to find out what he missed later.

Later, we’re all supposed to head back up to the hospital to have pizza with the husband’s family and his sick grandmother. He has family in from out of town and we had originally planned to meet at a pizza parlor but considering poor Nanny is stuck at the hospital, we didn’t feel right leaving her out. So we’ll gather together and eat pizza in a little reception area the hospital said we could use.

I dread it. Not because I don’t want to see his grandmother (I have a soft spot for her – she helped watch GD when I was still working – but that’s another story), but because that hospital STINKS. It smells like sickness and death and the air is so close it’s suffocating. I’ve already told the boys to try not to touch anything and please, don’t put your hands by your face.

I guess you could say I’m a bit of a germ freak. Or just a freak – that works, too. 🙂