Marriage -

Flying by the seat of my pants.

April 28, 2015
By: Melissa

Last week saw the somewhat anticipated beginning of Term 2. After a lovely, lazy two weeks of school holidays E left the house last Monday happy and ready to get stuck in to another school term. Compared to holidays past, the Easter break was chilled and calm. I made no School Holiday Activity Lists as I have done in the past, in fact there were only two days of ‘planned’ excursions over the entire break. Quel horreur!
It was bloody good. And cheap.
The Problem With Last Week began upon Ethan’s return to school. See, I forgot to kick myself out of school holiday mode and spent the rest of the week trying to remove my head from my ass the clouds and get some shit done. Nixie was very busy getting shit done as he picked up another bout of rotavirus the week before, let the good times roll!

So it was the kind of week where permission slips and gold coins were scrambled for 5 minutes after E was supposed to leave for school, dinners were freezer-to-microwave affairs – unplanned and unremarkable, I was out two nights, further complicating matters and leaving me even less time to, well, not do Very Important Stuff. Like be an awesome mum and wife : (

Sigh.

The ‘work’ week ended with Dave and I having a big fight about an outdoor project we were going to be completing over the weekend. Ridiculous, but the culmination of a very stressful week for Dave and a useless, self-absorbed week for me. I’ve been focussing on all the wrong things, neglecting the right things and letting my beautiful family slip by the wayside.

This week will be better. The work week is already a day shorter so I’m winning already. We had such a great long weekend, Dave and I are totally back on the same page and aside from him smashing his face skateboarding in the weekend and chipping a tooth badly (read: $$$), I’m ready to rock this week!

I hope you guys are on track for an amazing week too xx

Enough & More. 10 Years of Marriage

December 22, 2014
By: Melissa

Last night I got really, shitty, stabby, pissed off & annoyed at Dave. He had cooked and served up an awesome dinner, beautiful chicken taco salads, and as we were cleaning up I noticed the avocado.

It wasn’t really an avocado – more so the remnants of one. Half an avocado that had been meticulously sliced and portioned and arranged artfully on our salads and Ethan’s taco’s. Except there was one slice left.

What the hell?

Who serves up half an avocado and leaves one sliver left in the skin? Were you really going to save this Dave? Wrap it in glad-wrap and put it back in the fridge, only to open it again and spread that last sliver on quarter of a cracker?

Oh my god this irritated me beyond any sensible, rational bounds. It wasn’t a once off, this happens all the time in our kitchen. Dave will serve some peas and leave 5 peas in the bowl. F I V E. The reason? He already had enough on his plate. This was also the reasoning behind the orphaned avocado sliver; the perfect amount was already on our plates. We had enough. No more was needed.

I cooled my jets and got over being annoyed, but caught myself thinking about the silly situation this morning as we celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary.

Enough and More is the odd dichotomy that typifies our decade together as husband and wife. A wonderful, amazing 10 years that have blessed us with many things, most importantly our two incredible boys.

Dave is enough. He lives and breathes Enough. He is always happy, always satisfied, always at the perfect level of psychological homeostasis, never wanting, never coveting, always seeking balance and just enough.

I am More. Always pushing, driving, trying harder, needing to win, be the best, have More. Dreaming big, setting lofty goals and ideals for everyone, getting more out of today than yesterday.

Dave had portioned out enough avocado, I would have added more.

I think these individual idiosyncrasies and difference in focus, plus our unwavering commitment to the success of our marriage is what makes us such a great team. I personally am going to take a leaf out of Dave’s book over the next 10 years and start practicing Enough. Because I already have more blessings than I deserve.

I love you so much Dave Jack, thank you for proposing, marrying and moving to the other side of the earth with me. Thank you for the best 10 years I could ever have imagined and putting up with some of my worst days and helping me through them. You are the most kind, generous and loving man any family could wish for and such a perfect example for your two little boys.

Thank you xx.

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