Happy Homes.

"All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."  Leo Tolstoy

I'm not sure if I believe that.  I like Tolstoy.  I like that book (Anna Karenina).  But I'm not sure that I agree with him.  You may disagree with me...But I don't know.

This week I've have been doing my best to have a happy family and a happy home.  I usually have a happy home, don't get me wrong, but sometimes it's hard, and I have to work at it.  One of the things I did was order a bunch of essential oils and make Jesse some beard oil!  Beard=Happy Jesse;  Soft, oiled, not-scratchy beard=Happy Rianna.  And so do hippyish oils and such.  It took a little fiddling to come up with something he was ok with smelling like...Hemp oil has an odd smell, did you know?  And roseamary oil smells like Vicks.  I didn't know that either.  So I ended up with a little bit of cinnamon and a bunch of cedarwood oil to cover it all up.  I may have to try something different next time.  Maybe something that looks less green....

Then this weekend, as I mentioned in my last post, we went out to Jesse's boss' house to house sit.  It was probably very good for us.  You can't really tell, but that is the bathroom in their guesthouse, and behind me is the big Jacuzzi tub.  It might be my favorite thing about their whole house and guest house and entire property.

So we went for three days, and we slept in and ate boxaroni and shot Jesse's new pistol and relaxed and it was great.  But then we came home to a messy house, and instead of cleaning it Sunday night, I made a bigger mess making chocolate and baking things, and instead of cleaning it Monday night after dance, we sat and watched X-Men Days of Future Past.  Well then this morning I got up, made oatmeal for breakfast (which neither of us like, so we didn't really eat), got Jesse up (he's been feeling sick, so he's having slow starts lately), ate breakfast, packed Jesse's lunch, got dressed, went running, did some yoga, took a shower, and got dressed for work.  Then I did a few dishes, chopped up potatoes for dinner and threw them in the rice cooker for Jesse to turn on when he got home, gathered up the laundry (also for Jesse to start when he got home), wrote "laundry" and "clean the freaking house!!" on my ToDo list, put away a few jackets and sweatshirts that were scattered around the living room, packed my lunch, gathered up everything that I needed to bring with me to dance class this evening, and ran out the door.

Then work was work...we had a teacher call in sick, so she didn't have anything ready for her poor sub who came in.  I'm sure the guy is a great high school and jr high teacher, but I think he was ready to pull all his hair out after a day in first grade.

Then I went to dance, and it was good...I'm trying to really get work done, this week, because I've been getting lazy and all of a sudden I realized that we only have 6 more practices till competition and we haven't even finished our lyrical dance....ahhhhh!!  Anyway.  I think the girls knew I was stressing and it made them stress.  Either that or I was just not as much fun as normal and that made them grumpy.  I dunno.  

Then I got home and Jesse had turned on the potatoes, but forgot to start laundry.  No big deal...I started laundry and started gravy, and started making cinnamon raisin oatmeal bread so I could use up the oatmeal that we didn't eat at breakfast, and tried to do dishes, and started stressing over the fact that my kitchen had not been mopped in at least three weeks, and started freaking out, and asked Jesse to come help with the dishes, and then when he did he said something (jokingly) about how he was having to do my chores and I should have done the dishes instead of going running this morning and I got upset and threatened to throw a spoon covered in hot gravy at him and then started crying.

I didn't really feel today like my home was very happy...it was stressful and messy and we're trying to move, so we have boxes everywhere, and I was being mean and resentful, and it just didn't look very happy.

"we have salt; you don't need to cry in the gravy."

Anyway, my point is, I have a happy family.  I am struggling with figuring out how to have a happy home and a happy husband and a happy me, and make it all happen with work and dance and everything else....but I have a happy family.  I also grew up in a happy family, and I don't feel like my family here with Jesse looks very much like the family I grew up in.  Sometimes that confuses me, and I believe that my kitchen must look like my mother's, and my husband must act like my father, and that my marriage must look like my parents' in order for us to be a happy family.  But I don't believe that a family is only either happy or unhappy.  I believe that we all have our mixtures of everything, and no two families are alike, either in their happy or their unhappy moments.

So I will end on a happy moment!  The bread I just made....is fantastic.  And the whole apartment smells like cinnamon.  And the kitchen is clean and the laundry is done, and I even found time to pack some of my clothes and write a blog post.  I am thankful for my home and my family.  Always.

The End.  =]