Praises for Marriage #4-6

Two months and going strong :) I discover great things about marriage every day. For instance:

4. When preparing for tomorrow's workday, someone will make your lunch for you if you're too tired to do it.
5. A Saturday night at home is not a lonely event.
6. The love notes keep coming!

There are certainly MANY more praises for marriage than these three. An infinite amount, to be exact. Like many others in this blog, this post is one of many to come in a series. Don't want to give all the secrets of marriage away at once!

A Day Without Driving

Last Saturday, I was excited to spend a relaxing day at home.  I took my enthusiasm to an extreme and challenged Shelby and myself to avoid driving all day.  I originally intended to stay at home - shut in - and the imposed "no driving" rule would keep me there.  But when my new BlackBerry wasn't working properly, we had to go to the cell phone store.  Shelby held me to my rule, and said we could not drive to AT&T.  Instead, he found that the store was only 4.5 miles from our house and suggested we 1) bike there or 2) go without the email feature on the BlackBerry until Sunday.  First I asked to look at a topo map to see what hills I was in for (only one big one), then decided to go with option #1.  I'm in pretty good shape, right?  No problem.

Well there were some problems.  About 20 minutes before we left, I had just eaten a hot dog and had had nothing to drink since probably dinner the night before.  We took this trip about midday, temperature around 90-95 degrees.  I kept telling myself the bike created a nice breeze, when really I was terribly thirsty and hot.  I knew there was that big hill along our route, and I could feel myself growing weaker with every small hill I conquered.  Finally we arrived at the Big Hill and I was determined to get to the top.  This is when I should have called it quits.  Instead, I wobbled to a stop about half way to the top and told Shelby I had to walk.  I slooowly walked until I had to sit down.  I was close to being sick.  All I could think about was getting something to drink.  My saving grace was a Speedway just beyond the top of the hill.  When I felt a little better, I got back on the bike and got some water (without getting sick!).

Re-energized/hydrated, we made it to the store and got my phone working.  We took a different route home on our bikes, walked the Big and Bigger Hills, and made it home without incident.  Our leisurely day at home turned into a 10 mile bike ride, followed by a therapeutic dip in the pool to soothe my muscles and cool us off.  I liked our day without driving and I'd do it again.  And next time, I'll beat that hill.

Hanging paper

My job responsibilities have increased significantly in the past two months.  Even my boss has said I'm "busier than a one armed paper hanger."  I hadn't heard this expression until I was in college, and still don't hear it all that often.  I wondered about the origins of this expression and who first pictured a person with one arm trying to hang paper.  Why is this person trying to hang paper in the first place?  I personally don't have a lot of paper to hang.  But then again, I also have two arms, so maybe it's a one-armed-person thing to do.  I googled the phrase to find out more, and I stumbled on another expression that I've heard even less than the paper-hanger phrase.

"I'm busier than a one-legged man in an ass kicking contest."

It makes me giggle a bit.  He's got no chance in the contest, yet it's still implied that he's very busy....  But back to the one-armed person - I continued my search for what it all means.  First of all, I realized that this person must be hanging WALLpaper, which rejects my image of a man with one arm hanging 8.5x11 on a coat hanger.  I also found that a lot of people have used the phrase in their blogs and briefly commented in their posts about the silliness of the expression.  This just goes to show how busy people must be.  If I really wanted to argue that I am busier than most, I'd call myself a one-armed, one-legged lady trying to hang paper in the middle of an ass kicking contest.  Whew!