Aspirations Schmaspirations ...

Okay, so here's a little confession.  I totally want to be one of those wives that comes home every night, has some sort of meal picked out to cook and has it ready for her man, dressed head to toe in couture casual lounge-wear, wafting the intoxicating aroma of my fantastic dish through the door and smiling as he walks in.  All the while having a look on my face like "What that's you say dear?  Of course I worked all day today?  No, cleaning the WHOLE house and cooking this fantastic dinner after walking the dog and running 10 miles was no trouble at ALL!  How about I turn on Sports Center for you?  Would you like your slippers?"

You know, something like this ...

With this kind of an attitude ...

But there are several problems with this scenario.  #1, my mister works random, unpredictable hours.  I have taken slack from some of my fellow wifey friends that cook their men meals every night, giving me a hard time with the fact that we eat dinner from a bag 6 out 7 nights a week, but it's really our only option.  The pictured scenes don't make sense even trying to achieve if, by the time your mister gets home, the dinner is luke-warm, borderline cold, the house is starting to show signs of dust (and/or floating dog hair from your ever-shedding Lab) and the doating, head-to-toe couture lounge-wear wearing wife is passed out asleep on the couch in sweats and fluffy socks with her hair in a pony tail, makeup-less and drooling.  And #2, (big time confession here) I'm kinda ... um ... messy.  And by messy I don't mean like those people on Hoarders (that show evokes my gag reflux) I mean messy compared to my mister's type of clean.  It's a type-A kind-of-a clean.  If it were up to him (meaning if he had time and didn't have to work his little tush off) he'd probably wipe down the countertops, vacuum and dust the house every other day, if not every day.  I, on the other hand am okay with a once a week, maybe every couple of weeks kind of arrangement.  I wish I was one of those psychotic dedicated Monica from Friends-like clean freaks that couldn't handle things going a day or two without dusting, scrubbing and polishing, but it's just. not. in. me.  Oh how I wish it was.  In fact sometimes I feel more like this ... 

   

Which really though, this picture isn't too far from the truth.  Being in the spirit of Valentine's Day, let me tell you all a little story (this is shaping up to be a long one, I should've warned you all to pack a lunch).  Let's go back in time to the first year my mister and I were married.  Our first married Valentines.  Let me preface this with saying that Valentine's, our anniversary (and I'm pretty sure I've told you all this before) and both of our birthdays are RIGHT smack dab in the middle of Matt's busy season.  Think late LATE nights, more traveling than any person should have to do at one time, and sheer, utter exhaustion.  That's my mister's life for these few months.  SO, I decide that I'm going to be the wife pictured 3 pictures up and cook (and I use this word loosely because I went to this lovely establishment we have here in Dallas called Eatzi's, basically you buy the food pre-prepared ... is that a word? ... and it has instructions on how long to cook it and voila, you're done, this place was made for wives like me) a Valentine's dinner at home and have it waiting for my love when he arrives.  I get the candles lit, the wine poured, the salad and main course on their way and I'm starting to feel pretty good about my domestic expertise.  THEN I decide to "brown" the bread.  This doesn't sound so scary does it?  No you say?  Keep reading.  So I turn the oven on broil about 5 minutes before the mister gets home.  I'm sipping my wine, checking my hair to make sure it looks as cute as it did 2 seconds ago when I checked it, and adjusting the table setting 2 inches to the right from the 2 inches to the left that I moved it 10 seconds previously. 

I decide it's time to put the bread to "brown" in the oven since my mister's almost home.  I don't need to set a timer because bread doesn't take that long to brown right?  Sure it doesn't ... when you remember it.  5 or so minutes pass and I hear my mister pull in our garage to our, then, apartment.  I get overjoyed with the excitement of none less than a 2 year old after some birthday cake, a sucker and a handfull of candy that his mom didn't see him sneak and bowl over greet my mister as he walks in the door.  "Baby, Happy Valentine's Day!  I made you dinner, here's your wine oh and LOOK I'm browning the kind of bread you like!"  I then go to open the door to the oven and flames, yes FLAMES, SHOOT out of it with the force of lava erupting from a volcano!  I squeal, jump back and proceed to flail my oven mits around while jumping in a circle screaming that the bread is, in fact, on fire.  By this time smoke is filling up our apartment.  My mister runs in before having any sips of his wine, tackles one of the flailing oven mits from my spazzing hands, opens the oven and proceeds to beat the MESS out of the bread.  At the same time the blaring beeping loveliness that is the smoke dectector starts to go off and I run at it full force with pillows fanning it frantically trying to make it SHUT the H up!  I look over at Matt, still wafting the pillow at the blaring smoke dectector, he looks over at me coughing and choking from the bread fire (now large crouton, mind you) he just successfully put out and we. start. giggling.  Hilariously giggling.  And can't stop.  Once we stopped the "so hard your eyes are watering and sides are hurting" laughter, we sat down to enjoy the rest of our dinner that thankfully was salvagable.  And do you know what my mister did?  He scraped the top, charcoaled, layer off that bread and ate it.  So I wouldn't feel bad.  And that's why I know that no matter our differences in house-tidyness, Type-A/Type-B-ness or anything else, that I've got a good one.  That when the time comes will eat a large charcoaled crouton.  No matter how terrible it looks (and tastes and smells).  Which makes me happy to know that I don't have to always be the first and second picture and that sometimes the third picture makes you laugh so hard that it's worth it.