Coupled Experiences

I got off work real angry today because the kids were off the wall. It was one of those days they were beyond hard-headed and they kept feeding into each other. It was an ugly cycle that lasted my entire shift.

I’ve been trying to keep the stress off but today I was full of stress simply because of all the nonsense that happened today.

I talked to my wife about it and I thank God for her because she enlightened me of my problem. I’ve been taking responsibility for the actions of my kids. It stems from the point of the job in general. I’m supposed to keep order and monitor their behavior but what when I don’t, the fault becomes mine (in my own mind) and if I can’t regain control, it’s very, very frustrating and stressful.

Understanding this sheds some light on the way I teach and giving the kids more breathing room to make mistakes (because they will) instead of hovering over their every action making sure things are in order. They are teenagers after all so breathing room is necessary even though they have maturity of seven-year olds.

For date night, Gwen and I ate at Croce’s Restaurant in downtown. It was nice. The music was good and the food was pretty decent.

Before our food was served, however, I saw a baby roach crawling across the bar table. It was next to a lady and strangely in the light. I grabbed a few napkins and smashed it and threw it away without trying to freak the lady out. She asked me what it was and I told her “A bug,” without sounding like it was totally disgusting.

But today, at 4:15 in the morning, I felt sick. I had a minor case of food poisoning that I’m still recovering from as I write this.

Coincidence?

Croce’s, I now deem you: Croache’s.

Gwen and I had our third budget talk tonight and it I must say it went much better than any lockout budget talks. It was sweat free and we both went to bed still loving each other. Our past money talks have been pretty frustrating but tonight, I think we hit our stride. Asking God to help us definitely helped and a little background music made the hour and a half conversation much more enjoyable.

Budget talks are always an experience. This one was a talk to remember.

I received a random text from wife to come to her job. That’s all the detail that was given. I didn’t know what to think. It was like I was getting called into work except it was her job and I had no idea what kind of work I would be doing! That felt just plain awkward.

After probing a little more I found out they wanted to meet me and everything was okay.

It’s so funny going through these type of experiences because this would have never happened in my single days. But here I am, visiting my wife’s job and meeting her co-workers. It’s pretty cool actually. I guess because it’s a new experience and Gwen was so excited about it, it made me excited about it. But Gwen was certainly happy that I met her co-workers. I like them too. They seem like great people.