Marriage itself is a daily adventure,
but you throw a home renovation in the mix, and you will find out quickly just
how compatible you really are. I’m not
going to say that my husband is lucky to have me, but I really am pretty
awesome, if you can look past the raging ADD and occasional (read frequent)
selfishness. The selfishness really isn’t my fault, though. I was an only child, and I did get my way A
LOT. Thanks for that, Mom and Dad. Nonetheless, despite my self-proclaimed “awesome
wife” status, it turns out that I am not, in fact, an awesome construction helper, and through this
experience, I have discovered that my husband, despite his inability to put a
garbage bag back in an empty can, really is a saint.
This man singlehandedly put new flooring
in our entire house. Note: He actually has two fully-functioning hands,
so I have no idea why anyone uses that expression, but I digress. He would work all day at his regular job,
then come straight home to work for hours on our new flooring, and while I am
proud that I am not married to one of those men who drags his feet while doing projects,
I have to admit he was wearing me out. Mama needs her sleep. The sad part was that I wasn’t even working
during the day, so I really had no excuse for any of my complaining, but I’ve
never let that stop me before, so why start now?
Yes, I tried to be as helpful as possible, but
anyone who knows me knows that my attention span is virtually non-existent, and
we were working at a time of day when my ADD meds had long since worn off. And it was not my proudest moment, but there was
at least one occasion when I gave him the wrong measurement and then blamed it
on his penmanship, knowing good and well I’ve been teaching high school for
fifteen years and can read anything short of hieroglyphs or Mandarin
Chinese. You see, another problem with
only children is that we hate to be wrong.
There was one thing I was not wrong
about, though, and that was marrying David Ruschmeier. I have yet to find too many things that the
man can’t do. Not many men would stay up
until 3:00 in the morning to put a bedroom back together if they had to work
at 7:00 the next day. I don’t tell him as often as I should how much he
impresses me (mainly because I always want him to think he married up, so I can wear the pants), but every time he pulls off something like this, I
am in awe—in awe not only of his ability to do things that a lot of people
would never even try, but also in awe of his patience with his
well-intentioned, but spastic wife, who tends to be more of a hindrance than a
helpmate. I love you, babe. Thanks for simultaneously putting down
flooring while putting up with me. I
know it was no easy task.
