Today was definitely not our best day. We had service people in our house from 8:30am until 9:30pm with little breaks in between--the plumber came three times, the builder actually came once, the appliance service guys came, a water softener salesman wasted over an hour of our time, the electricians were here, and then the water extraction guy was here for over three hours. And, at the end of the day nothing is fixed that was not fixed yesterday, and the report is that the damage to our house is worse than initially expected, and we have several more days of fans ahead of us. In addition to fans, they took off our baseboards (which are ruined) and drilled holes in our walls to suck the moisture out. They also took out all of our living room furniture which has been replaced with fancy floor mats and special tubing. The plumber also decided that he is no longer interested in covering the costs of this adventure.
Barney is very flustered at this point. His unwavering faith that things will soon work out on our house is starting to flag. Instead, we are looking at a looming due date and a house that is far from being suitable for a newborn. It is hard not to take our frustration over this situation out on each other, but we are both working hard at it. Today we both felt so mired down that it was hard to do anything--even work. But, we rallied some tonight, put together some potential plans of action, and prepared for another round of this tomorrow. I sort of stepped up today and made some broad statements about the direction I would like us to start taking in terms of our plan of action for the house, which I have avoided really doing thus far. Tomorrow my goal is to step back again and let Barney take the reigns back on the various house issues. I made my viewpoints known, but ultimately, I am going to stand beside his decisions, even if I do offer both advice and suggestions on what I think those should be. I am reading George W. Bush's memoir of his presidency right now, and I am constantly struck by how much he talks about relying on Laura as support, as an advisor, and as his sanctuary. It seems to be an extremely healthy marriage, and she is becoming something of a role model to me in terms of how to be a wife. She is her own person, but she takes her place beside her husband with amazing grace. She has her own viewpoints on issues that sometimes differ from her husband, but she manages to support him without compromising her own viewpoints. She seems to know when to intervene, when to stand down, and when to be there to support her husband. All of those things are exactly the balance I hope to strike.
No comments:
Post a Comment