Salute to Spouses Blog

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Welcome Home! Now, Get to Work!

I spent last evening staring at the bookshelf downstairs. 

It’s very heavy and dark and wooden, and, well, it’s putting a real damper on my new light, airy and clean living room.

Or the new light, airy, and clean living room I’m envisioning in my mind’s eye, anyway.

Still, I want to move that bookshelf.

More precisely, I want to move it upstairs. Into the office. Which I am currently turning into a classroom/office/learning area.

Well, I’m actually converting that in my mind, too, but you get the picture.

Now, I am strong, but sadly not strong enough to heft this bookshelf upstairs by myself.

And it’s really ticking me off.

So, I’ve added it to the list.

Along with “Organize the garage” and “Pressure wash the porch” and “Build bunkbeds for the girls.”

It’s the military spouses’ version of the Honey-Do list.

It’s the “Welcome Home From Deployment; Now Let’s Get Cracking!” list.

My husband is likely going to be less than thrilled to come home and find two adorable little girls clinging to his boots while I hug him, kiss him, and point at the family chalkboard with a list that, though it’s bedazzled with stars and hearts and “We missed you!”, is also a mile long, involving quite a bit of manual labor.

While I don’t conform to gender roles necessarily – if I can lift it, I will; if I can fix it, I will try – my husband is a good 9 inches taller than me, quite a bit stronger, and significantly bigger. He can easily hold the other end of the bookshelf as I maneuver it upstairs.

It’s been quite awhile since anyone helped me lift so much as a laundry basket up those stairs, though. And I’m clearly itching to start some home improvements that don’t get done unless he is home.

So as this deployment nears its end, the list grows. And grows and grows.

I’ve started to romanticize cleaning out the brush in the back of our yard together.  I’m starting to fantasize about how much fun it will be to convert part of the garage into a laundry-folding station. I’m starting to envision a good family afternoon spent re-organizing the girls’ room into a princess play space.

Clearly, he’s been gone too long.

In fact, he’s been gone so long that I may need a new chalkboard; the list has outgrown its home.

I e-mailed him, jokingly, that every day he’s gone, I find another thing to add to the list.

Though I likely need to stop. Because at this rate, he may never come home.

And I still can’t move this bookshelf by myself.

 

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