The other night while I was making dinner like a good little wife, I discovered a small river of water flowing from under the cabinets under the sink. I popped the doors open and beheld a leaky pipe! While I finished making supper with out a sink (that's not fun by the way)- Jason proceeded to remove old pipes and make a mess on the floor. He made a trip to Lowe's to get new pipes and I was elated that this all could be over in about an hour. Ha! We discovered that when the house was built- the morons who put in the plumbing did not have the proper lengths of pipe. So the sawed off a couple of pieces and jammed them together to make what they needed. Well, it worked for over 30 years, but now we can't find that length pipe without replacing the whole outfit. My faucet hasn't worked right for years, so I decided while we had the cabinet cleaned out, I would replace the fixtures. And you know what? While I'm at it, I'll go ahead and put the icemaker in too! I was feeling industrious that day. He patted me on the head and said, "have fun!". For all you unmarried women out there, that means- "you do it". So I did. I bought the fixture, yanked out the old one. Put the new one in. Found a kit of copper tubing and installed the ice maker I have had in my garage for years. All in one day! All by myself! Oh, don't get me wrong. There were moments when I wanted to set the whole thing on fire and walk away. But I persevered. Every woman should go through what I did that day. It makes you appreciate your husbands a lot more and you understand why plumbers charge so much. I also learned that W-D40 is your best friend. I have bloody knuckles, dirty hands, rust in my hair and a goofy smile on my face. I am proud of the job I did. And everytime I hear that little icemaker flip newly made ice into the bucket- I grin from ear to ear. My new faucet fixture on my sink (WITH SPRAYER!) is shiny and working fine! As for the pipes..........I patted him on the head and said "have fun!".

Things are better since my last blog. Well, except for a few minutes last night. I decided to try cous cous with supper. He already decided in his head not to like it. I could tell he was being closeminded and difficult. So he questions me- "who got you to try cous cous?" Like it had to be a person. I couldn't have just spotted it at the store and decided to try somthing new. It had to be another person. Actually, about a year ago, I saw Sandra Lee on the Food Network make it, and thought I should try it sometime. He was thinking it was a guy that told me about it. Yeah Honey, I sit around all day exchanging recipes with other GUYS!! Puhlease!

Anyway, he does have his redeeming qualities on occasion. He got the modem for me to play X-Box online during the day. And let me tell you- it is AWESOME. When I get frustrated or bored, I plug in the controller, put on the headset and play HALO until my heart's content. I still suck at it right now- compared to other people on there. But I have discovered that I am an excellent sniper. I think maybe I missed my calling. The special ops could use a frustrated housewife on a cliff somewhere. I don't like to wear camo, but for an opportunity to handle a high powered rifle in combat, Becky might make an exeption. My name in Halo Online is blackwidow1313. See you there? Watch your back.

He went all psychotic again because I used my hotmail instead of the new email we just got. He insisted on changing over to highspeed, then didn't bother to make sure everything worked. We couldn't even log into our new email account. So I reopened my hotmail to keep in contact with my online friends. You would've thought he found me in bed with somebody. I got questioned like perps on the Shield. He glared at me with that same annoying look he always gets. I wanted to slap the taste out of his mouth. It would be different if I was doing something wrong, but I just email people that I meet through my blog. And it's not even that often. But when someone does send me a comment, I get questioned again and again. I am a stay at home mom with no contacts or friends during the week. I get lonely, stir crazy and bored. I need to talk once in a while and he has made it perfectly clear that he is not available to his wife during the day for that kind of thing. He's at work, I understand that. But if he has time to spend on warchant.com everyday, he can email me something sweet. But he doesn't WANT to. He only does what HE wants to do. So he wants me sitting here all day, bored and lonely, pining for him. Then when he comes home, I get ignored again. He's had a hard day, or he's tired, or he's too hot to hug me, or he's busy with homework. It's always something. I refuse to be controlled like this. I will have a life, I will have friends and if he doesn't like it- too bad! I told him that I am going to a christian music concert this weekend with my best friend Rachel. He's already told me that he would watch the kids so I can go. Yesterday I paid for my ticket and he started on me again with stupid questions. Grow up you moron! If I wanted to cheat, I would have plenty of takers and he would never know a thing. But I don't want to cheat. He deserves it, but I won't do it because I could never live with myself. And it's wrong. But he has got to stop with this whole being a control freak thing. It's smothering and demeaning. I am 31 years old and he treats me like I'm his 10 year old daughter. I love how I get questioned about EVERYTHING, but he can't lower himself long enough to check his son's homework or make sure he is behaving in school. I try so hard to have a good attitude about this, but he is driving me nuts. This is what happens when you marry someone that is an insecure mama's boy. I wish I had seen the signs long ago. Now I have to live with an interrogating, unromantic, emotionally unavailable, insecure, email nazi.

All these years I have tried to get him to open up about his relationships with his family and dad. He never would let down the walls and be real with me. I knew he had issues because of the way he acts. But he swears he is normal and nothing is wrong. I quit trying to get him to open to me. I felt rejected, unloved and unimportant. So, guess what happens at hunting camp about month ago? He opens up and bares his soul to his BROTHER! Yeah! He unloads emotional baggage he has carried for years. He cries, he lets down his walls, totally bares everything. I have felt so betrayed by that, I can't even tell you how hurt I am.

I have a lot of thinking to do.

Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
of the wild red leaves
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.
-Carl Sandburg

This was a great week at my church. We opened and dedicated our new sanctuary. It is beautiful and a lot bigger than I expected. Our church has grown so much that we needed more space. I am so excited to be in our new building! And if that wasn't exciting enough, we had Selah come in and be our music guests for the day. They are a singing group and they mainly do the old hymns, which are my favorite. They were missionary kids in the Congo with their parents years ago. Now they are grown and make albums together. I think I have memorized every song they have done, including the songs done in an African langauge called Kituba. They are awesome. If you ever get a chance to see them or get a CD, it will bless you. They sang my favorite hymn of all time, "It Is Well With My Soul". It was played at my Granny's funeral several weeks ago, and her memory and my struggles in life, and so many things surfaced. I closed my eyes and listened to the voices harmonize and lift up a song borne of adversity and sung to encourage. Tears fell unbidden. The whole night was just their music surrounding me. I felt I was the only one there.

After the concert a bunch of us (friends and family) gathered at a local eatery to laugh and talk and eat supper. The fellowship was sweet. The spirit was like balm to the soul after the week I had.

The garden is coming a long well. It rained here so good Saturday night. The sound was comforting. The smell was clean and earthy. When the clouds cleared on Sunday morning, the sun seemed unusually bright and there were cool breezes all day. When we came home Sunday night the sky was so clear and sparkled with a million stars. I checked on my poor little seedlings. I could tell they had been trampled with heavy raindrops, but they're standing proud again today.

Even though I woke this morning with a kink in my back, I couldn't be completely aggravated with it because yesterday was so good. It's nice to belong to something so full of life and promise.