Thanksgiving at your In-Laws

Like most of you Husbands out there, I follow my wife's lead as to where we spend our Holidays. This Thanksgiving we spent at her next oldest sister's house. There were probably 25 or so for the meal. It was nice to catch with my nieces and nephews, as well as Vicki's other siblings.

We played a new game (at least to me) called LRC. ( Left, Right, or Center) We played for quarters and I won. I am spending that money at Starbucks as I write this blog.

In addition, my sister-in-law has a baby grand piano that is mostly in tune. I spent a great deal of the day at the piano composing a melancholy etude and enjoying the sounds of the piano.

I hope your Thanksgiving day was a happy one.

The Daily Husband

Happy Thanksgiving to all those Husbands out there

I woke my wife up this morning to get this picture of a rainbow that greeted me as I walked to the car. (She had stored the digital camera in a place unknown to me) I think she'll forgive me when she sees it.

I am thankful to have her and our relationship this year. I do my level best to not take that for granted. Having her as lover, friend and companion for the last 27 years has been a blessing indeed.



I hope all of you have a wife that tops your thankfulness list.



The Daily Husband

Thanks for the Kudos

My friend Robert at My Wife has Agoraphobia laid a couple of awards on me this week and I want to thank him for the honors.

The Daily Husband has had many changes in direction and content, but still remains a blog about being a husband.

I believe that it is the most important role in a married man's life. Nothing can be more rewarding or fulfilling than being the best mate, friend, and companion to your wife.

That someone else out there get's that is award enough in itself.

Thanks Robert

The Daily Husband

T minus 6 and Counting

OK, it's almost time to leave the "Rents" and move into our little rental in Sun Lakes.

The "Move" or ordeal as I prefer to call it, starts Sunday morning. We must pull some furniture from our storage facility. In order to accomplish this task, all items will need to come out of the storage room and then re-stored if not needed in the place we're renting.

There is so much junk stuffed in this thing that just getting the door open requires an effort. We have hired a couple of guys to help us get it out and on the truck and reorganize what has to stay. Wish us luck. This kind of project is the kind of thing that hurts people, ruins marriages and turns good furniture into trash and bad furniture into firewood.

The upside of all this is that we should be able to sleep in our own bed by Monday night. I am looking forward to the experience. Along with sleeping in our own bed we look forward to having a place to chill out by ourselves. Both of us want to do as much as we can for Vicki's folks, but we are of the opinion we can do it from a distance. (In this case, less than a mile)


In addition, we are scheduled to get high-speed Internet hooked up that Monday and I should be able to get back to a normal routine instead of my daily visits (more like camping out really) to Starbucks.

I should miss "Bucks" society, but I probably will not. I'm more a Folgers/Safeway coffee drinker than a Grande/Latte/Venta Mocha Frappacrappacichino drinker. It's understandable that folks with extra cash should buy would they consider to be premium coffee, but I drink Starbuck's house blend every day and it ain't all that good to me.

Still, I am grateful for the Wi-Fi and some of the friends I've made here. I won't miss the place, but I just might miss talking to some very interesting people that I met in my local "Bucks".

The Daily Husband

IKEA - Swedish for bring your lunch

As most Husbands will do, I started something today I may live to regret.

Vic and I were not wanting to look at our storage unit today, because we know our furniture and belongings are just stuffed in there and will need much blood, sweat and tears to remove. It will also take a couple of guys with young legs and good muscles as well. But I digress..

So on the way to the storage unit I asked her if she would like to go and see the big IKEA store. I had no idea what I was letting myself in for on this occasion.

They give you a map and a menu when you walk in the door. That should have been sufficient warning, but it wasn't. This first clue should be enough let you know you've entered an alternative universe in which shopping for Swedish furniture and household goods requires walking miles, seeing thousands of items and stopping for refreshment and a meal in between. No kidding.

I thought it was pretty cool, till I realized they were doing this as a necessity. Husbands have been lost in this store for hours and sometimes days on end. Without food and water they would perish.

A few hours later we popped out the other end of the gigantic structure with pictures of modern Nordic furniture and decorating items burned into our memories. For a while I thought I was back in the 60s. Had there been a few more folks in bell bottoms the spell would have been complete. Luckily I escaped without a bad LSD flashback occurring.

Be warned my fellow Husbands; IKEA is Swedish for bring a lunch and they ain't kidding.

The Daily Husband

People that the world revolves around

Everyone has had a friend, neighbor, teenager or someone in their life who thinks the world revolves around them. My in-laws have a family of people like that as their neighbors.

This morning I was wakened from a sound sleep by the sound of a horn honking, repeatedly.

It seems the next door neighbors use the horn on their motorcycles and three wheelers to signal people inside their house to close the garage door. Now I know you're saying to yourselves, "Man, they could just use a remote or get off their bikes and close it." But these folks are not that swift.

Instead,the rider will signal with the horn. Too bad if you're trying to sleep right next door and your open bedroom window is assaulted by the horn.

When they woke me this morning I bounded out of bed in my shorts, went to the street and confronted a rider on a Harley three wheeler. The rider was dressed all in black leather and even had on a black wind scarf. I was without my glasses and couldn't tell the gender of the rider at first.

I pointed to my bedroom window and asked that they please not honk their horns and wake me up. From beneath the wind scarf came a little squeaky "Sorry". I guess it was one of the biker chicks on the three wheeler this morning.

More than likely the image of me in my pajama shorts with hair looking like antenna will stay with her long enough to remind her to find another way to get the door closed. It was not a pretty picture and I was somewhat perturbed as well. My guess is that she picked up on that too.

We move in to our own place the 1st of December, so the problem will solve itself eventually, but I react very unfavorably to being awakened in so thoughtless and uncaring a manner.

Some people really think the world revolves around them and their every need and action.

It ain't so.

The Daily Husband

Moving on Up

We met with a couple that has a small house for rent is Sun Lakes. It's just a few minutes from Vicki's parents, will give us access to all amenities here and we can be in it by the end of the month.

Vic seemed anxious to make something happen and I was content once we assured ourselves our King size bed would fit in the master bedroom. Daddy needs his space to play and rest.

Made a deal about rent, some furniture they will remove and will give them a deposit tomorrow in anticipation of starting to pull stuff out of our storage room at U-Haul. I will need to drink many adult beverages before and after tackling that project. Our belongings, furniture and appliances are stuffed in the storage room like sardines. We need only some of the pieces, but most all will need to be removed to get to what we need. AAAGGGHHHHH

It may entail hiring some help again for the move, we'll just have to see how sparky we feel after the first attempt at getting some of our stuff.

The Daily Husband

Yard Sales

For those who have never held a successful yard sale, let me tell you how it works.

You dig up all the crap around your house that you no longer care for or just want to be rid of or whatever. This takes a couple of weeks if you're my in-laws. The resulting heaps of items are then sorted, priced and gotten ready to display.

The morning of the sale you get up before 5:00AM (I'm not kidding) to get all the tables loaded with items, all the clothes hung and all the other stuff out in the driveway to attract the hordes.

Our first sale this morning was made to a couple who showed up a 5:30 in the morning, with a flashlight, to look at our junk.

The only thing they purchased was a pair of handcuffs for $3:00. I kid you not. My wife, her mother, father and other sisters all speculated on how the handcuffs would be used. I was the one that sold them and didn't even know what was in the box. I just made sure to get the 3 bucks that was on the sticker.

We had some slack times, but lots of folks showed up. I left around 8:30 to come down to the "Bucks" to blog. By that time we must have had 50 or more people show up. No doubt when I get back they will have had many times more than that.

Yard sales are a great tradition in Phoenix. Some folks furnish their whole homes with yard sale merchandise. It's nothing to make several hundred or even a thousand dollars at a good one. Of course that was back in the day before the present sad economy.

I will report on the sale in a coming blog and we'll judge from that.

The Daily Husband

House Hunting

Vicki and I looked at a couple of places to rent today. They are both in the same neighborhood as her folks. The reason for this is twofold.

We would like to be close to them so we can help around their place and keep an eye on them. In addition, we like the Sun Lakes area and Sun Lakes specifically for its amenities. We enjoy the community pools, tennis courts, golf courses and the abundance of streets on which to walk and ride our bicycles.

One of the places we viewed was awful, so we won't be considering that one. The other was nice, though a little small and fully furnished. It is really set up for snowbirds to come here in the winter. We'll have to see how that goes. The bedroom lacks sufficient room for our king bed and I'm partial to the big comfy bed.

It was a start at least and we will probably do something by the end of the month. In the meantime we have a huge garage sale tomorrow and many more days of fix up at the "Rents" house.

The Daily Husband

A thought about Change

Back in February of this year I was writing poetry at a website called Neopoet. I found this one today while reviewing some of my older works. It might be relevant to what we do tomorrow at the polls. See what you think.


It’s been some time since I heard the world
clamoring for change
though need of it is manifest
throughout this worldly range

Step not upon the shores
of alteration and disdain
though ways that have worked a thousand years
grow harder to explain

Tell me please if you can
Why man must kill his kind
most animals abstain from this
it’s mostly us I find

And then there’s the molestation
of younger girls and boys
how did this come to be in vogue?
as if human kids were toys

It’s known that greed is ancient
one of the deadly sins
yet does it seem to you as me
that we’ve allowed it timely wins

In this day of modern wealth
are not there starving more
men and women and boys and girls
than there has ever been before

I know we’re a multitudinous race
homosapiens we be
Yet did we lose the compassion gene
or somehow set if free

We’re so tied up in the daily grind
and attempting to survive
Forgetting that mere striving
will not our consciences revive?

What say you about the study of war?
the ways to kill and maim
Have we not excelled in this dread skill?
Many honors we may claim

Oh praise to our fine technology
we’ve come a thousand years
till attempting to grasp suicide
then we’re lost again my dears

If you’ve witnessed dementia
or visited a home
where our grandparents are warehoused
interred within the dome

Of inexplicable reluctance
to face those growing old
despite it’s there in all our blood
If I may be so bold

Yea, we’re a great bunch of highly
evolved and wizened folk
except when we face reality
then it seems more of a joke

That we this most intelligent
and lofty human race
still stumble with the questions
and the answers we might face

It appears we have taken gold
not wisdom in exchange
Yes it’s been sometime since I’ve heard this world
Clamoring for change

Maybe we'll see a little change this coming year.

The Daily Husband

Intimacy Maintenance

Intimacy maintenance, what the hell are you talking about, you might ask?

Here goes, stay with me if you can. I will do my best to not give too much information, yet impart enough to make the point.

I am a touchy- feelly kind of person. I regularly caress, touch, grab, fondle and generally molest my wife. Usually while we do dishes together or any other time I feel like it. I do my best to not do too much of this in public and to be honest, I think I'm better at that part than she is. She feels no compunctions about grabbing my ass while we wait in line at a restaurant or some other public place. But I digress...

Good marriages have a distinctive physical component that needs to be held on to as the couple ages. While our style of dress and the exposure of skin my change with age, our need to touch and be touched does not. In fact, I would say we need more hugs and caresses as we get older.

So, if you have a good relationship, then make sure you keep up the intimacy. Don't miss out on the physical bond that makes your marriage special, exciting, lusty, romantic or whatever.

I thought about this last night after a late night, spontaneous love making session. When you're my age (59 going on 80) then these things really rock. I made the effort to take my time, be gentle and generally revel in our intimacy. There is simply nothing hotter than lying with the one you love in that very special and most intimate of caresses.

I admit it. If I could lay around in bed with my wife most of the day, I would, In our younger days we did a good bit of that on weekends. Now laying in bed too long brings on arthritic pains and the need to gain a more vertical position. Too bad really, I prefer the horizontal.


Anyway, the point of this post is this. Take time, make the effort to have physical and emotional intimacy with your mate. It causes your brain to produce good endorphins, adds years to your lifespan and puts a smile on your face. What's not to like?

The Daily Husband