Appreciating your spouse everyday.

Since Z has been gone (a little over two weeks), I’ve already realized how much I appreciate the little things he does. I’ve always considered myself lucky that he comes home from work every night and morphs into daddy mode almost immediately. But there are so many other things he does around the house that I guess I haven’t realized and feel like I may have taken for granted.

Dishes: he seriously won’t let me touch the dishes. He has a method and a system and gets all feisty when I don’t do it “the right way”. Boy do I wish he was here to do them now because homegirl has piles that need done.

Feeding the dog: don’t judge, but I may have forgotten to feed the dog the other day. He always does it and I guess it took me a second to realize I’m the one that has to do that now.

Picking up the dog poop: it sucks. It just sucks.

Mowing the grass: we don’t have a very big backyard and just use a little push mower but still, one more thing I have to add to my list and never realized how lucky I was to have him doing it. It pretty much looks like a jungle back there right now.

Trash duty: collecting all the garbages from each room and taking it to the curb every week. Quite honestly, I’m surprised I remembered to do it the first week and then the second week, it was a race against the truck on our culd de sac.

Calming my nerves: no matter how stressed out I am, he always walks through that door and lifts my spirit. I really miss him doing that and I never told him how much I looked forward to that everyday.

Hugging me: I’m not a huge fan of being touched (I know, I’m a weirdo) so I’ve never really been the cuddly type. But you don’t realize how much you miss that human contact until you don’t have it anymore.

The point in all of this? He does these things without me asking. We work together as a team and we get things done that need to be. But I’ve never once thanked him for doing any of this. We go about our days and we get into a routine and we forget that even a simple “thank you” makes a person feel good.

I may not remember to do this everyday but I’m certainly going to make an effort to do it more, and appreciate him more when he gets home. They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder and yes, I would agree to some extent. But if anything else, it makes you realize what life would be like without your best friend. And I can’t imagine that.

So Z, if you’re reading, just know I love you and appreciate you. And I can’t wait to have you home for many, many reasons 🙂