Thursday, January 25, 2007

First cell phone

Well, I finally bought a cell phone.  I did it because I was pissed.  I went to look at a building for sale last week, and was supposed to then call DH before he left his work so he could go see it too.  I had several other places to go, so I thought I could easily find a phone.  Yeah, sure.  I never noticed before that there aren't phone booths everywhere any more.  In fact, I couldn't find one period.  And stores and such won't let you use their phones either.  Got to keep an open line for business, you know.  So I finally went to the big store that shall remain nameless and bought a prepaid phone.  I couldn't activate it right then, so I browbeat the little girl who sold it to me into letting me use her phone to call DH.
Since I am about as far from a techie as you can get, it took me a couple of hours to get it activated with the website.  I still couldnt figure out how to make a call, but took it along to Quilting in the Desert. 
I was going to be later getting home than I had planned, so I had somebody show me how to make a call (Duh, punch in the number and press send) and I was able to call DH and tell him not to wait up.  Thought I was so smart.  I have made a couple of calls since then.  But now I need to know how to receive a call and have had no luck using the instruction book or the website either.  They seem to  assume a certain level of familiarity with this stuff and skip the very basic.  I finally had to email the company and am now waiting to hear from them.  I have called the cell from my home phone and get a message that my call is being forwarded to a mailbox.  I don't WANT it to be forwarded; I WANT it to ring, or vibrate, or whatever, and it won't.  And I have no idea how to access that mailbox either.  Anyway, I hope somebody nice will answer my email and give me some answers.
 
 
AJ Wischmeyer, Quiltmaker
 
 

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Browbeat, continued

Reading over the previous post made me think maybe I was too emphatic, and maybe its not really that bad. I was going to post the next day and say so, but I had to go to work.  When I walked out the door, DH was holding the broom and saying that it was getting way too rustic in here for him.  I thought that he was going to sweep, as he was going to be home all day while I worked.  Yeah, sure.
So the next day, Sunday, I said I was going to vacuum while he was outside doing some stuff, and he had a FIT.  The tirade about how he tries to spend Sundays with me ( generally asleep on the couch) and that I could easily do all the housework and laundry on the 3 or 4 days that he goes to work if only I didn't spend all my time stupidly in the studio (frequently trying to machine quilt for customers or work on the computer for my museum job).  Yada, yada, yada.  The fact that I make most of my small income working IN MY STUDIO and that I never ask him for money because of it, and that HE PREVENTS ME from working in there when he is home mean nothing to him.  The only thing important to him is that I be available, in the same room or outside with him, and paying attention to him instead of even doing something else side by side. 
Uh oh, I'm getting carried away again.
I have to go to the doctor tomorrow and tell him I haven't taken any meds yet. 
 
AJ in AZ
 
 
 

Friday, January 05, 2007

Being browbeat

  I'm getting more and more bothered lately by the browbeating ways of my DH.  Or, am I overly sensitive and just a total wuss and tone of voice doesn't mean anything, as he states?  I don't know.  If the latter, then I just don't know the difference.  We HAVE been married for 27 years, so why is it bothering me more than usual now?  But the litany of injustices I feel continues to grow and I'm getting pretty depressed about it. 
  For instance, my chicken hobby was a LOT more fun before he got interested in it and decided that, as usual, everything should be done HIS way.  Now 3 out of my 4 chicken coops contain his breed of chickens, and he is agitating to get rid of more of MY chickens because, he says, I have too many in the coop (nesting house) that remains. He won't buy any chicken feed, but has decided to keep some roosters wayyyyy past optimum butchering time because he wants to have backups.  He complains bitterly if any of his chickens ever run low on the expensive natural feed I buy, but will only do any feeding himself out of his hand.  There's a lot more, but you get the idea.
  And there is the matter of my high cholesterol.  When I came home from the doctor with a month's supply of samples to take and lower it quickly (The doctor was so concerned when he got my lab results that he called me to come in right away and get the samples), he had a terrible fit that I was going to be adding yet another drug to the ones that control my fibromyalgia and anxiety.  I tried to stand up to him, but in the end, I agreed to wait for a month before taking the drug, and in the meantime, give up ice cream and regular cheeses, animal fats, etc.  He wants me to get another lab test then.  I DREAD telling the doctor I haven't started the meds yet when he was so concerned about me.  But its easier to upset the doctor than it is to stand up to DH.
  Sometimes I cry for no particular reason.
  Sounds like depression, doesn't it?
  I can just see me telling him I'm depressed.  He sometimes tries to pretend that he is understanding about such things, but under any kind of stress it comes out that he thinks depression is the own fault of the depressed person, and anybody with any intelligence at all will just decide not to be depressed and they won't be any more.  Therefore, if I'm depressed I must not be a. intelligent, b.have no will power, c. take your pick of any other character fault you can think of.
  I should be going to knit with my friends this afternoon, but he is so mean and nasty about me going to town EVERY DAY (not true) that I said I'd stay home today.  I do have to work again tomorrow, so I really didin't have a leg to stand on this time.  But this happens nearly every week.  Sometimes I can stand up to him, but mostly I can't.
  There are so many things I'm not supposed to do when he is home, like quilting, laundry, housework, anything on the computer, that I tend to spend marathons in the studio alternately quilting and working on the computer when he is gone.  But it really makes him mad to come home and find me in the studio, and heaven forbid he should try to call me and have me be on the internet.  He won't leave a message and is real mean about it when he comes home.  And I never know WHEN he is going to come home.  His work house vary a lot, and he frequently goes to Pat's afterward anyway, but I am supposed to be sitting quietly in a chair in a clean house with all laundry already done and put away anytime he arrives.  Needless to say, this is my most frequent failure in his eyes.  I don't keep up with housework very well because I head straight for the studio when he leaves and don't come out until a few minutes before I THINK he might come home.  And of course I often guess wrong and then have to sit there seething because I want to go on sewing or else I'm in trouble because he caught me in the studio.
  I guess you should take all of this with a grain of salt.  I can cope with all of it pretty well most of the time; I am just extra depressed about it right now.