Just Keep Swimming, Swimming, Swimming

Today has been a bust and I am still in a mood about it. My husband has been home the entire week. I was really, really hoping that his boss would call and say, "Hey man, we have a job to do." Didn't happen. What did happen was my husband spent the day pestering me to the point of annoyance. I have never understood why it is my job to entertain him when he is bored. Rather than just let me work, he can find one hundred reasons to interrupt me every single hour of the day. I had many things on my 'To Do' list today. If I am very quiet and very lucky, I will get this one blog post finished without interruption.

I am not a big fan of the network news channels. I do know what is happening in the world but I strongly dislike listening to every rotten thing that happens on a daily basis. It puts me in a dark place because eventually, after listening to it, I begin to wonder if there is any good left in the world. My husband, on the other hand, believes that if he is home, he absolutely must have Fox News blaring from every television in the house until he falls asleep at night. He also believes that it is his job to commentate during the programs. Now, let's think about why this jumps on my last nerve so much; He has been home all week, which means that I have had to listen to Fox News every minute of every day. If I leave a room to go find a quiet place to work, my bored husband tracks me down and wants to tell me about who said what on the news so I never miss a thing.

He also decided to be helpful. Not throw in a load of laundry or wash a dish kind of helpful, which would have actually been helpful, this was the' surf the net to find writing jobs for my wife' kind of helpful. On the surface it seems like a really sweet, caring thing to do. In reality, I all ready have work that I am behind on due to our five day internet issue and as hard as he tries, my hubby has no idea what he is looking for. Every time I began to get absorbed in my work, he would interrupt me to come look at this ad or that ad that he found on craigslist. Then he would get upset when I would look at the ads and explain to him why each one was a scam. Long story short, between the news, which put me in a mood to begin with, the constant interruptions, the fact that my workaholic hubby is bored and looking to me to do something about it, impending bills and impending deadlines plus the fact that it is darn near impossible to work with him home, well, I would have gotten more accomplished just twiddling my thumbs.

He is currently sitting right beside me watching Bill O'Reilly on Fox News and every time he starts to open his mouth during a story I shoot him a warning look and he closes his mouth. I love this man but after another full day of getting nothing finished, I am irritated. After twenty-one years, he apparently never noticed that I need a little quiet to work. Believe it or not, even with the tone of this post, I have been surprisingly patient with all of these distractions today. I know that he is frustrated too. He is unhappy if he isn't working. As long as I have known him, he is a pain in the butt if he is not working. Even if it's just his weekend off.

In other news, to show you how far south my day went, my angsty 15 year old daughter has decided that she no longer wants to be my daughter. She had asked to go to her school Valentine dance. She also wants to go to the prom. I said 'No' on both counts. Back in October, I took her to the Halloween dance. She got into a fight, something she has no problem stepping up to, and I took her school dance privileges away for the remainder of the year. I suspect that in her mind, I was supposed to forget that I had taken that privilege away but I forgot to forget so when she asked and I said no, hell hath no fury like a red haired child. Now I am a terrible Mother and she does not want to be my daughter anymore. Geeze!

I am going to do my very best to salvage what is left of this day by attempting to make up with my daughter (She needs to know I love her even when she's mad at me but she is still not going to the dance) and I am going to try to get a couple of articles written and turned in now that my husband has noticed 'the look' and understands its meaning. Oh boy, I hope tomorrow is better than today and I certainly hope that none of us has too many days like this in our lives. I am going to take Dori's advice (Finding Nemo) and just keep swimming.