How men and women see color (hint: very differently!)

Ahhh, another home improvement project with Steve and Beth.  How our marriage has ever survived these projects I don't know because there could not be two people with more different views on how to plan, organize, and execute a project.  Add to our usual differences the fact that we see and interpret color very differently and you can imagine how challenging painting the exterior of our house has become.

I like to call this: project negotiations...

Steve: I see our house with a really dark green body, off-white trim, and navy blue shutters.
Beth: I see our house with a light olive green body, bright white trim, and dark red shutters.

The fact is that men and women may really see color differently.  About 50% of women are tetrachromatic which means they have four types of cone receptors instead of three.  Cone receptors are cells located in the retina that are responsible for our both our vision of color and the detail in which we see it.  Just having more or less cone receptors isn't the whole story.  It turns out that even with people with the same number of cone receptors the interpretation of color can vary greatly.  Human beings have a color experience which means that we relate to color as it relates to experiences in the world because our brain does an automatic color correction so things appear "right" to us despite wearing sunglasses, colored lenses, or colored lighting.   So my brain interprets color differently from Steve's brain.  (Clearly my brain's interpretation is the correct interpretation therefore my color choices are superior, right?)

It's more than just a physical difference.  Men and women perceive colors different as part of our different gender experiences.   If we go back to our original hunter/gatherer roots women evolved to prefer colors on the red spectrum as berries, fruits, flowering plants, and other necessary foods come in that color.  Also, as the primary caretaker of children since time began, women had to perceive variations of red as an indication of fever or rash in our children.  Being attune to the red spectrum may have been necessary to save a child's life.  Men evolved to look for colors on the blue spectrum: blue sky indicating good weather necessary for hunting, blue water indicating good watering hole where animals may be found.  Purple clouds indicating a storm coming.  Movement in the shadows indicating attack by an enemy or animal.  Seeing variation in the blue spectrum may have meant life or death to the man his tribe. 

Well, Steve and I are already ahead of our biology: we both want a green house, it's the depth of color that has us at odds.  I always prefer light colors and Steve always prefers darker colors.   This doesn't appear to be biological as much as personality preference. 

There is one big factor that must be considered that is probably more important than biology, personality, evolution, or societal influence:   I am the one who is actually doing the painting!

Light olive green, welcome to the neighborhood!

The Perfect Marriage

If you've been reading this blog you know that Steve and I have the perfect marriage: we laugh a lot, we fight a lot, we have very little in common, and we love each other a lot. When we attended a wedding back in August we received a rare and wonderful compliment: the DJ asked all the married couples to come to the dance floor and asked us how long we have been married. When he got to Steve and I and we answered "18 years" the woman next to us gasped and said to her husband of 38 years, "I would have sworn they were newlyweds! Look Ed, look how in love they are!"

It's quite possibly the nicest thing anyone has ever said about us as a couple.

So recently as we stood in the kitchen arguing over my choice of song on MY iPod I wondered what makes us work.

"It's the most wonderful, romantic song in the world! I love this song!"

"Turn it off, that song is stupid, even our 10 year old doesn't have that song on her playlist!" "It's my iPod, I can have whatever I want on it!"

"Great, then don't play it through the speakers. Use your earbuds."

He turned it off. He turned on the football game. I turned on the mixer. And the blender. He took 3 days to confirm me as a friend on Facebook. It took me a whole day before I mentioned I had taken a teaching job without consulting him. He buys his own Christmas presents in October. And November. And December. I spend $6 on butter because it's organic. He likes music where the girls are slutty and the guys are confused. I like a sitcom that hasn't made a new episode since 1995. He said that last night's dinner smelled like dirty sweat socks and looked like dog food. (He was kind of right about that one...) I make fun of his haircuts even when I like them.

And yet, when I hear that song, my favorite-most-romantic-song-in-the-world song, I only think of Steve. This song is sung with such feeling, such depth, such beautiful orchestry I feel warm inside just thinking about it. Steve's romantic song choice: Smooth Up In Ya by the Bullet Boys.

My choice: Kiss the Girl from the Little Mermaid soundtrack, sung by Sebastian the Crab.

Oh so that's what we are supposed to do in bed!

New house. New bedroom. New bed including mattress and box springs. Scene set for a night of ...TV watching? The new house also came with another new feature: the wall mount TV bracket. I abhor the wall mount TV brackets on many, many levels as I will detail for you in a moment, but first let me ask: what is it about an empty TV bracket that instantly turns men into beings obsessed with filling that space? We haven't had a television in our bedroom for 8 years and suddenly Steve cannot live another moment without watching the news while he gets dressed each morning. Now I'll admit that with all the "together time" we've had over the past 2 weeks that he was on vacation he probably he fears having to talk to me for any length of time, but I don't know that putting a television in our bedroom will solve this problem because I have no problem talking over the TV.

Now about these wall-mount TVs:
1. The bracket isn't centered over a fireplace or other architectural structure it is in the corner of the room just like in a hospital. With our green-painted walls and white bedding the whole hospital look may just be too much for anyone but especially a recovering hypochondriac like me.

2. The television is ugly. It is a blank black box. It is not aesthetically pleasing. It cannot be masked, mounted in the corner as it is. It is an aberration in my beautiful, peaceful room.

3. First comes the TV. Then he'll need TiVo. Then a DVD player. The corner that was supposed to house a beautiful chair for relaxing, reading, and looking at the mountains will become a shrine to technology. It is inevitable.

4. Sleep and sex. That's all I need to do in bed. I would prefer not to do either with a laugh track playing in the background. (Although studio audience applause, if well placed, could be kind of encouraging...)

5. Feng shui says this a definite no-no and y'all know how into Feng shui I am.

But...I don't live alone (for which I am thankful) and I don't have complete control over the contents of my home (something which I am striving to change through nagging), and I suppose that anyone lucky enough to live in a home with a view of the mountains could perhaps, just perhaps, be graceful enough to suck up having a television in the room.

Then again...if nagging works....

Steve and I are having problems in the bedroom...

Steve and I just celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary. For all those years we have always had a problem in the bedroom. The problem is our bed. It isn't just limited to our bedroom either, we seem to have bed problems in the homes of our families and friends, in hotel rooms, and even in a beautiful bed and breakfast we found in Maine.

It all began when we first moved in together. We were poor. I'm talkin' got-our-first-kitchen-table-from-a-restaurant's-dumpster poor. We both had twin beds and since we were so poor we certainly couldn't afford a new bed and new sheets we decided that we would just share one twin bed. That lasted one night. Already we were learning that comfort and sleep could overrule libido. Then we had the great idea of putting both our twin beds together with one single king-sized fitted sheet holding them tight. We actually slept like that for about 6 months until I just couldn't stand waking up each morning "in the crack" and began looking for a new bed. Next we bought a second hand queen sized waterbed. This bed was with us for 8 years! It never really worked that well for us because the plastic liner made Steve sweat and I was always a little sea sick from the waves and I was still waking up "in the crack" only this time "the crack" was the area between the mattress and the frame where I would inevitably get tossed during the night.

Finally, pregnant, financially stable, and fed up, I demanded that we get a real bed. We did. We bought a beautiful queen sized sleigh bed with a good quality mattress and box springs. It was bedtime bliss for about 4 months. Then our daughter was born and we soon discovered that our tiny infant took up the space of an adult and we wished we had a king sized bed. Since our daughter opted to not sleep - ever - we spent many nights with one or both of us ultimately moving to other beds in the house so our child could stretch out in comfort.

We moved to Toledo and our daughter (then 5) finally started sleeping through the night. At last, we could enjoy our bed again! Nope: we foolishly purchased a house with a floorplan that could only be arranged so that our bed shared a wall with our daughter's bed. I found the mere 3 inches of dry wall between our beds to be quite daunting to um..other bedroom activities. In desperation we tried moving the bed against the window wall. Too noisy and freezing during the winter. Finally I actually moved the bed in front of our closets. Not too convenient, but at least it was private!

We move to Massachusetts: new bedroom on opposite side of house from daughter, maybe finally we will get to enjoy our bed. Not so, not so. We had to borrow a split box springs from our landlords because a queen sized box spring will not fit up our narrow steps. The borrowed-box-spring squeaks. Constantly. With every little movement. Still no rest for the weary.

Like I said earlier, this problem extends to outside our home as well. The bed squeaked so badly at the B&B in Maine that I couldn't look our hosts in the eye the next morning and I hadn't even done anything.

At Steve's parents house we either have to sleep 2 floors apart or Steve has to sleep in a 'tester' bed that is so short that his feet hang over the edge all night.

My mom has a queen bed, but only one and there are 3 of us. Obvious problem there.

When we stayed with friends during an extended power outage their guest bed was plenty big enough but had mysterious sand-like-crumbs on the sheets that made our feet itch all night.

The hotel air conditioner was broken on one vacation and we had so much humidity in the room that our bed was actually damp each night.

I am looking forward to getting a new house and a new bedroom, but most of all I am looking forward to getting a new bed. I think I am older and wiser now. I know the pitfalls of a poor bed choice. Because let's face it...

...right now, Steve and I have BIG problems in the bedroom!

Grace #6 Steve

Originally I was going to make this grace about Girl Scout cookies, but as y'all know I am no longer sacrificing to the refined-white-sugar-gods-though-tasty-they-may-be and so I decided to mention someone even sweeter than cookies, and that would be my main man Steve.

Steve can be the tiniest bit bossy (!) and he kind of demanded that he be mentioned (finally) but I suppose it really is time. Steve is a big part of the reason I am successful as a human being. When I was moping around the house bemoaning my lack of friends, he was the one who harrangued me into joining a new gym by trying to make friends for me at his gym (ewww!). When I was disgusted with my recent weight gain he was the one who agreed that I did look pretty bad (thus destroying my illusion that no one had really noticed) and encouraged me to return to exercising, even offering to work out with me. When I worry about the finances, he's the one who suggests I spend less. When I get frustrated about the old house we rent, he reminds me that we could be stuck in an apartment trying to dodge the perverts whenever we go to check our mail. If our interactions and his encouragement all sound a little rough, well, they are. And somehow, that's exactly what I need. I don't know if I spent a past life in a prison camp or what, but I just seem to respond better to the plain-talking-no-frills-Beth-get-your-head-out-of-your-ass type of advice than a I do to a lot of gentle platitudes.

It is amazing to me how much good advice Steve has given to me over the years. He has seen me through friendship breakups and facial breakouts, weight gain and financial loss, misery and ecstasy and managed to maintain the same even keel of wry humor and practicality. I never would have had the courage to face marriage, motherhood, unemployment, and illness had it not been for Steve.

He is the wind beneath my wings.

I don't care how corny it sounds, everyone needs someone who lifts them up, brushes them off, and sets them back on the path of life every once in awhile and I know I'm lucky to be married to that someone. Steve is never my go-to-guy when I want to chat, or vent, or discuss, or examine. He doesn't really want to talk to me much. He doesn't necessarily listen to me all that much either.

But he loves me.

Unconditionally.

And that, my friends, is a Grace.

Weekly Wellbeing: Losing my mind

I have lost my filters, lost my temper and lost my composure. I have turned into a screaming banshee who is incapable of discussing things rationally. I disregard time, place, audience, and appropriateness of content. Sound like a description from a mental heath journal? Well, it probably is a description of someone: someone who has lost their mind.

Usually I am the master of keeping cool under pressure. I used to have such a tight rein on my emotions that I defied even a botoxed southern belle to keep a straighter poker face than I could.

Recently, I seem to have lost all that ability.

I am not sure that it's necessarily a bad thing to be expressing my feelings. I mean all that the tighter-face-than-a-Botox-babe thing really got me was irritable bowel syndrome and a brain tumor. It's not having the feelings that is bad, it's how they are being expressed that is not really working for me. Or my marriage. Or my parenting ability.

Breathe.

Once upon a time, a very healthy time, I did yoga, didn't consume sugar or animal products, and regularly got together with other women for some good ol' fashioned girl talk. Now I couldn't do a downward dog to save my life, I eat anything that doesn't run from me, and I live in almost complete isolation saved only by my cell phone and 2 dedicated friends.

How is all this a weekly wellbeing? Well, sometimes it takes hitting bottom to really begin to look up and let me tell you: my head aches from hitting bottom so hard. So now I wake up, pick myself up, stop feeling mixed up, hook up with some friends, clean up the house, open up to my husband, fix-up our marriage, count up my blessings and move on (up, of course!).

I'm exhausted. I think I'll have a few doughnuts as a pick-me-up (just kidding!).

With any other job I'd have been fired by now

Steve has been mentioning (complaining) lately that I don't say anything nice about him in my blogs. Clearly he hasn't read many of my blogs because I constantly wax on about how much I love him and find even his minutest personality detail to be adorable. BUT, never let it be said that I don't take criticism well...so this one's for you babe:

I am a stay-at-home mom of an at-school-all-day kid. I admit it, my life is softer than that fake cream filling in a Twinkie. Not that I don't sometimes work hard because I do, I just don't always work hard. For example, this is how our room sometimes looks...

And this is how our dinner sometimes looks...

And frankly, this is how our child sometimes looks...

So I know the truth, from any other job I'd have been fired. The cleaning is haphazard, the cooking is boring (or worse), the child is dirty. My only responsibilities are to keep the house clean, the family fed, and the child clean. I don't always live up to my job description but I rarely ever hear a complaint.

So, thanks Steve for being such a good sport.

Can you feel the love tonight...?

Well, not in our house, and certainly not tonight. I am fed up, I am done, I am ready to throw in the towel, go down for the final count and say "okay, you two want to act like idiots go ahead. I'm changing my last name so no one will know we're related and I can't be counted on for bail money."

I am the Bad Guy and my husband is the Good Guy. He gets to propose irresponsible, sometimes dangerous, usually in poor taste antics and I have to be the one to put on the brakes. Or do I? What would happen if I simply gave up my role as Voice of Reason and allowed him to go ahead full throttle? I'd like to think that the fun would get old and Steve would actually burn out on acting immature and return to responsible parenting. I'd like to think that, but I'm not so sure. I actually think it's more likely that my daughter would take over my role as parent and begin parenting her father. It's already happening to some extent. She is impatient and irritated with the constant 10-yr-old-boy-hair-pulling-and-being-gross routine that is Steve's usual milieu. She is already aware that if dad says she can eat it she should probably check with mom. She is already coming to me for the important stuff and relegating her dad to good-times-only status. That is the downside of always being the Good Guy.

Of course I frequently feel like the parent of 2 children. I have to hear constantly "stop harshing our vibe" , "stop being a buzz kill", "Oh Beth, lighten up!" Times when I want to plan something and have fun are getting to be fewer and fewer because we've usually spent all our "fun" money on unplanned, spontaneous things that are fun for Steve and our daughter but not always so fun for me. That is the downside of always being the Bad Guy.

I sometimes feel like a fifth wheel in my own home. I see our situation as "them against me" and it's isolating and depressing.

A lot of this is gender-related. I once read an article that talked about how while men would frequently laugh hysterically at a Three Stooges routine, women found the Stooges baffling, immature, and not really all that funny. To be fair, some of Steve's comments are certainly warranted: sometimes I do forget how to have fun. Sometimes, just because their idea of fun isn't the same as mine, I condescend, as though I somehow have the rules for what shall be considered fun and breaking them is a crime. Also, I am wise enough to know that our daughter comes to me more for the "important stuff" because we are the same gender and I am the one who is home.

Still, I'd like to develop a more balanced relationship in our home. I'd like to create an atmosphere that is fun, a little whacky, a hint of danger every now and again to keep everyone on their toes, and mutually inclusive and loving.

I think I'd like perfection (sigh).

That little voice should be telling you something...

The big scary anvil that has been hanging over our heads since we moved out of the house in Toledo, Ohio and into a rental in Massachusetts has finally been removed. The house in Toledo is sold. We are removed from the ranks of the "sellers" and get to join the ranks of "buyers"-- a place I am told that is much nicer than being a seller.



The move to Massachusetts was a leap of faith, really and truly the kind of faith where you think God may be telling you something and you are pretty sure you should be listening. Once, about 5 years ago we heard that little Voice and chose not to listen. The result was Steve being laid off from his job and a frantic search to find a new job, a new house, a new life when all we wanted to do was curl up and lick our wounds. We learned from that experience to listen to the Voice. And then about 4 years ago the Voice said that the painful muscle spasms in my face weren't just stress. I listened, I got an MRI, and then brain surgery. I'm still here and I credit my existence to listening to the Voice. Finally, just this past summer, the Voice was screaming at Steve "Get out now!" and we just couldn't believe it: leave our home, our daughter's school, our church, our lives? Leave and go where? Massachusetts? We don't know anyone in Massachusetts! I finally got the house painted the way I like it! It's a terrible market to sell a home! Our daughter likes her school! We had many, many reasons to ignore the Voice and only one reason to follow it: experience. We leaped. For awhile it seemed like freefall and there was a lot of doubt: what if it wasn't the Voice at all? What if Massachusetts was the wrong place? Why isn't our house selling? Why is it so hard to make friends? When are we going to find a decent Chinese restaurant? But now as things are starting to slow down and settle in, I am once more confident that we have done the right thing.

And now, now I am ready to listen to that little Voice once again as it guides me to finding the perfect house at the perfect price.

It's fun to be a buyer!

I think I may be married to my cousin

I live in fear that one day very soon the Jerry Springer show will be calling. You see with my father married to a woman with a tattoo, my mother having had some forays into "alternative" lifestyles, my older brother a former Scientologist, my younger brother having sometimes found himself on the wrong side of the law, and my sister hating me I feel that I am prime Jerry Springer material. Oh, and I may be married to my cousin.

It all started 15 years ago...

After having been married for about 3 years, Steve and I were visiting his parents. His mom and I were chatting about family history and she happened to mention Steve's great grandmother being a Wogoman. I stopped cold because my great grandmother was also a Wogoman and what if they were the same woman??? It turns out that they were definitely not the same woman but that enough family names and history have been lost that we can't rule out that they may have been sisters. My great grandmother Wogoman came from a large family and not everyone's names are remembered. Steve's great grandmother Wogoman came from a large family and not everyone's names are remembered. So if our great-grandmothers were sisters then our grandmothers were cousins which means our mothers were second cousins which means Steve and I are third cousins on our mothers' side.

Kissing cousins, I believe we'd be called.

My mother assures me that this is simply not the case, that she remembers meeting many of her second cousins and my husband's mother wasn't among them. I believe her and since our daughter was born without crossed eyes and a tail, I suppose it's nothing to worry about anyway. Still, in the dark of the night, I do sometimes wonder if I've inadvertently married my cousin. Steve finds the idea exciting and a little racy which I suppose is good for our marriage but a little gross too.

But who am I to judge because after all, I may have given birth to my own fourth cousin...

I'd like a re-write please

Recently I just finished reading (well, listening to) Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner. I was moving along through the story, enjoying the ride well enough, when all of the sudden WHAM, the story took a sudden dramatic and unexpected turn. I did not like the new direction of the story. I couldn't figure out why the author would take this particular direction. I considered not finishing the book.

I think life is a little like that book. We're all just drifting along and WHAM you lose your job, find a lump, crash your car, your house burns down, a parent dies, you get a promotion, find out your pregnant, win the lottery, meet the man of your dreams. Life takes a lot of unexpected turns, some of them not so good. Sometimes I have felt very much like I didn't want to finish a particular chapter. I want a cosmic re-write. Surely this plot twist wasn't meant for me!?

My grandpa died when I was 18. I hadn't been close to my father for years at that point, and my grandpa stepped in and really filled that void for me. When he died, I mourned not only him, but my dad as well. My grandma was devastated. She slammed the book closed and never really opened it again. My grandma lived another 18 years after my grandpa, but she wasn't really alive after he died. She chose to end her story with his.

I am more of a re-write kind of girl myself. I have had my share of bad plot twists, but I haven't ever wanted to stop writing this story of my life. There are a few parts I'd like to re-write completely, and more than a few that could use some selective editing, but I am always excited for what will happen next. I have lived just long enough to learn that we can't ever know what will happen, but we can always put our own spin on the plot. The outline may be somewhat out of our control, but the details, ah, the details are all our own.

I rely a lot upon faith in my life. It was a complete leap of faith when I got married, against both our families' advice. It was a complete leap of faith to quit my job and be a stay-at-home-mom. It was a complete leap of faith to move to Cincinnati, then to Toledo, then to Massachusetts. But isn't every day a complete leap of faith? We don't know what will happen, though we carefully schedule each day. We don't know what the future brings, though we worry endlessly with a false sense of control. We don't know how this story ends.

All I know is that my life is a page-turner, and I can't wait to read the next chapter.

I was kidnapped by a tribe of mini-sloths

My family would probably take issue with being called mini-sloths. And, okay, I wasn't actually kidnapped, I believed at the time that I was choosing this life while being of sound mind and body. Right now I am trying to think while being asked constant questions, being told amazing facts, and being given a constant stream of drink orders. But wait, isn't today supposed to be a SCHOOL day?? My dearest daughter was sent home from school today, her prognosis grim: headache, sore throat, stuffy nose, and body aches. Luckily by the time we reached home a miracle had occurred! Suddenly the headache had disappeared. Her throat couldn't have been too sore since she chattered the entire way home, and if her body ached, it didn't ache enough to prevent her from doing "robot" dance moves as she took off her coat and kicked off her shoes.

I am a creature of habit. I like my schedule and I feel comfortable knowing that on Mondays I wash clothes and pay bills. Tuesdays I volunteer at school and grocery shop. Wednesdays I do an extra long workout and run errands. Thursdays I volunteer at school and wash all the bedding. Fridays I do an extra long workout and clean the house. Sounds peaceful doesn't it? That's why sick days, snow days, federal holidays and winter and spring break send me into a complete breakdown. Those long hours without routine, form, or plans make me sweat. I think back longingly to my days as a computer programmer. I knew what to do all day long. I was rarely overwhelmed, disappointed, or bored. I had purpose. I couldn't recite most of the dialogue from Beauty and the Beast.

But then my daughter gets sick at school and I remember all the reasons I continue to stay at home. I stay home not to honor a routine, cook meals, clean a house, or be available for errands. My routine is merely the pause to fill the hours until my real job comes home from school. I like to think I am my own boss, and sometimes I probably am. I'm a Mom and whatever form that takes each day is the job description for the day.

Life in captivity isn't so bad, and besides, I like my mini-sloths.