Checking in

I haven't had a chance to updatw much of anything this week. It's been a busy week. Work has been requiring a lot of overtime, we started our counseling this week, and I'm a dogsitter. HTB is going camping with his brother this weekend and my parents went away overnight, so I took care of the twins. I did teach Robbie to "sing" last night, which I am thrilled about; I taught my first Schip to sing years ago, but Chancey never showed an aptitude or desire to learn (highly ironic, given that her real name means "song"), but Robbie is a very vocal dog, and very eager to please. I thought he had the ability to learn, I just had to find the pitch to trigger his voice at. I did that. Fortunately, it's much lower than "The Phantom of the Opera", which I used to teach my first dog, Dana; my parents thought it highly amusing to hear their daughter sing, and the dog howl along to it. Really. I'm not sure Robbie's too into it yet, but I think he'll figure it out.

I have worked a little bit on "Hoppy Halloween." I did ask all over the place about the fabric choice, and it seemed to be evenly split. HTB chose orange, but he can't really see the "bunny in the hat" of it all. "Rabbits . . . for Halloween? Purple . . . for Halloween?" he said. And then he said the words no crafter with a decision to make wants to hear, "I don't know, you pick?" So . . . I went to Joann's. And they had witch hat fabric with purples and oranges. I figured I could spend a couple dollars on fabric that matched a bit better. That way, I'll keep the orange hatband, stitch the lettering in purple and green, and pull it all in together. They had their Christmas fabric out too at Joanns. I don't have a lot of that, so I looked. And . . . I wasn't really pleased. I think Hancock Fabrics had better fabric available when I was in last. I may go back there. I will need fabric to do my exchange piece.

Our counseling sessions started Wednesday. It was interesting. Our therapist is nice. HTB is not that keen on going, but he is talking to her. So that is good. I'm trying to pay attention and get something out of it. I did find it interesting that HTB is the oldest of his family and I'm the youngest, so he's the one who is the caretaker, and I'm the one who wants to be taken care of. That is how our relationship works, when I think about it; I'm the princess, he's the protector. And she is going over how to argue productively, that time outs are OK in arguing. It is funny, though. She kinda looks at us, like, "What are you doing here? You don't need this." We probably do, but most of me figures that our parents didn't have counseling and they're together. But I'm making effort, if for no other reason than I am spending money to do this and it's something I can learn from. I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get our marriage off on a good foot.

Otherwise, not much going on. HTB is going on his last camping trip as a single man this weekend. He's going to Assateague. I'm a bit jealous. He said he wished I was going along. I laughed; no, he doesn't, LOL. I'll just use the time to catch up on some work, do some cooking and finishing, watch girly movies. He needs bonding time with his brother.