Project Happily Ever After

Until Nov. 18th, Dina Eisenberg at This Marriage Thing is challenging all of us to thank our spouses three times a day. She wants us to share our experiences-particularly how this new found thankfulness impacts our relationship.

I started last night, when I arrived back home after visiting my good friend Deb for the weekend. As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, I’m not a naturally thankful person. I’m much more comfortable with the idea of being more thankful than the idea of counting and quantifying my thankfulness.  The idea of counting each and every thanks that does or does not come out of my mouth honestly makes me a tad nervous.

So, with nothing better to do on the plane, I decided to come up with at least one bit of thankfulness. That way, I figured, I’d be ahead of the game when I started my Gratitude Project, as Eisenberg calls it.

I thought for a while. “What can I thank him for?” What?” He’d offered to drive me to and from the airport. There. That was nice. I decided to thank him for picking me up. That would quickly get one of my three daily thanks out of the way.

The plane touched down. I deplaned and walked through the airport. As I rounded the corner to baggage claim I heard, “Mommy!” I looked up and there was my husband and daughter, coming down the escalator to find me.

She ran up to me and jumped into my arms.

“We surprised you!” she said.

“You sure did!” I told her. “I thought you’d be waiting in the car outside. I wasn’t even looking for you.”

I looked at my husband’s sheepish grin. He was proud of himself. I hugged him.

“Thanks for the surprise,” I said. “Thanks for picking me up.”

Was that two thanks for the price of one? Only one more thanks to go!

On the way home, Mr. Strong and Silent said, “Kaarina, don’t tell Mommy about her surprise, okay. Otherwise it’s not a surprise.”

“Okay Daddy,” she said

“You have a surprise? For me?” I said. “I wonder what it could be.”

“Guess, Mommy. Guess!”

“Okay, let’s see,” I said. “Are there tiles on the walls in the kitchen?” We’d ripped paneling off the kitchen’s plaster walls months ago, but neither one of us has had the time or inclination to pick out tiles to cover the glue and crud that is now exposed.

I gauged from the silence in the car that tiles on the kitchen walls was not the surprise.

“Is the house immaculate?”

Silence.

“Oh, I know, my closet door is fixed?”

Silence.

“Daddy replaced the light bulb over the stove?”

Silence.

“You washed the dog?”

Silence.

“I must be the most thankless wife who has ever walked this Earth,” I thought to myself. I decided to stop guessing about my surprise before my husband started thinking about divorce papers.

We arrived home. My daughter asked me to walk through the house and find my surprise.

I walked from room to room. I could find nothing that looked remotely like a surprise.

I found my husband.

“I think you are going to have to show it to me,” I said.

“Can you get me a beer?” he asked.

“That sure was a non-sequitur, but yes I can,” I said.

I opened the fridge, got a beer and put it on the counter. I opened the usually overfull drawer that houses all of our flatware, screwdrivers, spatulas-really every hand held kitchen instrument-in search of the bottle opener. The drawer was nearly empty.

Hum.

I opened a few more drawers and cabinets. They were all neat, organized and de-cluttered.

I turned. They were facing me, and they were glowing with pride.

“You rearranged the kitchen!” I exclaimed.

My husband puffed out his chest and proceeded to take me on a tour of all of the drawers and cabinets.

He presented me with the bottle opener. I opened his beer and handed it to him.

“Thanks for organizing the kitchen,” I said with a hug. “Thanks for encouraging me to visit Deb. I had a great trip.”

Later, out of the blue, I said, “I can’t believe I gained weight already this winter.”

He said, “You don’t look fat. Are you sure you gained weight?”

“Thanks!” I said. “That was the perfect thing to say.”

I crawled onto his lap and planted a big wet one on his cheek. He scrunched up his face.

“Thanks for being the best husband ever,” I said.

There-six thank yous, all in the span of just a few hours. For my first day of the Gratitude Project? I gave myself an A+.

Consider starting your own Gratitude Project, using the comments area here to chronicle your results. More details on the Gratitude Project. http://thismarriagething.com/the-gratitude-project/

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Tags: gratitude, Marriage Advice, relationship advice, self-help

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 at 11:20 am and is filed under Marriage Advice, My Marriage Exposed, Personal happiness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.