A Promise is a Promise

For those of you who have been wondering how Lent is going in our house, let me assure you that I have not forgotten about my promise to chill the heck out and let Tom do things his way. Have I criticized him at all in the past 2 weeks? You betcha! I said I hadn't forgotten about the promise, and I wasn't lying about that. No worries, though (for those of you in Camp Tom, a.k.a. Dad)--I have made significant progress if I do say so myself. You know the phrase "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all"? Well, our house has been a lot quieter these days. I find myself literally biting my tongue sometimes--like when we went to Target and Tom unloaded the entire cart, except for my purse, which he left at the store. Then there was the day he let the dogs inside without wiping their paws and our living room carpet ended up covered in mud prints. I just took a deep breath and said, "I really hate that rug anyway." And I do. I even maintained composure when he spent 20 minutes driving by empty spaces looking for a parking spot in Asheville last weekend. But ya know what? He eventually found one right in front of the restaurant we were going to.

I'll admit, I haven't been perfect. On Day 2 of Lent I found myself standing in our driveway pointing out the fact that all of our neighbors put their trash cans on the curb while my dear husband puts ours literally in the middle of the street. He claims this is because the garbage men like the can to be on a flat surface. I'm not sure how he knows this, seeing as he has never been a garbage man, nor have I ever seen him take the time to chat up our garbage men and inquire about their can placement preferences. But anyway, I apologized for criticizing him and that in itself should count for something in my book.

Its been a challenge, but I'm determined to see this through, and I'm pretty sure Tom is appreciating the effort thus far.