My husband and I have been dreaming about getting away together, just the two of us. The last time we managed to do so was three years ago, when we went to Las Vegas for three nights. We’d love to go to Hawaii, as we’ve never been, and we have enough Alaska Airlines miles to get there for free.

Alas, the three children we’re raising aren’t old enough to be left alone and at this point in time there is nobody who can come and watch them for us for a week. I set that Hawaii dream on fire last night in a rare instance of facing reality (that’s usually my husband’s specialty.)

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I love awards shows — I have ever since I was a kid — and the two of my three kids who (look like me, and) are wired like me love them too. The three of us sat on the couch with a huge bowl of popcorn and watched the Oscars this past Sunday night. I won’t get into the fact how I think they had the worst host ever or how it seemed to drag on and on and on with irrelevant content (See: All the Dreamgirls stuff), but there were some good moments. Most of them on Twitter, but that’s for another post.

There seems to be some uproar over Ben Affleck’s statement when thanking his wife Jennifer Garner.

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One of the ways in which my husband and I are most definitely ‘pink and blue‘ is when it comes to our motor vehicles. He books all of the oil changes, he gets the winter tires on in the fall, he gets the summer tires on in the spring, and he enjoys spending time cleaning both of our vehicles, inside and out.

We’ve recently come to the realization that our minivan doesn’t suit our purposes anymore. Well, my husband came to that realization and gave a five-point presentation to me, thinking that I’d put up a fight. I responded with, “That makes sense. You find the new (to us) vehicle and deal with selling the van.” He agreed, because that’s “his department.”

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Things have been stressful in our house, between a slower work schedule (Mine) and a double work schedule (His, because of mine), and so many side things that niggle and bother and burn. We learned long ago that going to be angry is a much better solution than staying up until all hours of the night lobbying the same arguments back and forth with no progression.

We’ve had more nights of going to bed unsettled than we’re used to, but we’re managing in the way we’ve been accustomed. In the morning, we hug and say sorry and move forward. (If our issues were deeper than frustration over looking at ONE BILLION church logos that he’s working on when I’d rather be ANYWHERE ELSE, we’d have to hash it out further.)

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In my eight years of writing on the Internet, I have been lucky to have very few encounters with mean people or mean comments. My personal site is basically an online journal about my family and myself, and I don’t really talk about controversial subjects that would cause people to cross from ‘respectfully disagreeing’ to ‘being a douche canoe.’

The same goes for this column here and other sites I do freelance writing for. I mean, such sites love it if you push the envelope a bit, because it gets people talking and that’s the name of the game. Even then, I’m considered to be pretty mild in the world of bloggers.

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Over the course of our (almost) thirteen years of marriage, my husband and I have traded the “top spot” of primary breadwinner. Until last April, I had the “coveted” spot of bringing in the higher pay check and then our roles reversed. Since then, he has been working two jobs and I’ve been working half-time hours. I’d like to find more work so that he can ease off of the labor job he’s doing, but so far we’ve been out of luck.

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My husband and I have chores that we are in charge of that definitely fall in the realm of “pink and blue.” He chops firewood and takes out the garbage, I do the grocery shopping and make all of our meals. I’d use the argument that we do them because we love them (I love to cook!), but dealing with garbage isn’t necessarily something that gives my husband the feeling of fulfillment.

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As we all know, February 14th is fast approaching. Valentine’s Day (or Love Day, as I refer to it)(Old school The Simpsons reference, there) means that we have to buy enough Valentine’s Day cards for three different kids’ classrooms. My kids are all talking about a Valentine’s Day dance at school (I DON’T KNOW EITHER) and each of their teachers are running with the them for the entire month of February.

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My husband and I share a bed — and a bedroom, obviously — but I’ve heard stories of couples who have their own rooms. Their own rooms! All to themselves! I suppose my husband and I do have our own rooms, in a sense. I have a craft room and he has his spousal avoidance center workshop, but when it comes time to go to sleep, we go to the same room and the same bed.

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I don’t get sick often (that sound you hear is me knocking on wood), and usually only succumb to one doozy of a cold/flu per season. Part of the reason is the healthy lifestyle I lead and the other part of it is the fact that my kids are no longer preschoolers who bring home every germ they encounter.

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