My husband has decided he will begin working from home as of the first of the year in anticipation that this will lead to retirement a few months later.

(cheers from the readers)

(pause)  (pause)

RUN!

No, no, no. Surely, this will be ok.

RUN FAST!

No, I’ve thought this through.

Obviously, he thinks he is the only one that knows how to load the dishwasher properly, or use the remote control. He leaves the lights on when he leaves a room and sometimes the kitchen drawer is wide open and I run right into it when I turn the corner. But, it’s not like we haven’t actually lived together before.

Maybe we’ve developed our own little idiosyncracies over the years, but over time we have also created a clear division of responsibilities.

He cooks – we determined him superior in this effort many years ago and have never looked back. He seems to enjoy cleaning the floors – ugh, I hate cleaning the floors. I like to dust. He’s not the kind to sit around all day or be lazy. For us, these are not the problems…

Monday through Friday, coffee lasts in my world as long as I want it to. After coffee, I may very well walk right out the door and pull weeds from the flower bed for an hour, still in my favorite pajamas and bedroom slippers. And then there’s the mud mask.

This concoction gets slathered on my face once a week, it turns green. No one should be a witness to this. If he’s home…..

I am a ToDo list kind of person. One is created on Monday for the entire week. The problem with my list is that I might procrastinate almost everything on that list until Friday. Meanwhile, I may run for a few hours every day, work in the yard a few hours, take a nap, write to this blog, play the piano…..if he’s home, what will happen to this lovely schedule?

If he’s home….

…the house won’t be so quiet. Dinners will be marvelous and they won’t take place on the TV tray in front of the TV – well, unless we want them to. The floors will be happy. And, won’t it be nice that I don’t have to send him a text message when I find a snake is hanging from the ceiling in the kitchen for fear my screaming into the phone will disrupt his staff meeting.

The dogs adore him as do I, and we will all be glad he is home. It’s a new chapter in our lives and we’re ready! (I think.)