so lucky

so I had a lot of downtime yesterday while waiting for people to call me back about resident managing stuff... and I'd already cleaned my kitchen, cleaned my bathroom, done my ironing... anyway, my point is, i watched quite a bit of pointless television yesterday :) has anybody else ever seen "trading spouses"??? I caught the beginning mostly just to see 'what the heck?!?' but it actually turned out to be... surprisingly interesting (not in a gross way tho. they sleep in separate rooms)

apparently the whole premise of the show is to see "if the grass is really greener on the other side" and two wives trade places for a week, and each family gets $50,000 but the guest mom gets to decide how it gets spent.

that wasn't the really interesting part tho. the interesting part to me were the families. one was a rocker family (the parents were rockers in a band. they lived life very differently from most people. but, surprisingly, they had a daughter who was a home-schooled, very self-disciplined ballerina), and the other was just a regular suburban family... with 3 grown children STILL LIVING AT HOME, where the mom felt walked-on, and the kids basically worked evenings, partied ALL night, and slept ALL day. very strange. the mom was an ennabler. and a martyr. I actually had more respect for the rocker parents.

but the part that REALLY got my attention were the husbands. they were both totally different from each other, and they each had their good and bad points, but watching this pointless show made me so INCREDIBLY grateful for the amazing man that i married...

~ I don't think other people really see this side of him, but my husband is really loving and gentle. It's adorable.

~ I never feel that my husband takes me for granted.

~ My husband always treats me with respect

~ He does his fair share of housework, and does not treat it as something that I should be doing simply because "I'm the woman"

~ My husband is not a slacker. Sure, we don't always agree on what qualifies as time spent productively, but at least he finished university and has a good job and has aspirations.

~ My husband does not act like a dumb teenage boy that still thinks that potty humor is the coolest. At least not that I know of :)

~ We laugh together. A lot. I love it.

~ I'm also really glad that we both have the same religious beliefs, which includes no drinking/smoking/drugs. I can't imagine what some women put up with - I'm so glad I don't even have to worry about that.

~ I think he's going to be an amazing father. We talk all the time about different scenarios of parenting and what we think would be the ideal way to handle things (easier said than done, I know, but at least we think and talk about it!) and more often than not, we have similar ideas on what good parenting means.

There are tons of other things, but the most important thing is that

~ My husband loves me. One of the hubbies on the show, when asked how he felt about his wife being gone for a week, said something to the effect of "she's never been gone since we've been married. I think of this upcoming week as a VACATION, where I can finally just relax". That just made me so sad that he thought of his wife in that way, as somebody who inhibited his fun. I'm glad to know with confidence that Paul would miss me if I were gone, just like I miss him when we're apart. lol but at the very least, my husband wouldn't be so thoughtless as to say that about me, because he's considerate of my feelings! :)

I guess that pointless television isn't so pointless after all, if it can get me to count my blessings, right? :)