EP80 - The Deck

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi, everyone, this is Dawn Klem, and you are on my podcast, Milkweed and Monarchs. Today I'm going to talk to you about the difference between the sexes, especially when we're talking about husband and wife. So, as you can imagine, I'm married to Craig, and Craig is an engineer. Everything he does is completely precise and accurate and he measures things four or five times just to make sure it's perfect. He never wants anything out of line. His closet is perfect. His car is always clean. So he is just. I mean, our yard is meticulously maintained. He definitely has engineering brain and a type A personality. And then there's me. I always thought, is it man and woman or. I think it is personality type because I've known women that are pretty meticulous too. So anyway, I am much more laid back about things. I wouldn't say our house is perfect. My closet is a mess. I take clothes in and out and then I don't put things back and then I rumple it all up. I mean, has a place, but it's not neatly taken care of. So I do keep the kitchen clean. And we do have a housekeeper once a month, which we got after I retired. I'm like, what'd we get when I was retired? Why didn't we have a housekeeper when [00:01:49] Speaker B: I was working like a dog? [00:01:51] Speaker A: But anyhow, we can afford one now. So we have a housekeeper and it is really nice. It's very nice because she'll do more detailed work like the microwave, the hood over the stove, and we have a gas stove and then she definitely does a great job. In our master bathroom, we have a glass and shower. And that's kind of a pain in the neck. So it's really nice to have a housekeeper do all that kind of stuff. The more specific details that I guarantee you my husband wish I was doing, but I'm not. [00:02:26] Speaker B: Okay. [00:02:28] Speaker A: So we had been married probably about two or three years and we were working on our house. It was just a small little house when I moved in with him and we got married. The upstairs was unfinished. And by unfinished, I mean it was just the studs with some insulation in it. It was not finished at all. And so we knew that we were going to be working hard on our house to get it to where we thought we wanted it to be. My dad was very much like Craig, very, very, very much. Very anal, as we used to say. For instance, he had a medicine cabinet. He had his own medicine cabinet in the bathroom. And my mom had her side, so his side was in Perfect order. Let's say I just happened to go in there to borrow a pair of fingernail clippers or toenail clippers. If I didn't put him back exactly in the right space, he would call me out. Well, he wouldn't call me out. He. He would say, who is in my medicine cabinet today? You didn't put the fingernail clippers back in the correct spot. So that's how he was. And same thing. Very meticulous in the yard. Everything was perfect. All his tools were in a perfect place in the basement. He was always very neat and tidy. His cars were always immaculate. Okay, there's my mom. [00:04:03] Speaker B: My mom and I, very similar. You'd go into the bathroom, and her side of the bathroom was like makeup everywhere. Hair ties, hair nets, I think they had back then. [00:04:15] Speaker A: I mean, just everything was chaos. I remember opening her drawer going, good God, this is a mess. [00:04:20] Speaker B: You know, toothpaste all over the place. And then it was almost like an invisible line was down the middle of the bathroom. And you would go from the messy side, my mom, to the meticulous side, my dad. [00:04:37] Speaker A: So I'm like, oh, my God, I married my dad. What was I even thinking? I do. I am neater than my mom, I have to say. But I'm definitely not as meticulous as my husband. And this became very, very obvious when we decided we were going to build a deck on the front side of our house. My dad was really excited about it, and he volunteered to come to Maine to help Craig build the deck. So my parents came to stay, and so Craig and I went to the store first to get the wood for the deck. So we went to get the pressure treat. We went to either Home Depot or Lowe's, one of the two. And this is how he is. He picked up every single board, put it to his nose, looked down the board to see if it was crooked or if there was anything that looked out of place with that board. If there was any little problem, he would put it down, say, no, not good enough. Then he'd get the next one. I swear to God. We were in Lowe's or Home Depot for. For probably an hour and a half, picking out a bunch of boards. They're just gonna be outside on our. For our deck. I'm like, oh, brother, what was I thinking here? But anyhow, we get it all loaded up, we get it back to the house. My parents are coming in in a couple days, and we're gonna be all set to get this deck started. So the day comes and Craig and my dad go outside. My mom and I are in the house and we're getting ready to cook lunch, or we're keeping the kitchen clean, trying to get things organized. And we're talking and laughing, having a good time, you know, and we hear some hammering going on from here, here and there, but not like I really thought it was gonna be. And they had probably been out there about three hours. And so I said to my mom, well, let's get lunch ready for them so they can at least take a break. And I'll be excited to go out there and see how that deck is turning out because we've been waiting such a long time to get this done. So we, we made, I think, soup and sandwiches or whatever, and we had everything all ready to go and the table set and all that kind of stuff. And I venture outside, I had to go out back and around to the front and I get to the front deck and there's not one. [00:07:28] Speaker B: Not one. [00:07:29] Speaker A: I'm not kidding you, not one board nailed in yet. Like a what in the world? What is going on? Why don't you have anything done yet? [00:07:45] Speaker B: My dad takes me aside and he goes, don, I don't want to say [00:07:48] Speaker A: anything to Craig, but he has looked at every single board at least five times and there's not one board that he wants to use to get started. [00:08:00] Speaker B: I go, what are you talking about? [00:08:02] Speaker A: We already looked at all those boards. I already spent an hour and a [00:08:06] Speaker B: half with him in Home Depot looking at those boards. [00:08:10] Speaker A: Those boards. We already knows they're fine. He knows they're fine. We looked at him, we checked them [00:08:16] Speaker B: out, they should be good, good to go. [00:08:19] Speaker A: He said, no, he finds something wrong with every single one. I go, that is the most ridiculous thing. Okay, no, this is not gonna happen. He goes, what do you mean? I go, after lunch, I will be coming out to help you build the deck. [00:08:32] Speaker B: He goes, what? I go, oh, yeah, yes, I will. I will be right there. [00:08:38] Speaker A: So my dad is kind of chuckling to himself. [00:08:40] Speaker B: Me by poor dad. He's stuck in the middle between the two of us, right? [00:08:45] Speaker A: So we get in there and we had a good lunch. It was about like a half hour, 45 minutes. And the dad took like a 20 minute nap. And then we're all set to get back out there. And I say to Craig, oh, I'm coming up too. He goes, what? I said, yes, I am coming out too, because by 5:00 clock tonight, that deck is going to be done. He goes, what are you talking about? Just What I said, I said the [00:09:11] Speaker B: deck is going to be completely done. [00:09:14] Speaker A: I don't know what you're doing. We looked at every single board already. Don't give me any of this nonsense. You looked at all the boards. The boards are exactly the ones you wanted to get. You know, they're perfect for the deck already. [00:09:29] Speaker B: Stick. [00:09:29] Speaker A: Stop looking at the boards and start hammering them in. [00:09:33] Speaker B: He started laughing. He was like, okay. So I went out there with them and I just. [00:09:40] Speaker A: They get one hammered in, I'd hand [00:09:42] Speaker B: them the next board. And pretty soon then my dad was [00:09:46] Speaker A: working with them and things were going [00:09:48] Speaker B: along pretty good and they were both [00:09:49] Speaker A: kind of cracking up about everything was. [00:09:51] Speaker B: I'm like, chop, chop, time's a waste and we have no more time. Let's get this done. Okay. So finally, at the end of the [00:10:04] Speaker A: day, and I think it was really closer to 6 o', clock, the deck was completely done. I am happy to report. But it took me going out there in order to get the deck done. The deck is just an example of how the whole house went with him. [00:10:23] Speaker B: I am not kidding you. [00:10:25] Speaker A: Okay, same thing. So we've got the upstairs and we actually slept in a bed upstairs. And with the drywall open like that, the drywall wasn't in. So it was just the insulation and the paper backing of the insulation. I'm like, oh, we can't get this done. This is ridiculous. I'm tired of sleeping up here. Plywood floors and insulation, Isn't that a great thing? Like, get going on this. I'm gonna help you. Let's get going. So he's like, okay. So he and I hung all of the drywall for our master bedroom. There were only two bedrooms up there. Two bedrooms, the master bedroom and the other bedroom. It's a Cape Cod style house. And the bathroom. We did all the drywall ourselves. We work during the day and we get home at night and we put the drywall up that help him put the drywall screws in. We had it all done and he wasn't too as picky about the drywall [00:11:34] Speaker B: because he knew that it was going to get painted right. [00:11:39] Speaker A: So we get that all done. And then his Uncle Billy came up and he did the coves and the corners of the roof to make sure everything was done perfectly between the wall and the ceiling of the rooms. So he came and did that part for us. And then it was all set and I hand stained all of the trim for the baseboards and the doors that we were going to put in up there. And and so we were like a team. And. And it was going pretty good until it came time to paint. [00:12:19] Speaker B: And then that was a whole nother thing again. [00:12:23] Speaker A: He's like, well, you. I think you'd be fine painting the ceilings, and the ceilings aren't that tall. And you got one of those big rollers, right, that you can use to paint the ceiling. So I put the, you know, paint on the roller, and I just go down the long line of the ceiling, and I think I had done, like, maybe three strips of it. And he comes to check on me. [00:12:50] Speaker B: He's in the other bedroom working on something. [00:12:53] Speaker A: He's like, what? I go, what do you mean, what? He goes, this is terrible. [00:12:57] Speaker B: You're doing a terrible job. Look at that. That's starting to run right there. It's drippy. [00:13:03] Speaker A: I mean, I'm short. Come on. I could barely. The fact that I even had a roller in my hand that was tall, [00:13:10] Speaker B: more than I could do. [00:13:12] Speaker A: And I had never really painted a room before, so this was new to me. So he says, you're fired from painting. [00:13:20] Speaker B: Like, really? He says, yeah, you're fired. I'm gonna do the painting, and I'll have my dad come up, and my dad can help paint, too. [00:13:30] Speaker A: I'm like, you got to be kidding me. Go, no, I'm completely serious. You are not going to paint anymore. You did good staining the. I did the window sills and all around the window, the doors and the baseboard. I stained all of that. So I was allowed to do that, but I couldn't paint. And his Uncle Billy did the coves, and we got everything all ready to go, and it was looking pretty good. I had to go to work. His parents came for the weekend just to help us finally get this whole thing buttoned up. We bought a shower stall to put in, shower tub stall to put into the bathroom. And we actually lifted it up through the window in the bathroom to get it in there. I don't even know how we did it, but we did. We managed to get it in there. And then when I was at work, we had picked out carpet that we wanted upstairs, and we're just going to have it all carpeted and then tile in the bathroom. So they said the carpet will be put in when you're at work, and when you get home, it'll all be done. So he and his dad and his mom were all there, and I was really excited because we were so close to finally being done. I think it took us. It probably took us a couple of months Just to get this done. But when Craig and I were first getting married, his dad said to us, [00:15:06] Speaker B: I'll never forget this either. [00:15:08] Speaker A: He said, he's had that house for two years, and he hasn't done a darn thing on it. He says, it's about time. You're married now. [00:15:16] Speaker B: Get that. [00:15:16] Speaker A: Get that house done. [00:15:18] Speaker B: There's no excuse. I'm like, wow, we do work full time, by the way, you know, but that's how his dad is. Is like, slave driver. [00:15:28] Speaker A: So, anyhow, I'm at work. I had the worst day, the absolute worst, worst day of my life that day. We had a patient. I was working in the nursing home, and we had a patient that they wanted to put on something similar to a home ventilator. Well, most of the time, patients that were on ventilators were in the hospital, and it was at a time when they were starting to think, you know, how costly it is to keep patients on ventilators that probably aren't going to be able to come off from them. She was elderly, in her 80s, and she had had rheumatic heart disease when she was younger, and so her lungs were not functioning very well, but they thought she could still stay in the nursing home if we could have home ventilator to be able for her to just have that. So she was breathing comfortably. And, dawn, since you're the director of the unit, you are going to go to the hospital and learn how to take care of a ventilator. Like, you got to be kidding me. [00:16:39] Speaker B: Okay. [00:16:39] Speaker A: Because it was going to be me learning how to do it and then me training all the other nurses on how to do it. So I had spent a very stressful day, A, at the hospital and then B, getting her hooked up to the ventilator in the nursing home. It was probably one of the craziest days I had had there in A, since I had worked there, and it was stressful. Well, in the meantime, they're putting the carpet in at home at our house, and so I'm kind of excited to get out of there. I want to go home, see how everything's turning out. It's finally getting to the point where it's almost done, and. And we were excited to, you know, get things moving with this house. So I call on the phone, yeah, it went in. It went in. And I'm like, oh, good. I can't wait to come home. His mom gets on the phone. She goes, I need you to pick up a few things from the store. [00:17:39] Speaker B: Work into myself. Really? [00:17:42] Speaker A: I've Been working all day. What have you been doing? [00:17:45] Speaker B: Isn't that terrible? But I was frustrated because it was really hard to be able to, you [00:17:52] Speaker A: know, manage working full time and managing your in laws full time. [00:17:57] Speaker B: It was not easy. [00:17:59] Speaker A: So I stopped at the store. I got all their stuff too. And I get home and the very first thing I wanted to do was run upstairs and see how did the rooms finally look? They finally got everything in. All the flooring is in, including the tile in the bathroom. And when you go up the stairs, the bathroom is straight ahead. So I could see that right away. And it looked fantastic. I go into our bedroom, I'm like, oh my God, it's so beautiful. It looks so good. And I go into the other bedroom. Oh, I was so, so happy. I'm like, well, where's Craig? He's in the back, he has to relax. He's drinking a beer. I go, what do you mean? [00:18:43] Speaker B: What do you mean? [00:18:45] Speaker A: He said that was so stressful for him. [00:18:47] Speaker B: He had the worst day. [00:18:48] Speaker A: And I'm thinking to myself, no, I [00:18:50] Speaker B: had the worst day. What are you talking about? [00:18:54] Speaker A: He goes, he was so stressed out when they were putting the carpet in because he was afraid that they were going to scratch all the baseboards that, that you had stained and varnished and he didn't want to have to redo any of it. I go, you've got to be kidding me. Says, no, he just about had a meltdown while they were doing it and he was double checking them all the time. And I don't, I didn't even know if he was going to be able to get through the day because he had so much anxiety sitting there thinking, [00:19:32] Speaker B: okay, this is how it's going to be done. You are in a profession that worries about life and death. He is an engineer and he worries about functionality, of day to day things [00:19:50] Speaker A: and everything being perfect. [00:19:53] Speaker B: How is this going to work? I really was like, I just don't know because I was so annoyed that they were trying to tell me. [00:20:04] Speaker A: And then both his mom and dad were coddling him. Oh, that's you, you. And I'm like, this is ridiculous. Of course. [00:20:11] Speaker B: I'm like, what is the matter with all of you? Are you kidding me? [00:20:16] Speaker A: I'm trying to get a patient on the ventilator and you're worried about baseboards being scratched up? Well, that's how it was. They were all angry at me for [00:20:28] Speaker B: speaking out like that. [00:20:30] Speaker A: And his dad called me, from that moment on, you're nothing but a career girl. [00:20:36] Speaker B: So I'm like I hope, I hope to God that this is going to be a marriage that I can stay in because on that day I really found out the differences between, between an engineer and a nurse. [00:20:58] Speaker A: I hope you enjoyed my story today. Craig and I have actually been married 32 years now almost 33. [00:21:07] Speaker B: It's gotten easier as time goes on really. I am much more laid back now and I, I get who he is so there's not a lot of fighting like there was in the beginning when I'm like get a grip but it's [00:21:24] Speaker A: just an example of how when you come together in your mind you have decided how you think it's going to go and in their mind they have it decided how they think it's going to go and if you went into [00:21:41] Speaker B: my parents bathroom he would see how it went with them and that's just the beautiful part of being married and [00:21:52] Speaker A: learning how to cope with each other's little idiosyncrasies. Until the next time.