More Romance. (Hey, that’s what I write!)

I read yesterday’s post to Carol. She was pleased, I think. Well, I’m pretty sure she was—do you know what we did last night??

No, that’s none of your business.

Anyway, this morning she commented, “You know, you didn’t mention some other things I’ve done.” So we had a discussion about them. And I decided you need to know just how talented she really is.

Since we bought this house we’re living in—some 20 years ago—she has not only laid a bunch of tile flooring. She has also:

1) Re-textured most of the ceilings. The original stuff had been sprayed on (cheap). It was dusty, but if you tried to clean it the beads and flecks of texture would flake off. So Carol scraped it ALL off and re-textured by hand. Some of the ceilings are uniform, others have a swirl pattern. One room has no texture, but a hand-painted “sky” scene on the ceiling.

2) Wallpapered both bathrooms.

3) Put up a wallpaper mural in the front entrance hallway.

4) Re-painted most of the baseboard moldings.

5) Stripped and re-finished the surfaces of the bathroom cabinets.

6) Re-done the kitchen wall surfaces to look like they are tiled with Mexican hand-painted tiles. Her method? She applied drywall “floating compound” (the same stuff she textured the ceilings with) to the walls and then scored vertical and horizontal lines in 4-inch squares to give the appearance of tiles. She then hand-painted many of the 4-inch “tiles” with pictures of fruits and vegetables, birds, and so on, before painting over the entire surface with a glossy clear lacquer finish. The effect is of a tiled wall.

(Take a deep breath. I’m not finished.)

7) Mastered many features of Adobe Photo Shop on the computer. All of the Africa pictures you can see in the journal on my web site were cropped, re-touched, or otherwise modified and re-saved as JPEGs by her.

8) Completed a number of outdoor landscaping projects.

9) Made many of her own garments (she sews like a pro).

10) Made (from scratch) wedding dresses for both of our daughters, and for one of their best friends who was almost like an adopted daughter to us.

(Another deep breath, please).

During the first six of those 20 years she also home-schooled our daughters from 6th grade through high school. In case you’re wondering, both went on to get a BA degree. One of those (Elizabeth’s) was magna cum laude.

WHEW! There’s more, but I sense you’re approaching exhaustion.

Yes, I married a combination of Wonder Woman and Super Girl.

Yes, I’m the luckiest man alive.

Why did she ever stoop to marry someone who isn't even close to being Superman? Well, you’ll just have to read my book (once some really smart publisher recognizes how well-written it is and how popular it will be and what a great movie Hollywood can make of it, and publishes it), because the whole story is in there.

Maybe opposites DO attract.

Meanwhile, I guess I’ll tell you what we did last night. After our round of golf yesterday afternoon (she shot an 89—a bit high for her—but she played the back nine from the forward MEN’S tees, not the ladies’), we had Chinese carry-out for dinner, and went to bed early. That’s all the details you’re gonna get.

There. I have the best marriage of anybody I know. Am I qualified to write romance stories, or what?