These should’ve been my husband’s last audible words… because the “we” he was speaking of was nonexistent. Unless of course you count the fact that he finally put away HIS clothes that had been laying in a pile (of defiance on my part) for over a week while I wrangled a toddler while 30 weeks pregnant so that I could simultaneously sweep, mop & sanitize the kitchen & dining room floor before moving onto vacuuming and shampooing the living room and hallways. I’m sure he took a 45 minute shit somewhere in that 90 minute window as well.

While he started load #1 of garage sale dishes in the dishwasher I moved on to picking up and cleaning –all- of the toys in the living room, basement, and toddler room. Cleaning up the baby room and trying to see what can fit where and how to make it “work” with cloth diapering. Doing all the laundry, whites, towels, sheets, toddler, him, me, animals, clean washer, etc. Cleaning all the bathrooms, even with shitty ventilation, I know, my bad, got a little high. He was on load #2 when I was done with all that, when I asked what he was doing while washing machine was doing it’s job… “looking up how much we can sell this stuff for, do you know this ONE plate goes for $30 on ebay, I just watched it sell after three bids”… yes ladies and gentlemen, he was monitoring ebay for dishes I bought knowing I’d sell a few since we have zero need for 23 coffee mugs, 22 dinner plates, 20 salad plates, 25 bread plates, 19 saucers, 6 tea cups, gravy boat & tray, 4 serving platters, 4 serving bowls, you get the idea, it’s a large set.

Side note on this: I grew up with my grandparents mostly who had this set of Cornell that I later found out was called “crazy daisy” which made total since that my grandmother would’ve picked it out in the 70’s since her name was Daisy. It was the ONE thing I wanted when my grandparents went because that shit survived kids & teenagers for two generations, certainly it could survive in my house. Well, we moved, I packed up two boxes of the set and happily took them with me. My husband had a friend who needed help and we moved him in… only for him to screw us royally and make it clear that if a 40 year old doesn’t have his shit together, don’t let him move in with you to try to help him get his shit together… long story short, my two boxes went missing when he left… I was crushed. I scored a couple of small sets off ebay before last thanksgiving and it was perfect, and about $89 after shipping. The part about this set that makes me additionally happy is that my husband grew up with the exact same set, the first time he came over to help me clean up my grandparents’ house he did a double take in the kitchen and starting laughing. So when I saw that my neighbors had this huge, giant, colossal set of crazy daisy I didn’t even hesitate. She said “oh those? Make me an offer” $100! She laughs. $200! “that’s not why I’m laughing, how about $50 for the set?” … If I weren’t wearing my toddler on my back I would’ve been jumping up and down, while laughing at her terrible negotiation skills, I told her about my two small sets that I paid almost $100 for after shipping and started to beg her to take the $100… she didn’t but couldn’t believe they were worth anything… so yea… the husband doing research on them… I can see taking up some time.

But when you see me recruiting our toddler to help me drag laundry hampers down the stairs maybe get off your ass and help out instead of watching ebay.

I’m convinced he is only alive still because I was too exhausted to hide the body…

-Ella