I'm a marriage counsellors dream

He or she would make millions off me.

Let me preface this by saying that my house has NO curb appeal. It's boring and bland. No worries about resale though because so are 90% of the houses in this area. They are ALL garage with a house hidden behind it. As I told the real estate agent when I bought the house though, I didn't really care because I wouldn't be looking at the house from the outside... much and I love the inside. Anyway, every year for the past few years we have put a lighted Santa on our Master Bedroom's window (it's right above the garage). It's the one time of the year that I don't completely hate the outside styling of my house. It's not perfect but it's all right. This year when Daniel was putting up the Christmas lights he comes in and says he will put the Santa up in a few days because its getting to cold to work. "Fine, whatever I said - why was he asking my permission." Oh if I could take that back. I'm such a dolt -- NEVER put off something Daniel can do today for tomorrow IF you actually want him to do it.

So the Santa sat in our front Hallway for a few days and then it migrated back to its home in the basement and there it sat for about three weeks. And then it snowed. Surprise, snow in late November, who would have expected that!?!? So now its too dangerous to climb on the roof or set up a ladder in the driveway. Awwwww.... But wait - is this a brief thaw I see? Not quite but close enough. I saw it coming 2 maybe 3 days earlier and commented that it might be an opportunity to get the Santa up (I was very disappointed that it wasn't going up; so were the kids). Daniel was tellingly silent. So Monday it hit 5 C (41 F) and rained a bit. I recommended that Daniel borrow the neighbour's ladder, telling him that neighbour X would be home by about 3 pm. Daniel didn't say a word; I was secretly hoping that he would get my Dad to help him (its a 2 person job; one inside, one out) and get it up in the afternoon once the rain stopped and things had some time to dry up. As I caught sight of our snowless dry roof and dry driveway on the way home yesterday I was only a little disappointed that the Santa wasn't already up. I flew into the house enthusiastically proclaiming that right then would be an excellent time to put it up. Daniel finally replied: "It's not going up," he said. "It's too dark and too icy; I'm not getting on the roof."

All my passive agressive fervour kicked in. Well then I'll put it up myself I proclaimed cheerily (completly false cheeriness - I was trying not to rant as children excitedly buzzed back and forth). I whipped off my skirt and threw on a pair of chords and called the neighbour to borrow the ladder. I zipped to the basement and retrieved Santa, got an extension cord. Wrapped it appropriately in eletrical tape (to forestall electrocution) and placed ye-ole Santa out on the roof (from the window) in preparation for mounting. You need a ladder because once Santa is hung the window can't open so there would be no way back in the house. Then off I went to set up the ladder that my neighbour so kindly hauled over for me. I seperated my shoulder and tore my rotator cuff in September; my right arm is near useless. This wasn't easy. I got the ladder up -- wrong I later discovered -- and climbed up even with the roof. The ladder didn't reach the actual roof itself (was about a foot short) and I was faced with climbing to the top rung and then somehow hauling myself onto the roof. I wasn't at all sure how to do this and once 14 feet of so off the ground was terrified at the prospect. I climbed down. I climbed back up again. I climbed down. I had definitely expected Daniel to cave well before this point. I was pretty determined and by then I kind wanted to do it myself still I couldn't bring myself to actually do it (lucky thing to because the way I had set the ladder up I would have fallen). I went inside to get Daniel to hold the ladder for me (ha!) because I thought that I would be more confident with someone holding the ladder.

He grumbled and told me to get inside he would do it. Victory! Of sorts. I'm shamefully proud of myself and my accomplishment. Ah well. We communicate so well... sigh.