Dutch Oven:
Definition 1: Farting under the blanket then lifting it up trapping your significant other under the covers.
HOW TO: Lying on your back in bed on a cold winter morning (or hot summer evening), fill the covers with your own hot gasses. Arrange the sheets in such a way as to create a flue or exhaust channel toward your significant other. Simultaneously lift both arms straight up slowly to draw in more air. Finally, let the covers fall rapidly to expel a rush of hot gasses up the flue toward your unsuspecting loved one.
Used in a sentence: Joy vomited on the sheets and all over her husband after he gave her a dutch oven.
Used in another sentence: Dutch ovens can create UNFORGETTABLE LAUGHTER and sometimes cause one partner to end up on the couch. OR lead to one really long pillow talk with tear flowing JOY.
Why do we make it so difficult sometimes? (A LOT of the time actually) We get caught up in the complex and trying to solve the BIG equation and we miss the simple flipping addition sign. You know, the one that really seems to work all the time.
After near 23 years of knowing someone and 17 years of marriage, all of the life experiences and the day in and day out routines and the constant change keeps adding these extra factors and denominators (Ok, now I’m starting to sound like an accountant – oh great!)
For me, I’ve learned to generally skip the long drawn out conversation or “nagging”. Honestly, it’s more fun to stick a quote or word on a board, go silent and watch him squirm trying to figure it out!
HA. Let’s face it, I know there is AT LEAST ONE person with me here… You know what you want or you need (whether it be from your partner, a friend, your child, your boss, etc.) BUT…BUT GOD FORBID you TELL THEM. Because if you tell them, then it doesn’t yield the same meaning or the same emotion. You want them to READ YOUR MIND and figure it out. Am I right? Because “I want you to WANT to do it not do it because I told you or gave you a hint to do it.” Cue the frustration. Read it again.
OR…. YOU don’t even know what the hell you want or need but that other person better know and deliver it dipped in chocolate with a bow on top on a Sunday morning when it’s sprinkling outside…
And then it all builds. And builds. And builds. And the equation has just gotten to be near a page. And what accountant can solve THAT equation?
Regardless of the relationship (your child, parent, friend) sometimes we need to take a step back and leave the complex and enter the simple.
This quote spoke to me… “All she ever wanted was unpredictable kisses and unforgettable laughter”
Is it really THAT simple… somedays, YES…. ABSOFLIPPINGLUTELY YES… it is THAT simple.
UNPREDICTABLE KISSES – The unroutine, non “hello, goodbye, goodnight” typical kiss. You know, the unexpected, unpredictable kiss on the forehead while cooking dinner, cleaning dishes or brushing teeth. The out of the blue pull my head close at a stoplight in the car until the car behind is honking. The push me against the wall and lay one on me like you mean it. The gentle peck on the shoulder, I’ve got you no matter what.
Not that the “routine” kisses don’t have meaning BUT the unpredictable ones just touch the soul a little deeper, you know?!
UNFORGETTABLE LAUGHTER – We’ve all felt this, right? It ranges from the laughed so hard my stomach hurts or until I cried, or laughed until I peed my pants… or I don’t even know what I am laughing at right now but I can’t stop. Because when you are laughing like this, you are NOWHERE else but in the moment and all else has disappeared. And since when doesn’t the simplicity of a good laugh take your soul away?
OK, I get it. I just made those two very “simple things”, complex.
Really, it’s just the simple stuff (like the unpredictable kisses and unforgettable laughter) that we are deeply yearning for. At work, it’s the simple stuff that gets caught in the grind – have you stopped and just chatted with your co-worker or given some simple form of gratitude or validation (without hidden agenda)
So… guys, girls, parents, friends, spouses, children…. Count backwards. Start with the simple.
I changed my quote board at the beginning of the week and not a word had been mentioned about it until…. the amazing dutch oven incident. I could NOT STOP LAUGHING. My response through tears…. “unforgettable laughter right there…” to which my husband replied “hashtag, try me!”
(Side Note: I did also receive some unpredictable kisses to go along with that dutch oven laughter.)
If you do not have a quote board, I encourage you to use this. (I challenge you) Send it to someone or your significant other. Or give simple a try yourself.
However, you may need to prepare yourself for a dutch oven!
Do not forget what simple can do for the soul. Try on simple for a day.