How to Win Points With Your Wife by Sneaking Around With Her Friends

This weekend I learned some things and I thought I would share it with the blogosphere. From the title you may be a little skeptical that this will actually end well. Never fear, what follows is sound advice. This is a step by step guide and I can assure you that following each step verbatim will help you win success. Now down to business.

Step 1: Ensure your wife has excellent friends

Step 2: Be contacted by those excellent friends about your wife's birthday which is still more than 2-1/2 months away.

(At this point, you may be saying to yourself, "Tom, I don't have any control over these two steps. How can this guide apply to me?" I don't really have an answer for you.)

Step 3: Set up the weekend with those friends.

Step 4: Tell your wife you've decided to take her to an undisclosed vacation house for her birthday. Remember, this is only a cover story.

Step 5: Plan some activities that you think everyone will enjoy. I went with snowshoeing, but that will have to depend on the people involved in your group.

Step 6: Decide that the vacation house idea is actually  a great idea and not just as a cover story.

Step 7: Book the vacation house via homeaway.com.

Step 8: Wait. (The weekend didn't get here yet.)

Step 9: Maintain the deception by saying "All you need to know is places and things" when asked by your wife about where you're going.

Step 10: Take advantage of your day off (just prior to the weekend) to get the house ready for guests. This must be done on your day off while the wife is at work so that she doesn't know it's happening and become suspicious.

Step 11: On that same day off, while your wife is at work, go get the friends from the airport. Stop at Costco etc. to get the stuff you need for the weekend.

Step 12: Wait quietly in the living room while your wife pulls into the garage.

Step 13: Sit nonchalantly in the living room while your wife comes home after a typical stressful day.

Step 14: Enjoy the surprise.

Step 15: Execute the weekend plan. Have a great time.

The Good Old Days

A couple of times last year I heard someone say "I wish I had known that it [whenever they were talking about] was "The Good Old Days". It is human nature to fail to see the good in the current situation as well as look back on history with rose colored glasses. The current moment is filled with all kinds of anxiety and uncertainty, but when the dust settles, you normally don't remember all that. Earlier today a friend of mine posted this quote on Facebook:

"It's almost impossible to underestimate the unimportance of most things."

The quote didn't have an author cited. There are so many little details that seem so important at the moment that it can be difficult to weed through them all. But, looking back on your life you rarely remember all the circumstances that existed around a particular event or day in the past.

Several weeks ago I started thinking about this. What parts of my life do I call The Good Old Days?

There was a short period right before my mission. I had good friends and a good job. I didn't worry much about money and every Saturday night we went midnight bowling at Olympus Hills Lanes. It was a brief time because I knew that missionary service was right around the corner. That was a good period.

Sometimes I really miss school. Believe it or not, I actually miss those late-night cram sessions with my classmates prior to the Mechatronics test that we knew was going to be brutal. I distinctly remember the last such session on my last finals week. I left the Warnock Engineering Building at the university at about 10:30pm and as I walked to the car I could feel the disappointment. School was a good period.

But the time since school has been the longest sustained good period of my life. I'm in that first-job-out-of-college period of life. I have bought a house, I'm building my career, and now I've had the opportunity to become a parent. And through it all, I've had Chelsea to share it.

And Here's the fun outtake:

I think what I'm trying to say is without a doubt, I'm going to look back on THIS time in my life as one of "The Good Old Days".