Do You See It?

Do you see my new blogskin? It was a hard fought battle, but I finally got it.

Okay, so it wasn’t really a battle. It was just a long wait.

Kris and I went to the Opryland Hotel on Friday evening and stayed until Saturday around lunchtime. Our wonderful Sunday school class had given us this opportunity as a Christmas gift and true to form, we waited a while to use it. It’s sometimes difficult to find a weekend that works for Kris, his job/client, me, the boys and a babysitter. One night away sounds so simple…but it isn’t.

Anyway…we had a great time and I accidentally started talking about my blog.

I say accidentally because I don’t like bringing it up. Once I ask for something, once it’s well known what I want or need, I try to just shut-up about it. I mean…isn’t the continued communication pretty much the definition of nagging? I don’t like nagging. It sounds horrible spilling out of my mouth and I always…ALWAYS…regret it. So it’s not that we haven’t talked about it, but I haven’t done a lot of asking in the past few years since I first made my desires known.

For those of you just now getting in on this saga…you read that right…“past few years.”

Some of you remember this post about it. We did talk about it then, but he just kept making this face and sort of turning to the left like he didn’t want me to see how frustrated he was. He gave me part of an explanation and then sort of mumbled his way into another room. I wasn’t ever sure if I should chase him, or pray for him. It was sort of strange actually.

I consider Kris one of the best communicators I’ve ever met. For him to nearly refuse to communicate was just odd.

I now know that it was because he didn’t know why he didn’t want to do it. Turns out there were/are multiple reasons that it was a much larger burden than I could have known.

In the past I have presented him with my artwork and he has turned it into a usable blog skin. This took time on his part. Sometimes there was a back and forth between us where he needed me to make something a different size or color, change the format, whatever. Always, he would patiently do what needed to be done without bothering to educate me in the process. I didn’t know what it took, or why it was tedious, and frankly, I didn’t want to.

Things have changed since he last did this in like 2005. He’s busier, we have different/updated computers with different operating systems, we have not updated the graphics software we’ve used and some of it isn’t cooperating so well. There are other issues that I don’t totally understand in my non-computer brain, but all these things were bringing multiple and sometimes indiscernible hurdles that just got taller and taller with each passing year.

This past weekend, somehow, conversation came round to my blog and I gave him my kitchen analogy. We’ve talked before about the importance of using word pictures when communicating and I was still under the impression that he didn’t fully understand how important or how frustrating this whole thing was to me. I expressed to him how I felt the way he would feel if I left him in the kitchen alone and expected him to cook for everyone. I said, hamburger helper gets old after a while. That’s about all he knows how to cook.

Some couples have a share and share alike mentality about what they do around the house. Kris and I share parenting responsibilities, entertainment choices, love of good food and some cleaning responsibilities, but we both are very content to have our own expertise in the rest of our world. He does gadgets, electronics, 9 to 5 job, media and money. I do household responsibilities, writing, cooking and spending. He has no more desire to learn how to use my kitchen and all of it’s gadgets as I do to learn how to make my pictures centered with a simple HTML code. This works for us most of the time, but no system is perfect. Sometimes it makes it difficult to explain to the other party why we can’t have lasagna tonight even though we have all the ingredients. There are other factors involved.

he was hearing only what I said and not who I am.

 

So it was with my blog skin. We spent a few hours with him telling me what can’t be done and me trying to change the subject as I regretted bringing it up. I don’t like hearing what can’t be done, especially when I see other people doing it. Finally, some of his explanations started to get through, and I was able to communicate my own willingness to scale back on the request. I didn’t know it would cost that much money to get new software, or that it would take that much time to make it work, or that the blogging system we are using could do everything it can, or that he was hearing only what I said and not who I am.

Almost always willing to make something work, somehow, someway I gave him my “what ifs” and we began discussing what IS possible instead of what isn’t. What a difference.

I asked for a new background color and the ability to change my header. I told him what I was looking for in the way of layout and then sent him the RGB colors and quickly came up with a header that I liked. I used some elements of my grander ideas from before and just put something together quickly with the expectation that I would have the freedom to change it at some point. Once it was done, I really liked it.

Several things worked out much better than I even expected and I’m so happy now I could squeal. I literally woke up thinking about it. It was like the day after Christmas, knowing I would have new toys to play with.

So, what’s the lesson in all of this? I don’t know. I don’t think there’s one big answer, but I have learned a few little things to tuck away for future use. In general, we do a pretty good job of communicating. We’re one of those couples that can look sideways at each other and know what the other one is thinking. Some situations though, require a little more than a glance and we each could have done better.

Now, I have an error message when I try to upload pictures. Y’all pray for me now.