After I posted yesterday's resolution, I got several questions about the measuring cup... As luck would have it, today's resolution has everything to do with the measuring cup, so I'll be able to offer some explanation.

Because my husband is the great man that he is, I know he won't mind me jabbering more about the stupid measuring cup.

Whenever Luke gets sick of frosted mini-wheats (or whenever I decide I hate costco too much to go get more frosted mini-wheats,) Luke eats oatmeal for breakfast. And whenever he eats oatmeal, he measures it (seriously who does that?), and then puts the measuring cup on the counter by the sink. He eats his oatmeal, washes the bowl (really really carefully because I flip out if there's caked on oatmeal when I empty the dishwasher), and puts it in the dishwasher. But the measuring cup gets left behind.

For a few days, I just put the cup in the dishwasher, figuring that he just forgot. But then it became very clear that the measuring cup was intentionally left out. I remembered a marriage book we had read that talked about trying to limit your nagging to a time when your spouse is accepting of being nagged, and to try to not nag them about too many things all at once. I am a shining example of how NOT to do this.

When Luke came home that day, probably from a long day of work while I sat around being pregnant all day, I said "So, do you know that you never push the scale back in? And I emptied the dishwasher today and there was caked on spaghetti sauce on everything. Oh, and do you know that you leave a measuring cup out every single day? What's up with that?"

Oops.

Anyway, he said he didn't really know (or care, understandably) about the mystery of the measuring cup. We came to the conclusion that he used a measuring cup pretty much every day for the same thing, and it seemed silly to use 7 different measuring cups for the exact same, not really messy thing. Of course since I kept sticking it in the dishwasher, he had to get out a new one every day anyway.

As I've mentioned before, we also had an issue with the bathroom scale. We've never had a very large bathroom, so the bathroom scale is always pushed up against the wall, usually under towels or other stuff, making it necessary to pull it out in order to use it (really stupid, I know). And most mornings, when I walked my pregnant self into the bathroom (obviously not wanting anything to do with the scale), I shuddered to see it in the middle (read: 6 inches from the wall) of the bathroom. And every morning I would sing "groundhog! groundhog!" (think How to Succeed in Business.) because it felt like I was living the groundhog day movie and seeing this stupid scale in the middle (again read: 6 inches from the wall) of the bathroom everyday.

And naturally, I was not quiet about my irritation.

Today, however, I resolve to love the groundhog. This does not mean ignore the groundhog, or even to work on not being so upset about the groundhog. This means going out of my way to make things better for the groundhog. So today, I am going to put a measuring cup in the oatmeal container, and I'm going to talk to Luke tonight about a good place to put the bathroom scale. Two easy things to help me to love him better. And obviously, I win too. Joy all around.

Option 3. Win. Win. Win.