Expectations and Dishes and Games

Married life has been... different than I expected.
The last month has been a little crazy. Z went back to school (as did the rest of the world) so we see each other less and have even more demands on the time we do have together. By the time we get home each night we are too exhausted to enjoy each other's company. Which is... disappointing, to say the least. I have especially been overwhelmed with the demands of keeping up with my work, life, and housework, meals, laundry...
But dishes seem to always be my downfall. I can't keep them under control. I can have every dish in the house clean when i leave the house, come home and there is a sink of dishes. Then I have to rush-rush make dinner before I can deal with them, and by the time dinner is ready, the husband is home, and we need to spend time together, or workout, or i just don't have the time to finish all the dishes before crashing... and then I get up the next day and the same thing happens again. I hate dishes. Then just throw on top of that... last night my husband started lecturing me about over-filling the dishwasher, because the dishes were not meeting his standard of clean, and I was just done. "I guess if you do dishes more often, you won't have to deal with that issue, will you?" I snapped at him and went and pouted on the couch.
He said nothing as he finished putting away dishes, reloaded the dishwasher, pushed it across the kitchen and hooked it up to run yet another load. Then he came into the living room and smiled at me. And I love him so much, I couldn't pout anymore because he saved me from the dish monster trying to eat my soul and crush my spirit.
I suggested we play a game. And for a moment he looked at me like I was crazy, then went downstairs and grabbed a couple board games (we got a whole collection for wedding gifts!) and we spent about two hours playing board games last night... in the middle of our living room floor... laughing and having a good time. I liked it.
Usually our time spent together is watching TV or chatting in the car on the way to somewhere. But it was really fun to have no where to go (and no dishes taunting me!) and no TV or computers on... just a low-tech board game, a little friendly competition (He won LIFE, I won Stratego-- which I think hurt his feelings, just a little), and some valuable time together.
Sooo... married life is different than I expected. Never thought that dishes would become my nemesis, and my husband my hero for occasionally rescuing me from them. I never thought that the greatest night of my month would be in the middle of my living room shoving little plastic pieces across a board. I didn't expect that the little things would be the things that make or break us. Last night they made us GREAT.
(smile)