Saturday, March 21, 2009

Cranky Reason #4: Our Priorities Conflict

Reason #4: we have differing priorities. Well, of course we do, we're different people, no matter how much our boundaries may have blurred the last 27+ years. The reason this is an issue for Skip and me is that, as I noted in the first post of this blog, I am her "pair of hands" for many tasks. When there's something she wants done that's a high priority, but I either don't value it or, worse, resent having to do it, it's a set-up for crankiness on both our parts.

De-cranky strategy: explain our feelings to each other. I think sometimes we take for granted that we know each other inside out after all these years, so believe we know what makes the other tick. When Skip explained to me her feelings about birdwatching and all the pleasure it brought her, it made the putting out of seed, peanuts, bread and corn cobs (yes, all these things are distributed outside every second day) for the creatures of the forest much easier for me. Before it was more than a nuisance, as buying all this stuff adds up and it encourages squirrels to hang out around us ... squirrels that do a lot of damage. I'm still not happy about this task, but I understand how much Skip values it, so I don't resent it anymore.

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