She's going, going, gone!

Another round of Writers' Workshop with Mama Kat, and Thursday finds me at work trying to cram to much stuff into a full day. But the prompts appealed to me and so I'm in for this one.

I am choosing to tackle the first prompt today....

10 reasons I am better off with out her.

10. I have to be a better house cleaner! She was awesome at keeping house, and I got spoiled having her around to spearhead the cleaning tasks. So now, I've been forced to come to grips with having to clean a three bedroom house with two bathrooms and still do the yard work. I AM a domesticated man.

9. Cooking! I love to eat (as most men and all people do). Now I am the head chef at the house. I have had to learn to cook for one as well as still cooking for groups. And my recipe book has been expanded in ways I'd never have imagined. My culinary skills now include, soups, deserts, finger foods, all sorts of grilling, a heck of a salad with all the extras, and even some questionables like quiche, crepes and broiled vegetable dishes!

8. Personal finances. In the ten years she's been gone I've bounced three checks. Compared with the one year we paid 900 dollars in bounced check fees, that is a major improvement. I also cleared 12 thou in credit card bills, manage to max out my IRA each year and put away to help the kids learn about investing. I sleep well at night these days.

7. Closet space. I actually get to use the closets. There are not 200 pairs of shoes, three complete wardrobes, or a separate closet full of outfits that are waiting to be reused once some one's extra weight is lost.

6. Crazy in-laws! My kids may still have to deal with them, but I don't. Enough said.

5. Bed cover fights. Our battles in the middle of the night over sheet dominance were epic stuff. I even nailed the sheets to the frame of the bed on my side once. She was not amused.

4. Uncle Red. Yeah he doesn't stop buy the house once a month anymore, and I DO NOT MISS HIM. It was those three days a month where the in-laws seemed sane to me.

3. Clean cars. One of my pet peeves. All four of my cars are clean, not a single piece of fast food trash in any floorboard of any of them. I have had one brand new car in ,my life, and I only had it for five months. Then she "needed" it because she was pregnant. I got her P.O.S. Volkswagen Rabbit. She even wanted me to trade my "new" car in on a new one for her as she was taking everything from me she could on the way out the door. Didn't happen. Your leaving with our kids, half my paycheck and all the stuff you want from our house, honey! Get fucked, the car is staying.

2. Time. After she left, I found myself with a lot of free time on my hands. I actually started taking college classes again. I've been writing my poetry, working on my genealogy projects, travelling and playing rugby again. I almost forgot what it was like to be able to do the things I enjoy instead of being on someone else's clock most of the time.

And the number on reason I am better off with out her....

my kids are not here. That forces me to make them a priority in my life in order to see them. I schedule my vacation time around their availability. I plan weekends to get them and spend time with them. I can't take my time with them for granted anymore, because it is precious these days.