Beginning a life

It's beginning to look a lot like a family laden holiday full of pitfalls and possibilities. So many opportunities to shine or fail.

So let us make our list then!

First things first, determine your goals for the holiday. Is it important to meet all the family?  Maybe you both want a quiet holiday at home. Figure out what you want most of all and then schedule it. If your goal is family, make plans with each group. You may need multiple days and that is okay. Don't worry about how long it will take.

Next, gifts. You both need to agree on a budget for each other. Stick to the budget. Don't play games with it. You don't want to be on either side of something unbalanced. 

Now that you have a budget. Look for clues. If your significant other is a practical person, have they talked about something useless?  How about something that makes no sense?  These are clues. When all else fails, take a wild guess at something they might like, find something similar looking, then ask their opinion.  If they don't like it, go in a different direction. Keep trying. While a gift card is acceptable for many people, don't do that to your significant other unless they ask for one.

If you are really at a loss, here are some ideas:
Music
Jewelry
Movies
Jewelry
Automatic car starts
Jewlery

When in doubt, find something related to her hobby. 

This is also a good time to plan for their birthday and future holidays. See if they have a bucket - list that you can cross something off of. 

Finally, all the gifts are purchased, the decorating is done, now all that is left to do is wait for the right day.  So while you are waiting, make a tradition for your family. Go light hunting, bake cookies, watch old sci-fi movies. Pick something and make a memory of it. Then do it each year.

Some parting thoughts:
Your biggest gift (presentation-wise) should be to your significant other.

Once you start a family, they are your primary concern.

Don't let anyone tell you how to be a family.

Enjoy the holiday.

Oh! Hello, my noisy offspring!

Ahh sleep. The glorious periods where you succumb to unconciousness and relax.  Brilliant times of complete and total oblivion. These long times are what you will wish for as you start your journey. Your friends with kids were right.  Why didn't I get more sleep? 

Well, take heart, it doesn't work like that anyway.  Even if you slept for 20 hours prior to birth, chances are you will still be tired 12 to 16 hours later.  The bad part is not that you can't get enough hours, you certainly can between feedings, but that you only get about an hour each time. 

This is torture but you will get used to it. Here are a few things to remember that can help:
1.  It doesn't matter how long, just sleep. Even if you know you don't like short naps. You may not get much else.
2.  Your partner is just that.  A partner.  Not a minion.  Certainly not an enemy.
3.  Everyone is tired. Believe me, if your baby could stay asleep and not be hungry, they would. They don't hate you. They just only have enough stomach for a walnut. Just one.  How long can you go on one walnut?
4.  If baby can have a midnight snack, so can you. Just don't go overboard. (Also, don't have your snack be buttered popcorn.  Some smells are just too similar)
5.  Babies will let you know when they are hungry... except if they are sick, jaundiced, tired, lazy, bored, excited, scared, or hungry.  In these cases, they will cry an refuse to take food.  Trust me, they want the food, but the don't know what it is or that they need to stop screaming to get it. Keep trying. A bottle can help. Forcing a feeding schedule works best. Yes it means waking a sleeping baby every few hours, but believe me, if they go 4 or 5 hours without food, they will cry for ages and not take much food.  You will be up all night. 
6.  Mama is tired and sore.  Add to this the  possibilities of baby blues and depression that can happen now and we find her taking on too much. Even if it is just a couple hours in the evening, take baby and a bottle and let her take a nap. 
7.  Plan to take a weekend off after birth.  Don't go anywhere or do anything requiring getting decently dressed or meeting people you know.
8.  Let your wife be a baby too. Spend a day letting her rest and recover while you bring both mom and baby food.
9.  Go to bed early. I mean early. You won't get to sleep right away because it is new, but winding down will let you slip back and forth between sleep and awake easier.
10.  If your baby needs phototherapy, take them to a hospital and stay with them if possible. Children's hospitals are great about this, have the uv equipment, and go nuts about taking care of the parents as well as the baby. There may be home options, but they take longer and you also need to consider just how well you will sleep if you are worrying.  The nurses know what to watch for and can spot it long before you even know it is there. For your sanity, just go to the hospital.
11.  Your baby will eventually grow a larger stomach and sleep longer. Once that happens, you too will see sleep again.
12.  Hug your wife, tell her what a great job she is doing.

What to pack for the hospital

Having just arrived home from the hospital as a new father, let me share a few things you will need and what can be left at home.

Take a Kindle or book. You want something you can instantly put down and pick up as needed. If your wife is into a book, take that too.  I spent a good deal of time, both before and after the birth, reading to my wife. An added bonus here is that it instantly cements you in as the storyteller. This can help with gatekeeper syndrome.

Take liquids.  Soda, juice, water, anything. Plan on enough to last for 3 days. You can get tap water at the hospital but anything else is on you and may be at a premium if you buy it there.

Take cash or food. A large number of hospitals are starting to let guests order room service as well. However, while your wife's food is covered, yours is not; they only take cash at your room.  Plan for 15 dollars per meal and at least 2 meals a day. If you don't spend it, bonus.  If you bring food, bring a variety so you don't have tuna salad 5 meals in a row.  Most waiting rooms here have microwaves. Almost like they have the expectation that people could be here a while...

1 outfit for a newborn.  0-3 months is not newborn.  Trust me.  My daughter looked hilarious in the outfit we took.  I know it says 0 months, but trust me, this is different.

Burp cloths, receiving blankets, gloves.  They won't let you take theirs and you will want them 5 minutes into the drive home.
Note: baby nails get sharp quick.

Speaking of the drive home, clean the back seat.  You are riding back alone in the front. Mama will be next to baby.

Clothes for you and mama.  Take things that are comfortable and stretchy. Think pajama pants or sweats. Yoga pants work too. For you: whatever you don't mind wandering the food court and halls in as long as you can sleep in it.

Boppie. Do it. Now. Babies are heavy. 7 pounds never felt like this. You will also want to hold your baby, and you will want this fantastic armrest.

For labor: LED candles, aroma therapy oils, music, and anything else that makes her relaxed.

ALL YOUR MEDICATIONS.  I don't care if you haven't had an asthma attack in 3 years. Pack the inhaler. Stress will set off every thing you have.

Phone charger. Camera. Something easy to do together while she feeds baby.   In my case I read more. Whatever you can do to feel connected to her while she is feeding will be appreciated.

Donuts. Two dozen. Give them to the nurses station on your way in. They are going to be answering every little worry you have. They deserve it.

Last but not least:  earplugs.  Your wife is going to likely have a needle put in her spine. You know you can handle it. Just jam in your earplugs and don't listen to the doctor describing what he is doing. Otherwise, be prepared to meet the floor. It's nice and cool and full of laughter, or maybe that was the other people in the room. If you feel like you are having problems, let your nurses know. Apparently, while I knew what was happening and let them know - allowing me to get safely to the floor - some people try to fight it and don't say anything until they pass out. Then they hit their head and get a free trip to the ER where they miss out on the birth of their child.  

When it is all over, make sure you brought your emotional stamina. Your wife is about to take a wild roller-coaster of emotional fun and will need your support.

My deepest thanks to the folks at Good Samaritan hospital in Broomfield, CO.  You were all amazing.

Things they don't tell you

Finally coming into the last few days of our pregnancy.  (Yes, ours.  We are both in this together, right?)  Now to take a moment and look back at this adventure.  So many things run through your mind when you hear the first news.  So many of your friends will give you information on what to expect.  Oddly, so will a lot of strangers.  A large amount of this is rediculous. I don't care what your magical fairy waffle cone tells you, you won't be having a unicorn (or a raptor... sad). 

So what can I expect? 

Well, expect a lot of money to disappear.  Seriously, you won't know where it is coming from or even that it could be spent but it will leave you faster than a snow cone from satan. 

Expect time to disappear.
Before you know it, you will be in child care classes, CPR classes, new daddy classes, and how to pack for the hospital classes. At least the last one is usually taught by your wife, so the instructor is pretty good looking.

Expect junk food to disappear.
Somewhere along the line you realize your parents weren't as evil as you always said and they weren't keeping you from junk food out of spite.  There seems to be some wierd switch in our brains that flips to healthier.  Not healthy, just healthier.  Instead of a cabinet full of cookies and good and plenty, I have only a small shelf...

Expect your belt to disappear.
Your stomach will one day look at it and go, "That is a strip of cow.  I like cow."  You will never see it again.

Augh!  This is horrible!  Why would we do this? 

Well, simply put, you do it because you are biologically programmed to. 

That doesn't mean it is as bad as it sounds though. 

You never noticed the money in the first place, and some of it came from friends and family, so that's not so bad. 

The classes are actually informative and helpful. In addition, they can help you communicate with your wife.  There are some great researchers out there... look up master Vs disaster couples and learn about how to properly argue.  It may save your life.

You probably shouldn't eat so much junk food. But if you must, look at it this way; you know it is fresh now. 

As for your belt...  it was a good belt.

Something to consider though, I am a week away from our due date. The hardest part of it all has been seeing my wife deal with the discomfort of an ornery child trying to pluck her tendons like guitar strings. Waiting for baby to arrive is a close second. As much as I used to want to avoid children, I am really looking forward to my own.

Smart life choices

Every day comes with a certain amount of freedom and a certain amount of required things.  People have a tendency to try to determine what is a priority based on the people around them. To put things simply, though, you really can't make that work until you surround yourself with people who have goals and ambitions that work with your own.  So, in a very iterative process, we slowly work towards finding our own goals. We find friends based on our current goals, evaluate our goals, make friends who line up with these goals, then refine our goals further.

Marriage brings a new light and weight to this whole process. Where you once only had to worry about your own goals and choices, now you have another person who relies on you to make proper choices and work with them to create a happy relationship. If this feels like it is not always easy, then I have good news for you!  It is not always going to be easy.

A proper relationship, like anything else worth having, is going to be something you always work at. You don't get to take a break. You don't get to give up. You don't get to just do whatever you want. If you are thinking that it sounds like a horrible thing, you are wrong.

To be fair, it isn't your fault.  We spend so much time listening to people talk about marriage being all about compromise and servitude.  I don't see why it has to be either one. If you make one priority for yourself, make it this: learn to make your significant other happy within your means, then take pleasure in their happiness. 

Now, let us be clear: this is not a free pass for them to be obsessed with what you can get them. When we are talking about doing things within your means, I intend that you will be doing more and buying less. Open a door, drive her somewhere so she doesn't have to, go with her to her favorite store, clean that hallway that is bugging her, make breakfast once in a while (bonus point for delivery to the bed).  The idea is not to just buy things, but to make an honest effort to understand what will make their day a little brighter and then do it. Behavior like this tends to make the other person want to do the same and your significant other will likely take an interest in what makes you happy and try to make that happen as well. Once you reach this point, the prioritization of things becomes second nature. Compromise is no longer something you are doing, you are simply working to make both of you happy. You will soon find yourself moving trips to her store or spa up the list not because you feel it is required, but because it makes you both happy. Servitude, in the sense that you are doing things for them that you don't want to do, goes away as well.  You aren't doing things because you have to, you do them so they don't have to.

Make your marriage or relationship a priority for your life.  You may just find it to be the happiest thing you ever do.

One last note: reciprocity is important.  You should both consider this post.

On being a gentleman

What is a Gentleman?

Some would have you believe a gentleman is a mythological creature.  A lost part of history that may or may not have ever existed.

Many tend to bring up the term "Chivalrous" as if it answered the entire question.  They especially like to throw this around as it pertains to women.  The code of chivalry I have read contains only one line about women:
To Respect the Honour (if we are going that far back, might as well spell it their way) of Women.

In reality, Chivalry is NOT dead; as so many people like to throw out. Rather, we seem to have forgotten a bit of it along the way.  In an age where Kings ruled and Knights were there for the protection of a realm, it became apparent to someone that the ruling class should have some rules themselves.  The primary idea of Chivalry was that the upper classes must act in a way befitting someone in such a position.  Thus, if one could afford a giant stone house and the people to clean it and guard it, one could afford to treat those unable to do so with a bit more compassion than they treat each other.  A king should always act in the best interest of those he ruled.  A knight, as an extension of this ruler, must also always act in the interest of those being ruled.  They must be honest, trustworthy, and not the kind of person to use another for personal gain.  No one ever starts out this way.  It is a decision to be made by each person.

As the ages of kings died out, the rules governing men of this level were continued on in Gentlemen.  Men of sufficient upbringing to take on the responsibilities of the Ruling class.

So how should a Modern Gentleman Act?

Well, largely the same, really.  The basic tenets of the old code are largely still applicable with only slight modifications.

- To protect the weak and defenseless - seems rather straightforward.
- To provide aid to widows and orphans - no argument there.
- To refrain from the wonton giving of offense -  Wait, trolling is bad?
- To live by honor and for glory - got it: shut up, mean what you say, do the right thing.
- To despise monetary reward - Look, we can disagree all over the place here, but bottom line, do it because it should be done, not because you might get money for it.
- To fight for the welfare of all - Maybe not with fists or swords, but support something.
- To obey those placed in authority - As a thinking person, I can mostly agree with this, If it is wrong, then fight to change it.
- To guard the honor of fellow knights - how about to guard the honor of everyone?
- To eschew unfairness and deceit - don't lie or cheat.
- To see something you started to the end - Okay, I am sure I am not alone in needing to work on this one.
- To respect the honor of women - (modern day; modern spelling) just do it.
- Never refuse a challenge from an equal - unless it is a stupid challenge that goes against any of the above.


One last thing:
If you are dating my daughter, I am the person in Authority, and no, you may not challenge it.  I am NOT your equal.

The front door postulation

What if I told you there was a simple way to help ensure the future happiness of both you and your partner?  What if I told you it would only take a few minutes a day and is as easy as saying two sentences?  The next time your significant other comes home, try these steps:
1. Put down whatever you may be doing.
2. Walk to the door.
3. Hug them (really mean it; don't just go through the motions)
4. Say, "Welcome home, my <insert term of affection>!" (If you are at a loss, try: love, dear, wife, husband, life, etc..  Remember to use a positive term; heinous money sink probably won't produce the desired result.)
5. Ask how their day was.
Now for the hard part:
6. Listen to what they tell you.
7. Determine if they have had a good day.
7a. If they have had a bad day, listen to what made it bad.  Do not act yet.
7b. Once they have told you why they had a bad day, listen more. 
7c. Keep listening until they have really finished.
7d. Now, ask if there is anything you can do to improve their day.
7e. If they give you something to do, do it properly.
8. Repeat this daily.

Now, some notes about the above.  If you are in the middle of something that you can not put down immediately,  welcome them home, let them know where you are and what is keeping you. Once it is safe to do so, put down whatever you were working on, then follow the steps.  Finally, only let it stop you if it would be unsafe to put it down.  If it's the middle of a football game, buy a DVR and pause it. Your significant other will appreciate the attention more than your team.

If you follow these steps, you may just find they are happier and willing to even let you return to things you were doing. They may not even hate sports/nascar/hunting/hairstyling or whatever else it is you want to do.  They just need to know you value them above your hobby or project.

Taming the wild beast

Okay, so we have learned that we must split the work.  We have learned to cook.  We have learned to only give gifts as gifts, not as penance.  All done here, right?  Nope.  Not even close. Now that we have a few basics out of the way, we must dive even deeper into home life. We are about to move into the dreaded realm of handy work.  

Oh the horror!

Yep, it is time to learn a skill. A proper skill that will save money, if not time. Plumbing or basic electrical work are both handy skills. I am not saying you should be able to replace a tub or wire up a whole house.  The ability to repair a leaky toilet, or replace an outlet that has gone bad, can save both time and money.

In my personal experience, most jobs seem like more work than they are. A leaky toilet can be a simple bit of sanding glue and a new part.  A bad outlet is a couple screws (maybe 7).  The cost to have someone do this for you is probably somewhere around $100, and most of that is labor.  The parts for each of these repairs are probably less than $20.  In addition, most hardware stores will be happy to walk you through the repair.  They usually have books on all types of repairs as well. 

Do yourself a favor: get a book, read up.  Get a basic understanding of how it works, then learn to fix it.  The money you save, and the time you don't have to wait for someone to fix it for you, will make you both happy.

Oh, don't screw it up, and don't be stupid.  Electricity is deadly and water is destructive.  Really make sure you understand how to safely work on each.

Team work

This is a subject with which I have significant difficulty.  Having spent a significant number of my younger years avoiding work, I know that I am very good at it.  With that said, my goal with my wife is not to let her do more than she should.  I struggle everytime I hear that she is working because I am worried I have slacked off too much.  Ideally, neither of us would have to do any work.  I keep looking for a way to make that happen but the answer keeps hiding itself and mocking me.  Thus I am forced to conclude that I am going to have a certain amount of work that must be done.

Ok, so how much is mine?
Let us set a total workload of: laundry, dishes, cooking, cleaning, lawn work, and painting.
Okay, well we could divide it up based on a guess of the number of hours required.  We could sort it alphabetically and cut it in half.  We could separate, one inside and one outside.  We could play poker for it... the list goes on.  In reality, as far as I can tell, the actual answer is: all of it.   I am responsible for making sure it all gets done. 

Hold on now!  How is that team work?  You have all the work, what does she have?  Well, she has all the work as well.  You entered into a real relationship where you both share responsibility for everything. If the lawn doesn't get mowed, it isn't her fault any less than it is yours.  If the dishes aren't done, you are just as much at fault as she is.  Yes, you are quite capable of cleaning.

Take responsibility for everything that needs to be done. Truly work at the entire list.  If you both work on the same thing then you have each other to talk to and keep company.  If you work on separate things, that is fine as well.  Just remember,  if you come in from mowing the lawn and she is still working at the sink, pitch in and help.  The beer after will taste so much better with her by your side.

Also, before you leap at my eyes and spleen for typing in traditional gender roles, ket us remember that I am trying to help men be better husbands. The first step in breaking gender roles is for all people to realize they don't have to define you. 

My wife can weed whack better than anyone. 

I'm off to make potatos for dinner.

Application of Linguistic Principles

Oh my!  Cast your gaze upon the overly large words in that title!  English, like so many other languages, is a massive beast.  Most words have at least one other word that can be used in their place with a bit of brute force.  The fact that a word can be understood in a particular position does not mean it is the proper use of the word.  Even song writers are becoming lazy and are setting poor examples.  The first guy to approach me with the question, "Can I have your daughter?" will find himself quite saddened by the response he receives.  I am going to have a daughter shortly, so this seems like a perfect example of poor life choices brought to us by music.

I imagine there are a few people rolling their eyes at this point and calling me names for being fixated on grammar.  It is possible that, even now, they are wildly typing on their phones to their friends about how much they "H8 GRAMer naTZEES."  I am, surely fatally, wounded by this attack on my life choices.  I will now limp away to hide with my personal loathing of idiots who can not be bothered to type complete, and properly spelled, words.  Let us consider the query for a moment.  You would like my acceptance, encouragement, and permission, to request my daughters hand in marriage.  Your care, however, in choosing your words is significantly lacking.  If you are unable to use a word properly, can I really be expected to trust you in taking care of my daughter?  For the people "H8"-ing things: we have developed full qwerty keyboards on our phones now; the cause for you to shorten words has been removed, stop being lazy.  Finally, if you are unable to determine what to capitalize, please remember that a special portion of the Internet was created for you; return to AOL with all haste and never darken my comment section with your filth.

With the continued popularity of Facebook, Twitter, instant messaging, and other similar services, people seem to forget the beauty and inherent variety in the language.  Great artists spent years writing love stories and sonnets.  People carefully crafted stories and wrote them into books for all to enjoy.  Your words are an opportunity to demonstrate your intelligence.  More importantly, the right words have the power to make your lady aware of how much you care for her. 

Do not <3 your lady.  Really go for it all; risk carpal tunnel and type the whole word out.
 
I have never seen anything truly amazing with a title resembling "DUD3-n-GRL!!!1"

The Dark Art

He viewed his prey, laying there, waiting.  He took his time and selected the knife carefully.  It needed to be sharp, it needed to be the right length.  He positioned the victim on the board carefully making sure the grooves would catch anything that ran off the side.  He brought the knife up and down in firm, fluid, strokes.  Slowly and carefully he chopped the onion up into small squares and added it to the pot.  The soup would be delicious...

WAIT!  Don't Go!  It's just cooking!  Yes, my friend, you can do it too!  Cooking is a very important skill for anyone to have.  Without being able to cook, you are doomed to paying a large amount for just about any Italian food worth eating.  However, with a little time, a halfway horrible cook can still produce a decent soup.  A reasonable one can do much more.

Cooking is easy enough.  Take a pan, add food, heat and stir until food is combined and appears to be cooked.  Once you get a few basics down, you can start experimenting and working on foods you like.  In addition, try finding someone who doesn't appreciate a home cooked meal.  My wife likes my food so much that if there is cooking to be done at home, I am usually doing it.  Surprisingly, it is fun once you start.

Try something easy to start with:
-Take 2 slices of bread and butter them on one side each
-Take 3-4 slices of cheese and place them in-between the slices of bread, butter side out
-Heat pan to Medium-High-ish and spray with cooking spray or add a small amount of butter to make pan shiny.
-Place sandwich in pan

-Wait a minute or two then use fork or flat object (or even a spatula if you have one) to flip sandwich over.
-Wait a couple more minutes then remove sandwich to plate.

Congratulations, you have cooked a meal!  Offer it to your significant other, then make yourself another one.

If you find this was well received, try making a soup next.  Soup is easy to make and pretty forgiving when adding flavors and trying something different.

I recommend Italian soups for starters.  Garlic and tomato are pretty familiar to most bachelors and it is easy to tell when you have enough of both in a soup.  Since we are working to end the existence of the bad bachelor (the kind who doesn't want to be one, not the kind that does), small changes will help more than sweeping ones.


One last word of advice: If your wife says "Let's have [insert fast food chain name here] tonight," don't argue.

Flowers

Well now you have done it... You screwed up and your SO (Significant Other) is upset with you.  So, flowers right?  Wrong!  Sure, it sounds like the right thing; you screwed up so you get them something nice to help make up for it.  The only problem here is that it lessens the effect flowers can have at other times.  Worse yet, if you do it enough, they will start seeing flowers as a sign that you have done something you know you are going to be in trouble for ("Uh oh, he's got flowers again").  Remember when you bought them flowers for a first date?  How about on a holiday or a birthday?  If you buy them flowers because of the wings you spilled on the couch too, it just wont have the same effect anymore ("Happy Birthday, dear! Here's some more of what I got you when I screwed up!") Bottom line: Don't use a gift as a way out.  If you want to give them a gift, give them a gift.  Don't give them gifts because you think it will soften the blow or decrease the time they are angry.

A flower is a simple gift that shows thought about a person.  It doesn't have to be roses; they don't have to be expensive (though showing up with a handful of dandelions is probably not the best move).  When properly thought out, flowers can be a wonderful surprise that can brighten your SO's day.  Since flowers do not cost much, they are something that you can use on a somewhat regular basis to let your lady know you care.  I have never seen my wife complain about getting flowers.  I have seen her get confused when I tell her she received flowers because it was Thursday and therefor she needed flowers.  It is perfectly okay to have your lady be confused by a good surprise.  Try it: on your way home tomorrow, stop somewhere, buy some flowers, take them home, present them to your lady.  When she asks why, tell her the truth: "Because you deserve them."  If you have taken the time to think about them, they have made a decent impression on your life.  If you are willing to buy them flowers, I would say they deserve them, wouldn't you?

As for what you should do when you are in trouble?  Try a heartfelt apology.  It sucks having to deal with all the consequences of your life choices, but in the end, "I am sorry I got wing sauce on the couch," is better than "No really, I did not do anything wrong this time!"

Limits

Why does your SO feel it necessary to clean when you don't?  They have a lower threshold for a mess than you do.  A simple way to think about this is the kitchen sink.  Some people can not deal with any dishes in the sink.  Other people can deal with dishes piled 3 feet high in the sink.  Some people don't care as long as the Glade Spray can cover the smell...  If your SO has no problem with 4 plates in the sink, but when you add a fifth they demand the dishes be done, they have a 4 dish threshold.  To deal with this, you could simply wash a dish every time you hit 4 dishes and then you wont exceed the threshold, or you could do them all when you hit 5 (the trick being to start cleaning before they have  a chance to say anything).

You need to be aware of your own thresholds as well.  If you know that you can only deal with 2 dishes in the sink, while they can deal with 4, they aren't putting 4 dishes in the sink to spite you; they do it because until they hit 5 dishes, they don't think about it.  If it really bothers you that much, clean the dishes so that the antagonist is gone, then when you are calm - and preferably when they are getting ready to put more dishes in the sink - talk with them about how the excess dishes make you feel.  It may seem stupid, but really it is just a conversation.  If you feel too stupid to bring it up, maybe that is a sign to re-evaluate your own thresholds and decide if they need to be adjusted.  Either way, don't expect change overnight.

Thresholds exist for all people in all things.  If you are really into sports, your threshold for watching or playing them is probably high, several hours or more.  If you are in a hospital, your tolerance for the channel that only displays relaxing pictures and ads for hospital sandwiches, which you are not allowed to have, is likely to be low - 5 minutes or less.  Motivation can adjust this threshold to some extent.  If you know the doctor won't let you go home until your blood pressure drops, and the big game is coming up in a day or two, you might watch that Lies of Sandwich channel so that you can watch the big game later.

I, personally, have a chin-up threshold of 0.  If I have to do more than 0 chin-ups, I am going to need a lot of motivation. 

Division of labor

Take a moment and think about the last time you had fun cleaning the house.  I don't mean sarcastically; I mean, when was the last time you truly enjoyed cleaning the house?  Remember the thrill you felt while you were vacuuming?  What about the sheer bliss of scrubbing the bathroom?  Not to mention the thing you found under the refrigerator (was it breathing?), wasn't that exciting?  All these fun memories that never occurred.

Let us really think about cleaning... If you aren't already cringing, you should be.  Cleaning is boring and infuriating.  On the long list of things you could be doing, it is probably at the bottom - next to flossing your eye-sockets - in terms of desire.  This is perfectly normal and healthy attitude. 

Now, I am going to let you in on a secret.  Your significant other feels largely the same as you do when it comes to cleaning.  They don't like it either.  Really!  They do not see pink fluffy bunnies all over, nor do they hear happy music when they think of cleaning.  They think about strangling you with the sock they just picked up off the bookcase where it seemed like a good place to rest it for a moment while you took off the other one.  Sadly, however, you forgot to take it along with its mate to place them both in the hamper.  Now you have a sad sock-family and an angry Significant Other (SO from here on).

With so much to do at home and so much to do at work, it can often be overwhelming to think about it all.  Once you start, you rapidly become disinclined to work on it because you see there is no way you can get it all done in one day.  This is especially true if you are working on it by yourself.  So we come to our next bit of advice: Divide the labor.

To be clear, I do not mean that one of you should take all the home chores and one should do all the money earning.  It also should not be about trying to find an even amount of work.  Equality is a moving target.  A particular responsibility can be easy to work with until something changes.  The trick is to break each item down to its simplest actions and then look at what can be done and where some logical break points are.  For example: I really used to hate doing laundry.  When I helped my wife with it though, it wasn't so bad.  So what changed?  Well, I found that it wasn't laundry as a whole that I hated.  I was okay with running the loads down, checking pockets, applying stain stuff to any stains, sorting and running loads, swapping to the dryer, and bringing it all back up.  I loathed folding and hanging.  When my wife and I worked together on it though, she usually watched tv and folded while I ran the loads up and down.  Suddenly the work was not quite as bad!  I ran the loads around which saved her from knee pain from the evil stairs.  She folded and put items on hangars which meant no hangar shaped wall dents.  Then I would hang the clothes and put away the folded items (unless she got to it first). 

Try your best to identify what household chore most annoys your significant other and then see if it is something you can do instead or something you can assist with.  Once you have identified something to help with, and a way to help, then do it.  The trick here is to try not to think about how much you hate it as well.  Think about how much of a relief it will be to them when they realize they don't have to do that part.

The beginning of the end

As with anything, we must always start with a beginning.  Since I am newly (7 months) married and will be a father in about 4 months, I seem to have a lot of new beginnings suddenly.  Since this started off with a discussion of how I am making my wife's coworkers jealous, I will start with the proper treatment of a lady...  I am sure this will take a while. I also know that I will eventually get to saying that making your lady pay for the first date at anything with a jingle is a whole mess of wrong; this will anger some people.  As a man, I like things simple.  Thus we arrive at our beginning:
Buy a scalp massager.  It looks like a whisk with one end cut off, and it will make your significant other feel incredibly relaxed.  Buy it and use it well...