What is that?
I *think* it has something to do with relaxing and not rushing to do the next thing. Despite my best efforts to keep our holiday season peaceful and relaxing, it has been hectic here the last few weeks.
But between the hectic Thanksgiving preparations and the more drawn-out, hectic Christmas preparations/activities/visits, Sid and I had one evening of “down time.”
It sprung upon us unexpectedly the Saturday evening after Thanksgiving. Our last guests had just departed hours before. I swept through the house, cleaning the kitchen, sweeping, washing clothes. Exhausted but happy children were put to bed a little early.
But Sid and I were still wound up. You know how it is when you are all hyped up and busy, busy, busy . . . . . . and suddenly . . . . . . . . .it is all over and all the urgency of things needing done is gone? And you are left kind of tired, but with a nervous energy humming along the body circuitry?
I found myself wandering through the quiet house, piddling. I picked up an artist’s canvas, opened a box of acrylic paints and dabbled mindlessly. Playing with the paint and seeing the effects of different strokes on the canvas.
Eventually, the house seemed too quiet. True, the children were in bed, but Sid is not a quiet person by nature. Curious, I went in search of him.
I discovered him in the next room, completely absorbed in seemingly important work at the kitchen table.
Awwww, my poor hard-working man must be putting together another job estimate or business plan.
Whooooeeeee, this is some serious work. He has a crease between his eyebrows, and he has worked so long on this that his whiskers have sprouted.
Relax man! This kind of work is turning your hair gray. People might get the wrong idea and think those grey hairs are the result of living with ME.
“What are you working on, Honey?”
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Huh?
Well, this IS the same man who spent our beach vacation calculating the curvature of the earth for fun. While I read a complete fluff novel about teenage vampires.
And tonight, while my husband is producing a mini-school lesson on Dr. Seuss, I am dabbling in paint . . . . . . . . .
The thought crosses my mind occassionally that we are mismatched. Maybe he thought I was brainier when he married me.
Since my dabbling was not producing a masterpiece, I decided to express myself artistically with my camera instead. I had a fine male specimen before me to practice on, and it was high time I learned what these little buttons and knobs on my nice camera do.
With just a little bit of practice, I could so totally take pics like Pioneer Woman. Who needs to read an owner’s manual anyway?
Does my subject look bored to you?
Ummmm . . . . . . . .let me turn this knobby thing to the “P” setting, whatever that is and take a picture.
Hey, wait a minute! Where is he going??!!?? I’m serious about this. Really. This is about art.
The thought of taking hundreds of pictures of Sid to see how long he would sit still for it
never
crossed
my
mind.
In a lingering way.
The thought just flitted through the back of my mind. Very quickly.
Note to self: figure out how to take non-blurry pics of fleeing subjects.
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So, I wonder . . . . . .do other people fritter away unexpected down time in strange ways like counting the occurrence of Dr. Seuss words or terrorizing their husband with the camera?
Prairie Sings 
There are only 50 different words used in that book. Or at least, that’s what my research from high school told me. I never thought to sit down and count them.
Why does it not surprise me that one of my husband’s siblings “researched” Seuss and number/frequency of word usage in his books?
To me, Dr. Seuss was someone who wrote strange books with lots of rhyming. I had no appreciation of Seuss at all.
OK, it really puzzled me that Sid was doing this. And you weren’t telling us the reason. 🙂 I knew he had to have a reason. I enjoyed this post, and I think you might not have intended for Seuss to take the spotlight, but I was lying in bed later that night, and the mystery surfaced in my brain again, “Why in the world would Sid be listing the words in the book?” Then it hit me. I recalled many years ago hearing that Seuss wrote that book because someone challenged him to write a book with only (some limited number, turns out to be 50) words.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Eggs_and_Ham
Aha! Sid was verifying that there really were only 50 words. The tick marks beside the words threw me off, because it looks like he’s counting the frequency of each word, but that’s just a side effect of the method of counting unique words.
So today I came to post this answer to the mystery, and I see that Sandra beat me to it. 🙂