Tonight my craft entry is dedicated to Tom’s craftiness. He wanted to share a past project we did. In all fairness though, my family provided the dresser, and that was really all my input. Well, that and picking out the tile. Tom did all the work and deserves all the credit!

My parents are getting ready to downsize, so they are getting rid of a lot of things, one being this old dresser. As you can see, it needed some major upgrades.

We wanted to make it into a kitchen island. I will never forget the argument that ensued before we started this project. Tom and I had the hardest time communicating with each other what we envisioned for this island. We both lost patience with each other and were too stubborn to actually hear what the other was saying. That was the longest drive from Jeff City to Ames. (It is really difficult to fight while you have a 5 hour drive ahead of you. You can’t really escape it.)

Needless to say, we still have issues from time to time communicating with each other. And only being able to talk in brief spurts does not help. Tom has gotten even shorter with his patience after being trained to give information as quickly as possible, and because I don’t get much time it only makes sense for me to want to explain everything from every which way and being extremely long-winded. It’s an awful combination. So naturally, we get into tiffs every now and then trying to understand each other. Fortunately, we are mature enough now to call each other out and know when we need to step back for a second. And most of the time, we realize that we are more frustrated with the situation than we are with each other. But you take it out on the people you love most, right? Even though we have spent a majority of our relationship apart, we still have to find that balance with communication, and it needs tweaking every now and then.

And trying to figure it out when the blasted phone hangs up on us every few minutes is lame. Although, to be honest, that may soften us up a bit and make us forget what we are arguing about or realize that it was pretty dumb to be arguing over the Sprint account password. We become more frustrated with the phones than with each other, and then we get all mushy with the “I’m sorry” goodness. Delightful.

Then there are the small things about instant communication that I miss. I miss being able to tell Tom anything whenever. You know when you do something really embarrassing, and you want to tell someone how ridiculous you were? Tom is that person I can tell, and he will laugh at me, but he wouldn’t think anything less of me. (He does continue to razz me about things though.) Like talking about having a dog wedding or how I recently have forgotten to zip up my pants on many occasions. (FYI, I would appreciate you all not staring at my crotch. I already feel like a little kid forgetting so many times.) Today we had a conversation about bodily functions that 5 years ago would have disgusted Tom to pieces. Now, it is just what it is. When I talk to Tom, it’s like I open my mouth and all my insides just spill out. It’s just nice to have someone to just be completely open with without holding back because of embarrassment. Now Grace gets the brunt of my embarrassing moments, and she handles it pretty well. She never laughs at me, which I can’t say about my husband. Hmmmm, maybe I need to rethink this…

Besides sharing these things with my dog, I have resorted to still sending Tom texts with my ridiculousness. He is not able to see any texts right now, so it is going to be a real fun when he gets a few dozen of them by the time he comes home.

When you get right down to it with relationships, you have to learn to how to communicate. We have had to work really hard with this, especially with the changing dynamics of our relationship due to distance/circumstances. We are constantly trying to figure out each other and make the most of the situation. I think the fact that we are really open with each other helps us grow stronger together. We definitely don’t always agree, but we somehow manage to make it work. And part of that is understanding the art of compromise. Like this dresser for example. We both wanted it to look a certain way. At first we had a lot of trouble communicating what we wanted, but eventually we found ways to show our intentions and designs. From this, we had to compromise and meet in the middle with our ideas and blend them together.

I think the result is pretty awesome! Tom did a great job putting it together!

Now the dresser that my brother and I used as target practice, is a beautiful island that we use everyday.