Funny Guy Friday... One word... maybe two...

     Funny Guy Friday is written each week by my husband Mark. So... I married a funny guy...
     I came home from work the other day, and taped to the door was the word ARISE. Not sure why it was on the door, but I figured it had something to do with the day's home school lesson. Cheryl will use bay windows to conjugate verbs, solve math problems, and do art work, so the word ARISE taped to the door did not stand out as odd. A few days went by and ARISE never came off the door, but still, I didn't ask.
     Cheryl's sister Ann, came to visit for a weekend, and, as is often the case, all of our kids woke up and gravitated to our bed one morning...
     (On a completely unrelated note... when Cheryl and I were first married, we simply had a full-size bed. We loved it. We could snuggle and hug and all that stuff without any effort at all. Then we graduated to a queen-size bed, and snuggling required one of us to cross over the "cold zone" in the direction of the other. The queen also allowed for at least one other person in the bed, and by this time we had Gracie. Today, we have a king-size bed, and snuggling requires a reservation. I don't even see Cheryl on most nights. Of course, all of our kids can climb aboard at any given time, so I suppose there is that.)
     Anyway... I went downstairs and advised Annie that the gang was up in our room, and she should join in the fun. She came up and hopped on the bed with Cheryl and the kids.
     The discussion meandered back and forth and at one point, I heard Cheryl explain to her sister that she is doing this thing where, instead of making New Year's resolutions, you choose one word for the year that will remind you to meet your goals. For instance, instead of saying you will lose twenty pounds, you pick the word healthy to remind you to eat healthy and stay active every day. Or, instead of saying you will go to church every Sunday, you pick the word praise to remind yourself to look to Heaven on a regular basis.
     After an hour of talking, Annie and the kids decided that they would like to play a board game called Funglish. Everyone was very excited except Cheryl; she wanted to stay in bed and take a nap. We literally had just woken up about two hours prior to this, so one would assume that she would have been well rested.
     Finally, we coaxed Cheryl out of bed, and as I trotted down the stairs, I saw that word again... ARISE! 
     I thought to myself...
     No, it can't be... she didn't... no way... she wouldn't... no way in the world...
     CHERYL, did you pick the word arise to be your word for the year?
     Oh yes she did! This made absolutely no sense to me, so I began to run through all the reasons that she would have picked the word ARISE.
     My first thought was that she just started at the beginning of the alphabet and ARISE comes before the word ASLEEP. Asleep would have been a much better word for her. She loves to sleep, and I can attest that she is pretty good at it, too. Many a night I have lain awake worried about the kids... work... money... the future. You name it; I lose sleep over it while Cheryl snoozes away.
     Then I thought that she may want to try her hand at baking, so she wants to remind herself to add the yeast to her bread to get it to RISE. That did not make any sense either.
     Then I thought that she was trying to remind herself to ARISE off of the couch once she has finished watching Monk after Monk with the kids.
     When confronted, Cheryl quickly backed off of her word of the year.
     I ditched ARISE. 
     How can you ditch your word of the year when we are not even out of the month of January? Besides, it is still taped to the door, you know.
     Yeah, I was going to take it down, but then I decided to take a nap.   
     So, what is your new word for the year?
     REFRESH!
     As in, I feel refreshed after I take a nap? 
     No, REFRESH is a word that reminds me to do little things along the way... to remind me to REFRESH. 
     What are you talking about? Take a shower; that always works for me. 
     No, you are not getting it... REFRESH. Renew. Start everything clean and simple. Just a reminder to myself to make everything special and new again. Kind of reviewing and redecorating and reviving our home and our lives. Doing little things to make our lives better. For example, I bought little soap dishes for the shower, so we have a place for our brand new, pretty soap bars. 
     Now we are talking... I like the shower idea.... That's my idea.    
     You are not getting this.  
     I don't think you get it. Perhaps you could have picked the word PERSEVERE to remind yourself to stick with the word ARISE. 
     Don't you get it? I refreshed my word choice and picked refresh.
     She was right, of course. I wasn't getting it at all. I mean, I got the whole word of the year thing, but I did not get ARISE or REFRESH as words for Cheryl.
     Here are some better words to remind her to make my life... Did I say my life?... I mean our lives better.
     CLEAN. 
     LAUNDRY. 
     IRON. 
     QUIET. 
     Each day, she can think, I need to clean today. I need to do a load of laundry today. I need to iron some of Mark's work shirts today. I need to use my inside voice today. 
     I like those words for Cheryl.
     Cheryl just read this and has advised me that although each person is only supposed to have one word for the year, she can think of two words for me.
     I don't think that she can post that on the front door.

Note from the editor...  
Dear Funny Guy...  You know my two words for you are "Love you," of course.