Beauty Is In the Eye Of The Beholder

Just briefly, I want to thank everyone for all the great feedback regarding the Turf Wives Experiment aka the daily TWX from my last blog, Turf Wives Experiment. I'm very happy and proud of all the positive feedback I've received so far. I'm having a lot of fun with it so I very much appreciate your support!!

See, I can be brief... [[insert just kidding face here]]

I want you to take a few moments to think about grass. Simple right? Yes, to much of the world, it's just grass. But to most of our spouses, it's way more than that AND turns out, it's not simple in the slightest. Maybe the person who came up with the very old saying "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" worked in the turf industry!

I remember when my husband and I were going on a whitewater rafting trip. I told him our group was meeting in Virginia at 9am which was several hours away so we left very very VERY early and arrived at our location with plenty of time to spare. No one had arrived as early as we had so, we headed down to the local diner to have breakfast. We took our time and headed back to the rafting sight about an hour later but no one was to be found. I instantly phoned our trip organizer who immediately told me we needed to be in another state and the group was leaving in 45 minutes. So I did what normal women do under these circumstances....I broke into a full blown self-destruction mode, all tears and questions about how could I have screwed up something we spent months anticipating. Why did we take our time at breakfast? Why I didn't call anyone when we arrived? I pictured us arriving to our final destination with enough time to wave goodbye to our group. Ps, the group was most of the management I worked with AND several of my employees. Could I have looked more dense?!?!? I'm pretty certain they all questioned my ability to be qualified for my management position.

As I quickly regressed, my husband took control and speedily drove us to our second destination trying to reassure me that we would make it there in time. Do you know how my husband tried to distract me during our hurried drive while I was still crying and quickly falling into a silent stare out the window in tears mode (come on, you know the one)? Verbatim, "hunny, do you know what kind of grass that is?" pointing his finger out towards my window.

Still to this day I distinctly remember my choice words to him, in an unnecessarily high volume level.

At that time in my life, I actually couldn't have given two you know whats about what types of grass there was out there or about the industry in general. It didn't effect me one way or another since my career was skyrocketing and from what I heard about the industry, my job needed to. Well, it didn't affect me until the multiple times we jumped up in the middle of the night when it was raining (although the forecast didn't call for rain!) to drive, in a panic 5 minutes away, to pull tarps over trials, in the pitch black with only the truck lights to lead us. IN THE RAIN! And, those weren't the lasting impressions one would want write home to mama about. But I didn't the heart to let my then boyfriend suffer through this chapter in his life alone so I accompanied him practically every evening and weekend like it was my part-time job. I learned how to rate plots, I learned most of the types of grass grown in the East, I learned most of the common diseases, I knew all of his colleagues on a personal level etc. etc. etc... BUT most importantly, I learned that it's not "just grass"...

Why am I dragging you through some drawn out history story in my life? First, I love a cliff hanger but only in movies so yes we did make it just in time to leave with our group for the trip and since we were in such a rush to the rafts, no one questioned my complete inability to manage my team when we return. Phew. Well, like I posted on my facebook fun page last week, I've been taken aback at some of the negative comments wives in this industry are making about their husbands and this industry. These are just some of the gamut of questions that I asked myself for those individuals, who shall remain nameless, who are discrediting this industry:  

How many people do you know who can actually say they LOVE their jobs?

Do you ever ask yourself WHY your husband intimately knows every square foot of his course and/or his clients courses better than he knows you?  

When was the last time you went and walked the ENTIRE course by foot with your husband?

When was the last time you knew why your husband DROVE to 20 clients in one day?

What were his clients experiencing? What were his clients like?

When was the last time YOU closed up the shop with your husband? Could you take over if necessary?

Have you actually taken the time to look at life through your husbands eyes or walked a mile in his shoes?

Many of you have and I applaud you. Many of you should. Not only will you get a greater understanding of what your husband does, you'll get a better understanding on WHY he does what he does. Sadly, some spouses know their course or their clients courses better than they may ever know their wives. That's a problem. But this is what they love, this is their passion and you actually need to include yourself in it (without complaining!) in order to appreciate it. I guarantee, if you engross yourself into what your husbands loves and spends an immense amount of time doing and creating, your relationship with him AND this industry will improve considerably. Until I myself, walked in my then boyfriend, now husbands shoes (which I still do very often) I could never have gained the level or the amount of appreciation I have for him and this wonderful industry.

It's not a coincidence that my blog, the daily TWX and the Picture Pop Quiz all relate back to similar subjects...spending time with your spouse (and enjoying it).

For now,
Beth