My Husband’s Favorite Things (she: Sharon)

Hi!  I’m Sharon, and I am thrilled to be included on “Or so she says…”, listing my husband’s favorite things.  (Mostly because it was an excuse for me to actually get some ideas for him from him, ya know?)  I do decently at Christmas and his birthday, but Father’s Day is often a mystery.  Breakfast in bed? Check.  Cute cards from his adorable children? Check.  Perfect present?  Uh….  So this helped me probably more than it will help you, but here it goes!

My husband Patrick adores being a dad.  Honestly, until we had our first child, I didn’t realize he loved kids so much.  Or that he wanted a whole houseful of them.  I think we originally toyed around with the idea of three or four, but I soon found out he would rather have six or seven… or eight. We’ve settled on four.  (For now, he reminds me.)  He is so very involved in as much of the child-raising as he can be.  He changes diapers, gets up with them in the night, volunteers at the school, makes dinner, and can even pull off a pretty awesome ponytail or pigtails in all three of the girls’ hair in a pinch!  There is no way I would have survived four kids ages four and under without his consistent involvement and support.

My husband is a musician.  We even dedicated one of our bedrooms to be the music room – it houses a drum set, multiple guitars, a keyboard, an audio interface, bass guitar, mandolin, effects processor and more.  This is a Tascam iXZ, an adapter that enables the use of high-quality microphones to record audio or video on an iPhone or iPad.  Patrick likes the portability and that he can quickly use it to record when he has an idea. (Originally, most of this edition of My Husband’s Favorite Things were going to be music-related, but he decided to branch out.)  Other favorites?  BR-600 recorder, his acoustic-electric guitar, a PA system…)

For the past eight years, my husband has traveled fairly regularly for business.  Recently, though, he started a new position with his company in their international division.  With flights as long as 15 hours, noise-canceling headphones like these became a necessity!  We didn’t get the fancy Bose version, but this more affordable Sony pair does a decent job for the money.  He also says they are fantastic to use to listen to music as well.

So when he isn’t traveling, Patrick works out of our home office.  He is a systems engineer, which I think is just a fancy way of saying he does computer stuff.  All. day. long.  Because he works for the international division, he often finds himself on conference calls with China or Singapore or Sweden at 2am.  And when he’s not working for work, he sometimes is working on programming something or recording and mixing audio.  A comfortable desk chair is a must!  His current one has served him well, but he is due for an upgrade and has his eye on one like this – appropriate all day support at a decent price.

I think Patrick will still be skating even when he is in a nursing home, he loves it that much.  I have spent many a day watching him at the skate park, driving him home when he hurts something, getting a lot a bit grumpy when he twists his ankle three days before I go to the hospital to have baby #4… but I digress.  It is in his blood, and I love to watch him teach our son the ropes.

For any present-giving occasion, he loves it if I give the okay for him to build himself a new board. He buys the deck, the trucks, the bearings, the wheels, and some hardware and puts together a little slice of heaven.

Speaking of building stuff, Patrick is also pretty handy.  He is no contractor or carpenter by any stretch of the imagination, but give him some wood and a project idea and he will get it put together.  Lately he’s been hinting to me that he would like a decent miter saw to add to his workbench.  Shhh…don’t tell him, but this is probably what he’ll end up with this year.  Especially since I want him to build me some shelves 🙂

My husband isn’t much of a TV watcher these days.  But he does like to tell me all about watching cartoons in his younger years, the good stuff, action-packed with heroes and all that.  Robotech is one of his favorites and I know getting a DVD or set of DVDs will always be well-received!

Typical husband, he enjoys himself some great sporting events!  His favorite teams are pretty much all out-of-state though (we live in Texas, and he loves the Chicago Cubs and the Utah Jazz).  I get him some team gear or tickets to a game when his team comes to town.  And then we cheer.  Even when we lose.  Again. 🙂

One of the gifts I’ve been giving Patrick lately that he has really loved are fun outdoor active dates.  We can go to the shooting range, or the archery range, or rent a kayak, etc.  I love to find these as Groupon deals and stock up for gifts later.  We have found these make fabulous dates – maybe not traditional romance, but it counts for us!  Hey, whenever we pay a babysitter and get out of the house together, it is romantic! 🙂

                                                

Happy Father’s Day to my sweetheart and all the fabulous husbands and fathers out there!  I’m glad we have a day to celebrate the wonderful men in our lives!