At least he didn't buy horses

When I was 9 or 10 years old, my mom went away to Kansas City for a teaching conference for several days, leaving me and Megan with our dad. From what I remember, it was an awesome week. We went to Grandma's for dinner a couple nights, and got to eat McDonald's. One night we had "yellow food day," where Dad made us corn, mac'n'cheese, and hotdogs with mustard. Awesomely clever. I don't know if it was inspired by his special dinner, but he also decided to paint the living room yellow that week. Like lemony sweet sunshine yellow.

In addition to yellow-ifying our lives, Dad also surprised us with something really special. Ponies! Er, horses. Like every little girls asks for. We got to go see meet them, and Dad traded our neighbors a case of soda or beer for use of their trailer to move the horses to a nearby friend's horse property where they'd be kept. Apparently, my parents had discussed this, but it was a big surprise for me and Megan. And when I say they had "discussed it," evidently my dad had mentioned he wanted horses "at some point." So you can imagine my mother's surprise when she came home a week later to find that her living room was painted yellow and she was told that we now owned not one, but two, Arabian geldings. Surprise!

This weekend, I headed to Tucson to see my friend, Rachel. I'm her maid matron of honor and she wanted to get the bridesmaids all together. When I asked Dan if he wanted me to take Paisley and Clover with me, he told me that he had big plans for their time together. He'd bought nail clippers and planned to give pedicures and baths. He also planned to do some other things around the house, but was kind of vague.

When I showed up at Rachel's house, her parents with there with their two dogs, whom Rachel and her fiance would be keeping for the night (in addition to me). Her mom was talking about how Rachel's dad had brought each of the dogs home without cluing her in, and I told her about how my dad had done the same but with horses, so it could be worse. We kind of laughed about how husbands are silly and forgot about it.

When I got home yesterday, I instantly noticed something was different. Dan had cleaned the carpet (yay!) and clipped a grand total of one dog nail ("but they're getting used to it")(yay, Clover!). I then glanced down the hallway and saw this:


That is my new blueish grey wall, a paint color that we apparently discussed - and I dismissed - back in our apartment-living days. It looks a lot more blue in the photo than it does in person. Dan decided it was the perfect wall for the color because it would make the pictures stand out more, and I have to agree. I really love it. But you'd better believe I checked the yard and the rest of the house for any more surprises, horses in particular. Don't worry, there weren't any.

Have your husbands every surprised you with a home decorating project and/or pet purchase?