I could tell he thought I’d be pissed.
But I was not.
It just proved how much he liked me from the very beginning.
I still gave him shit, but I knew he knew with the way he grinned at me through it that I didn’t mean it.
But a girl’s gotta keep up appearances.
Though open communicationwith your guy would inevitably lead to some disagreements.
And this happened when Hutch sat me down in the kitchen and told me he’d made a decision about said kitchen.
He was going to have it dismantled and auctioned so he could donate the proceeds to the sanctuary.He was then going to have whatever kitchen I wanted installed.
After he shared that, I shared, if he auctioned that kitchen, I’d be buying it and reinstalling it.
And I countered with us having a look at the money I’d saved from unloading my life in Orlando, as well as the money Frank gave me.We would decide what we needed for our lives and our futures, set that aside, and give the rest to Stony Bluff.
I thought Hutch would push back, but instead, he asked me to show him my accounts.
And thus, we sat in our comfy, warm kitchen and decided how much to set aside to pay for adding onto the house (we’d need more room for kids), updates of the bathrooms (because they were not vintage-fun old, they were just out of date), future college and wedding funds, along with an account to add to our retirement and a little more just in case something crappy happened.
In the end, we’d be keeping a lot.
But that didn’t mean Stony Bluff didn’t get a huge-ass check.
During this discussion,the only dissension we had was that, for some reason, Hutch was adamant about personally paying for my workshop.
This dissension started because I didn’t know that reason.
It seemed logical—since I had the money (wehad it), and it would be me who was using that workshop, not Hutch—that I could pay for it.
Not to mention, bottom line, it was half a dozen of one, six of the other.
I was not a woman who would make my own money and do a joint account with my man.
Make no mistake, I trusted Hutch implicitly.
But we were both individuals, and I wasn’t going to ask him to lose that part of his individuality, and I knew without any discussion he wouldn’t ask for the same.
Even so, regardless of what account it was in, it was our money, so who cared what part of it was used to build the workshop?(Yeah, yeah, I know, if this was the case, why was I arguing?—but I just didn’t get where he was coming from.)
Thus begun bickering, bickering that got heated, and finally, Hutch exploded, “I will not have you spend your days doing something you love in a place that man built!”
I immediately acquiesced.
I did this not reminding him that Frank Groove’s money would be building our future children’s bedrooms and be the basis for paying for their college and weddings.
I got him.
The workshop would only be mine.
And that, Hutch couldn’t tolerate.
So Hutch paid for my workshop.
Just to say,when it came down to it, Hutch designed an epic workshop that had everything I needed, along with everything I could dream, including a lounge area with a couch and comfortable chairs, a fridge and well-sealed (so the critters wouldn’t smell it and come looking) cabinets to hold snacks.
