Making the Hot Dogs

I didn't cry today until driving home. Imagine that...compared to the last few days it's a miracle.



Tomorrow I have to get up at 6:00am (on a Saturday and I am so not a morning person!), get ready and take my daughter to volunteer at a dog show. She does it all day so after I drop her off I'm going in to work to make some extra money. 42 hours this week so far. Tomorrow I'll make it 50 and it will really help with the bills.



My husband has been working like a dog and has asked to work seven days next week. Whew...and he's on split shifts.



Have we fought today? Yes, once. I've seen him for about an hour and a half. At least we didn't fight for an hour and a half. I'm grateful for that. Tonight he leaves at 10:30pm to go to work all night. I feel really bad for him.

Do you know why I feel bad for him? This is why:

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  He's super intelligent, has a Master's Degree in Fine Art from Morocco (it translates to a Bachelor's in Fine Art with another year of college added on in America).


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  He speaks five languages fluently.


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  He is highly talented and creative.


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  His art is amazing.


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  His art has been exhibited in Morocco, France, Amsterdam, and Rome, Italy.


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  He's been interviewed in magazines, newspapers, radio, and TV in Morocco and France.


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  He was named "Morocco's Young Premiere Fine Artist".


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  He was selected and represented his country in the Biennale in Rome (there is currently a Biennale in Venice, Italy that he would love to be in. He knows artists from Morocco that are in it this year and he is sickened. He said, "To think they are in the Biennale and I am getting ready to go to work at a hotel to work all night. I don't want to know about it because it makes me sick. I should have never moved to America. Someone else should be here, not me."


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  He's just very talented and I feel he is resentful and probably wishes he never married me and became stuck here. I feel like I am the reason why he is so unhappy. Maybe when he visits Morocco next month he won't come back.

Other than his fine art, he has done some crafty-type things. We call them "making the hot dogs", which means he made something to sell in order to try and make money. Below is a "hot dog" he made. It's a sink called "Divas Don't Wash Dishes" and it wasn't supposed to be a hot dog in the beginning. He has an art studio and needed a sink. He went to Home Depot to purchase a sink and thought they were too expensive. He decided to make his own. He had an antique porcelain sink in the attic and decided to build something to hold it. Of course he couldn't make just any sink. He made this one:

After making it everyone told him that he needed to put it for sale. He exhibited it in several places and no one purchased it. It is now sitting in our living room and we use it to store our toilet paper in the bottom cabinet.

You may ask why we didn't install it in his studio. We had a plumber come in to do it last year, however where he was going to put it wouldn't work with how the plumbing of the house is configured and wouldn't pass state regulation codes.

(On a side note, you may notice the stain in the sink. I always wanted him to remove it, but he said that it made it more special and gave it more character.)

Truly, this sink is NOTHING compared to other hot dogs he has made or his fine art. He amazes and astounds me all the time with his creativity and skill.

It is a waste that he is here and I wouldn't blame him if he left.