Principally, the decor of the house is left to Berta. I believe this is how it should be, because of the two of us, she is the artistically talented one, and I am the artistically void one.
That said, there must be a certain level of trust that when she goes to decorate a room, it’s going to look presentable not just to her and the people that come into our home, but to me, too.
Berta has done a wonderful job with every room she has redone in our house. We (mostly her) have repainted practically every room in the house since we moved in. She has done a lot of sanding, painting, second coats, touch-ups, and sealing in this old house, and it all looks great.
But when she and Abby returned from ACMoore the other night, she had an evil plan that was bound to ruin my comfy home decor bliss.
The trend actually started a few days before when Berta replaced my impromptu shower curtain in the upstairs bathroom with more formal accoutraments.
When she was away in Ireland, I finished off the work in the upstairs shower, including attaching the new spigot and putting up a cheap, temporary, ugly-as-sin shower curtain I got at KMart. The intent was always to replace the curtain, and Berta had designs on outfitting the bathroom with its own color-coordinated towels.
Months later, Berta informs me that she bought the towels and washcloths and such, 
including a new shower curtain. And they’re yellow. When I say “yellow”, I really mean “canary yellow that is so bright that the sun looks dim in comparison”.
Well, alright. I can live with yellow.
But apparently the bathroom needed an additional “something”. So Berta returned from the store with some matching (“blinding like the face of God”-yellow) artificial flowers. She arranged them in a pot and put them on the toilet. And I admit, they look nice there, even if they do sometimes slightly 
get in the way of business that is transacted at that location.
But this opened the flood gates.
With Abby’s help, Berta returned from ACMoore with bunches of flowers and 
started leaving pots of them all over. They’re in the living room. They’re in the downstairs bathroom. They’re in the kids’ playroom.
Moreover, and this is the camel’s backbreaking straw: There’s one on my dresser.
“What’s the big deal?” You ask. Well, I’m looking around at the slowly growing flora, and wondering if there’s any masculinity to be found in our house. Certainly, the last 
bastion of manliness is in the computer room, whose abundant wires, role-playing game tomes (Oh, no! They’ve been moved!), and collectible action figures say, “This is the room of a male.”
But all the other rooms inthe house are nicely decorated and furnished. Yes, it looks nice. Yes, I want to project this kind of finished image to guests. But man. Throwpillows, couch covers, pressed flowers in glass frames, flowers in vases and pots…
Where’s the leather couch? Where is the impressionist/cubist print art? Where are the dark colors? Where’s my Lay-Z-Boy?!
Riley and I will need to seek out space in our new house and claim it so that it doesn’t get attractive but feminine floral wallpaper.
