Married man also got to make effort

Yesterday i arranged a dinner at my neighbourhood coffeeshop for my mum-in-law.

After reading mike blog and mother superior insightful comment "the institution of marriage requires effort, women will be doubly pleased if there were some effort in TRYING. ", i decided to do the "TRYING" to ensure that nothing will pop up unexpectedly to spoil the evening.

I go through my mind of the things that will spoil my nite and come out with the following list of action...

• timing. knowing SO disdain for being late, i ended my work slightly earlier to cater for the friday nite heavier than usual traffic
• menu. thought about the menu in advance, bearing in mind the preferences of my family members
• ETD (estimated time of departure). manage the duration to ensure to ensure everyone would be home (except us) to catch the 10 pm " Jewel in the Palace"

We arrived on time at the coffeeshop and manage to put in our order before other diners started streaming in. Dinner started on time. I ordered steamed ching yi, vege with lean meat soup, steamed tauhu with crab floss and fried kai lan. Mum-in-law tried to stopped me from further order as she had just taken a bowl of laksa earlier. For good measure, i put in a final order of prawn with XO sauce. I had selected a "light & oil-less" menu for tonite. The volume was just right and it had gone down well with everyone. All in all, we had a good time and my in-laws, who were staying half an hour away from us managed to reach home in time to catch their favourite tv program.

Some effort in planning had make tonite dinner a little more satisfactory for everyone, especially SO. My wife is my life and soul partner and trying a little harder to be a good husband is definitely worth it. Thank you, MS for that enlightenment on the women's psyche.