Retirement Days - One Marriage Saved

My husband awakes every morning, comes down the stairs and then with a cup of coffee in hand settles down right in front of the TV to watch the Today Show.  We have a 55 inch TV screen with a Sonos sound system. Big and loud.  Add to that, if a pin drops on the upstairs floor, I can hear that in the downstairs living room as though it hit the ground right next to me.   We warn guests who stay over as they make themselves comfortable in the upstairs guest room, "We can hear everything in our house."  For various reasons (heating, cooling) our house has lots of air flow which means, sound flow.  Sitting on the couch in the peace of the early morning, I can hear my husband roll over and shift in bed in the upstairs master bedroom (which is not directly above me) as he snores away.

My early morning routine is to get up way before than my husband (me up at 6:00 while he up at 9:00 on weekends), come downstairs, make a cup of chai tea and then listen to the birds and the trees and the chickens and whatever other peaceful sound that makes me happy and smile.  And then I settle into writing and/or reading followed by yoga and meditation.  So although I am so very happy to see my cheery husband each and every morning I dread the blaring of the TV that soon follows his appearance. 

Some 10 years ago I spent $14.99 for these wireless headphones pictured above.  Recently, I have been asking my husband if he might wait a bit before turning on the TV in the morning and he, well, hasn't wanted to.  I have worried about how we will work this one out when we are both in retirement (I have been warned by women who have retired husbands at home all day who basically drive them crazy).  Luckily for us, my husband mentioned seeing a box of wireless headphones in the basement. I bought these for him years ago but that was when we lived in a 3,000 sq. ft. condo and I could always find my happy and quiet space.  After a battery change, a little research along with sound (hahah) advice from a good friend who's livelihood is installing sound systems, we plugged these little marriage savers into the back of the cable box yesterday morning.  Voila!  I found my little piece of morning heaven and so did Mr. Husband.....together but doing our own thing...you gotta love it!