In the newspaper business, "tab" is more than just an outdated diet soda.

For newspaper people it’s short for "tabloid."

A tabloid is sort of a "mini-newspaper" – it’s about half the size of a regular newspaper, which makes it terribly convenient to insert inside the regular newspaper.

All of this background information will come in handy soon – I promise.

Not long after getting this job, I was introduced to the concept of the "tab weekend."

This is a weekend spent mostly putting together a "tab" otherwise known as a "special section" for the newspaper. I think "special section" is a more elegant name for this type of publication, but we still call them "tabs."

The reason this chore gets done on the weekend, is because people who work for weekly newspapers are already pretty busy five days a week just putting together the regular newspaper, so when the times comes to put in something "extra," then "extra" time must be found for this task – thus, the concept of the "tab weekend."

A lot of work gets done by the whole staff prior to tab weekend, but the package generally gets pieced together on the two days leading up to the Monday morning deadline – when the publication is delivered to the press.

My wife has been of tremendous value to me on these weekends, which are often very stressful.

In fact, there were some tab weekends during the early years of our marriage when I literally did not know for sure if either of us would come out safely on the other side.

We would sometimes argue with one another while tackling this task.

Sometimes – not often – but sometimes we would yell at each other very loudly.

Sometimes – not often – but sometimes we would throw things.

But things have gotten a lot better over the past six years, and that is what struck me most about this most recent tab weekend – the one which we spent putting together the graduation special section.

This past "tab weekend" was a breeze.

There was very little arguing, yelling, pulling of hair, gnashing of teeth.

Could it be that my wife and I have learned how to get along with one another while working toward a common goal?

My wife and I often have different ideas about the way to do things.

It’s not that her way is better and it’s not that my way is better – just different, that’s all.

After six years it seems we have finally found a process that we can both be happy with. There are parts of the tab that are my responsibility, and parts that are hers and there are also things we do together.

I believe that a family that works together, stays together,

I’m very happy with the progress we have made – together.