We Got Mugged!

February 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Last night I was setting our table for dinner with all the fixings for chicken tacos when there was a knock on our door. Alex stared at me and asked me what I knocking for and I had to laugh. Once he figured it out, he headed to our front door.

Next thing I hear is “Oh God, I’ve been mugged!”

Given my husband sounded like he was more amused than freaked out I didn’t rush around the corner, in part because if it were real I figure he’s the man. He oughta handle it. After a moment I heard friendly voices and so decided it was safe to come out and see what was going on.

Turns out we were indeed mugged!

It’s a funny thing to say we judge the churches we attend, but its true. As Alex and I have searched for a church one of the criteria we’ve looked for is how open they are to new members. I.E. What do they do to welcome you? The sermon I brought up the other day is from the church that “mugged” us last night. We’ve attended three services to date so this was a nice incentive to come on back.

What has made you feel positive about a new group or church?

Filed Under: Marriage Adventures Tagged With: , ,

Good Mood Wednesday

February 15, 2012 By 6 Comments

Today I have been in a good mood all day. I’ve been smiling, dancing, and otherwise exuding such levels of cheer and joy that it might just make you a tad ill.

(The dancing has caused some strange looks in the office at work, but this gal can sure cut a chair.)

I would say that about 99% of why I’m in such a great mood is yesterday. The holiday I normally dread turned out to be FANTASTIC.

I’m still not sure how, and I don’t really care, but when I got up to go to work I noticed the most lovely bunch of flowers with a card and box sitting on our kitchen counter.

The box had a beautiful pair of heart earrings in it because Alex knows I prefer white gold and only had a pair of yellow gold ones prior to this. I’d put a picture on but I’ve yet to take them out since I opened the box and the few I’ve tried to take look bad because my ears look retarded. So no pictures YET!

THEN … at work around noon I got a text telling me to leave work on time. (I tend to stay a little late here lately.) Why? Because my sweetie MADE RESERVATIONS! Oh.My.Goodness. Y’all I teared up on the way home because I felt so special all dang day.

I’ll say this, Alex kicked my butt this year with regards to Valentine’s Day. I got all of that, and he got a painted bathroom. One he had to help me finish painting.

Clearly I need to step up my game. How was your holiday?

Filed Under: Marriage, Marriage Adventures Tagged With: , ,

Lesson’s I’ve Learned

February 13, 2012 By 6 Comments

Alex and I tried a new service this past weekend because I really liked the idea of Saturday night church AND I wanted to hear the second part to a sermon series.

The service was OK, but the important part, the sermon, really hit home for both of us. The sermon was entitled “Lesson’s I’ve learned as a Husband (and Wife)” and was shared by the associate Pastor and his wife at the church we attended.

They each shared lessons they had learned about choices you make in your marriage. Choices like not allowing simple frustrations (housework) and potential other priorities (your job) to take your focus off of each other. The truth is children, work, house, friends, family, etc should not be the center of your universe. They are not intended to be your number one anything. Based on the bible, God should be #1 and followed by that is your spouse.

The prayer “Dear Lord, help us to be the spouses you want us to be. Form us into the kind of spouse that is a JOY to our mates, honoring both them and Jesus in our WORDS, DEEDS, and LIFE…Help others, whether married or single, to see that our spouses are indeed our best friends and trusted partners in the ministry of our families.” hit home for me personally. As I sat beside Alex in service, I could tell he too was struck by the messages we were receiving.

I can’t tell you what he was thinking beyond “It all really hit home” because that’s he’s explained to me. I can say that for me the lesson about respecting your husband was reiterated.

I truly believe that the husband should be the “leader” in the relationship. He may not be the money maker, but he is the provider. He can provide by living out the ways you respect, honor, and live God’s word in his relationship with his wife and children. On the other hand, I, as a wife, need to respect my husband. That means growing in trust, growing in actions, and then living out these changes.

As Valentine’s Day comes upon us, I’m glad we were both able to hear this message. I have no doubt we each walked away with different thoughts, but in the end those differences are what brings us together as husband and wife.

Filed Under: Marriage, Marriage Adventures Tagged With: , , , ,

Honeymoon Horrors

February 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment
I’m going to travel back in reflection today because its cold and just blegh out. So I’m going to tell you a honeymoon horror story ADVENTURE!

(It is what you make of it dagnabit. So adventure it is!)

Alex and I really wrestled with what to do for our honeymoon. We knew we wanted a week-long trip, we knew we wanted daily “adventures” because we would have been bored to tears without them, and we knew we wanted to be happy. After weighing a couple of options we opted to travel to the “happiest place on earth!”
Plus we could drive there, which meant we could splurge on a hotel room and other such extras!

Disney World is truly magical. Our hotel, The Wilderness Lodge, was so very much US that we literally spent one day wandering the hotel. (The entire hotel is modeled after Old Faithful Inn in Yosemite….AND the company I work for, helped build it….long before I worked here.) The only kicker with the hotel is, its off the beaten path. Just a tad. Which means Disney Busses anytime you want to travel with the exception of the Magic Kingdom.
Now, the bus schedule for Disney World is so kindly plastered online, in the hotels, you name it you can find the information. So I made fancy reservations in restaurants at various parks and alternate hotels using those schedules. Reservations that some of those restaurants HAVE to give up (i.e. turn you away if you are late) due to sheer demand.

So our first full day there, we deck out in our fancy clothes (i.e. not shorts and flip-flops) and head down to the bus stop. We’re sitting there with several nice people when we begin to overhear comments about those darn busses always running late.

Say What?!

30 minutes later the bus FINALLY shows up. We check the clock and figure it’s ok, we can still make it so long as we book it from the park entrance to the restaurant. No wandering, but that’s ok we’d planned another day in the park for just this possibility. Now the busses have pretty standard routes, which mean you know where they are going and how many stops they’ll make between your pick up and drop off locations.

 We had one stop, no big deal. Well not this night, OH NO. Our first night in Disney, someone planted A BOMB to the underside of one of the buses. So each bus was making up new routes based on calling in at each location. Just so no one could pull off anything funny. Sadly, the never conveyed this key data to the GUESTS.

45 minutes later, and now 30 minutes late for our reservation, Alex got a map from me and took off running through EPCOT (his first time ever in the park, if I recall correctly) in an attempt to rescue our reservation. I followed as quickly as I could behind him in my heels. 
By the time I caught up with him, they were telling him no they were quite sorry but they had to give our spot away. I think I burst into tears at that point. Alex now had a hungry belly, a brand new wife in tears, and I believe a pretty panicked 20-year-old working the counter. Luckily, Alex was able to find a solution by grabbing us a cancelled reservation from some other couple (Thanks Bomb Scare!) for about 20 minutes later in the evening. We ended up missing the firework show, but we did finally get to eat dinner. 

Definitely set a new standard for the rest of the honeymoon! Oh and we, we learned our lesson that night. We took our own car, the boats, or the monorail ONLY from that point forward.
Filed Under: Marriage Adventures, Vacations Tagged With: , , ,

A Happy Marriage

February 1, 2012 By 9 Comments

On the advice of a rather talented and funny gal whom I admire I’ve decided to start tonight’s post with the following advice.

Y’all I’m rather talented and quite hilarious so brace yourselves.

(Does it help if you believe this about yourself? Because if so I might as well give up now.)

(Thank you Megan for that bit of advice for now I’m sure the world will appreciate my greatness. Or at the very least stare at me from the same perch my cats hold themselves upon.)

Marriage is a funny funny thing. The biggest piece of advice you will hear from EVERYONE is “the key to a happy marriage is learning how to communicate.” I disagree, slightly. While communicating is indeed key – I think the final ::click:: in that happiness puzzle is ensuring you know how to lose.

Clearly ain't us

I’m sure some of y’all are thinking “SAY WHAT?!” It’s ok, I’m used to being called crazy. However, this fact cannot be made untrue.

Alex and I are pretty dang good communicators. I get he expresses himself in one way, he gets I express myself a little differently. We manage to cross those differences and voila! We have communication. However, we still fight.

Alas that is the truth y’all. You will fight in any marriage.

(Unless perhaps you are a Disney Princess married to Prince Charming and even that is suspect. Haven’t you ever wondered why they stop with the wedding? EXACTLY!)

So given that fighting is inevitable, the next key to this is in all fights someone will lose. Sometimes you both lose, sometimes one of you “wins” and the other “loses.” Either way – the quickest way for a fight to go from healthy, cleansing, and productive is for it devolve into a fight about absolutely nothing because neither one of you will give up.

Trust me on this one, Alex and I are both highly experienced in this area. Just this past weekend we had a cleansing fight about issues regarding housework. It happens. Normally we fight, we walk it off, and then we both get better at the points the other person brought up because they were kinda sorta right.

Last weekend however, neither one of us would back down. Until by the end of it we were fighting over my inability to say “Buttmunch” because I was so angry I was stumbling over my words calling him “MunchButt” and his idiotic laughter over my said inabilities. (This is funny now that I look back on it.) So the fight just continued in a circular fashion getting worse and worse and worse until we literally had to each leave the house to chill out.

That evening I apologized to him and he apologized to me and we’re back to the productive communicating.  All it would have taken to stop the above fight was for one of us to back down and accept a “loss.”

Oh Yes We Did

So communicating while critical is not as important as being ok with losing.

Filed Under: 365 Love Dare, Marriage, Marriage Adventures Tagged With: , , ,

Fun Fotos!

January 20, 2012 By 2 Comments

My in-laws gifted me with the gift of my choice this year. So post-Christmas I hopped on Amazon and I was able to treat myself to a 50mm 1.8/f lens for my camera. Otherwise known as a nifty fifty lens.

I also bought myself a brand new camera strap from Broward Path. I’m taking a picture as soon as my new camera bag arrives to so y’all can get the full effect. I was introduced to Broward Patch thanks to Katie at Confessions of a Young Married Couple. I must say loved my choices and the prices were also super reasonable. Oh and shipping (i.e. time you eagerly examine the mail delivery each day) beat out my Amazon purchase!

In the meantime here are some photos of taken since my new lens has arrived. Nothing spectacular but its rained here EVERY DAY so I’m limited to where I can take these so far. I’m planning on lots more, but um turns out the camera really likes when you remember your memory card. Go figure!

Like Father like Son.

Love knows no bounds.

Filed Under: Marriage Adventures, Photography, The Animals Tagged With: ,

Marrying Advice

January 18, 2012 By 7 Comments

Wuv. True Wuv. Otherwise known as how to know if they are “the one.”

** Fair warning. This post goes there. The bathroom. So run away now if you can’t handle the truth. Just please come back tomorrow. **

There are not many things dating advice-wise that I listened to my Mom about when I was a teenager. Because she was my mom, and well what self-respecting teenage girl thinks her Mom knows anything about boys MEN. Sheesh.

However one bit of advice she passed along has stayed with me and continues to make me smile.

“Only marry the man {or woman no judging here} you can see yourself helping wiping their butt when they can’t do it themselves anymore.”

Now clearly this bit of advice doesn’t just focus on the bathroom, but more importantly on marrying someone who you can love to the point that you will take care of even the “lowliest” of tasks when they can’t help themselves.

That bit of advice is how I know Alex and I married the right person. I was not 100% this weekend and after avoiding telling Alex what was going on I finally admitted my issue.

(Which I’m avoiding spelling out because sometimes TMI is too much between spouses let alone internet friends. Enemies however are A-OK!)

(But you are all friends. Be glad.)

Alex, bless his heart, did not run in fear or avoid the topic. Nope he asked specific questions before heading off to the drugstore to get me some meds. Then the next day, after the meds were in my system, he asked me how things were going. Not only that, but I had a brief moment of “I should let Alex know!” before quickly coming to my senses and avoiding the topic all together again.

Yup I married the right man for me. He’ll help me out even when I’d rather die of embarrassment then go to a doctor.

Filed Under: Marriage, Marriage Adventures Tagged With: , ,

Saturday Straightening

January 16, 2012 By 6 Comments

What a difference a day makes! Saturday Alex and I spent almost the entire day cleaning our house. It’s needed it so bad lately, but well with me working from home on the weekends and him at a physically demanding job housework was beyond last on our list.

So we finally broke down this weekend and cleaned. I was lucky and got to clean the inside. Alex put the decorations from Christmas back in the attic and then cleaned the garage.

Well after he put a hole in our ceiling he cleaned. Like the new attic skylight? Sighs. Home ownership is full of little surprises.

High note is we have a highly organized garage! (This is key to a happy husband.)

While he was outside making skylights, I was inside cleaning our house. Well I was inside picking items from our living room, dining room, and kitchen and placing those items in our bedroom, guest room, and office for review. The main living room areas look great! The office? Not so much.

(Why yes. I did luck out in this. I’m no fool!)

As you might have guessed the office is more often than not our “dump room.” Do you have a “dump” space in your house? How often do you clean it?

Filed Under: Marriage Adventures, Our House Tagged With: , , ,
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