Newly Wed Valentine's Day

I know it's been a while since I last posted anything, and today won't be very different. A lot's been going on lately, and I have a few blog posts in the "draft" stage. I guess you could say I'm trying to form my thoughts on different things. For today I'll leave you with a synopsis of our first married Valentine's Day! 

Valentine's Day is certainly the subject of controversy, and while I've never placed too much emphasis on the day itself, I've also never turned down lovingly gifted chocolates! Since we're newly-weds it seems that all our free time is date time, which doesn't make Valentine's Day super pivotal to our romance or relationship, but it's certainly fun to celebrate our love and have a bonus date! (I personally hope every valentine's day feels like an unnecessary, but very welcome celebration!) I want to remember that one single day out of the year has no more importance than any other day, because every day is important. I want to remember that we should love each other every day, we should connect every day, and we should spend time alone together every day. (and maybe eat chocolate everyday too! :)

Of course any excuse is a good excuse to celebrate the blessing of our marriage, and love for each other! And celebrate we will!-- or did :)

To start the day off, I made heart-shaped breakfast buiscuits, with egg, bacon, and gouda...yum! (and super simple)

Later, my husband came home early, promptly giving me the best box of chocolates ever!! Void of the random fruit and cream-filled sticky things, this heart was full of my favorite: turtles!! (so in gratitude, I quoted the little kid from this video) Of course I ate them too quickly to take a picture, but I'm sure you can all understand. :)

Then we ate dinner at a cozy restaurant in town, La Madeline. (you must try the Chicken Friand)! Then at home we ate dessert and played board! It sure is fun being married to your best friend!

From my perspective, there's nothing wrong with having a day to be cheesy, and celebrate the grace we've been given to love each other.

There is one problem I see with all the red, glittery decorations-- If you're not careful they could end up in the washing machine :( which unfortunately did happen to us. (Sorry honey!)

Intentionality

So the hubby and I are trying to do a lot of things these days. Trying to get back on track with eating healthy after the holidays (and before the next holiday). We've also started keeping prayer cards to help us be more intentional about praying for our friends and family.

The other thing we're going to try to do, is exercise regularly... dun dun dun.

Exercise is not something that comes naturally for me. Running is especially hard for me when there is no goal in mind. We went for a run last night and discovered that my husband is like a diesel engine. Apparently after a slow start up, he can run at a consistent speed indefinitely. I, however, am much more like a wind-up toy car. I have to have an end goal in mind in order to enjoy running. If I have a reason to get to the next light post as soon as possible, I'll run my little heart out. But if I have no idea where we are going to end our run, I pay too much attention to the cramps in my side, or the cold sting in my lungs, and have trouble enjoying the run.

I played volleyball for about 6 years, which isn't a sport that is heavy on the running. You run to stay in shape, just so you have the energy to spring off the gym floor 20,000 times an hour. No long distances involved. Basically you need to be a ball of potential energy on your toes at all times. You don't realize you're working out because you're distracted by the things that need to be done. That is the kind of exercise my body was made for.

Anyways, running has gotten better since we've added goals. We'll sometimes run 2 miles to get coffee, or froyo, and then walk back. Maybe you're thinking the goals defeat the means in this case, but getting out and being active is a good start for us. Sometimes the only goal I need to set is "get to the next mailbox" and then when I get there I'll set another one, and so on.

We're also going to incorporate some yoga. We did a little bit last night to see if it's something we'd like to do more of, and I'm so excited that we like it! At first, I wasn't sure if my other half would enjoy it, but he thinks it's really relaxing (when you're done) and could help with regaining some of his flexibility. He used to do a lot of martial arts, so we're thinking the flexibility would help us add some martial arts to the workout too.

I got a yoga book from the library. Speaking of which, everyone should go to their local library! It's awesome! I'll write a post later for that one.

I've also started making all our bread for sandwiches and such!
And I'm almost done with the scarves I'm making for Christmas Presents! Woo!!

Mountain Moments

Community is something we were made for, and we have been blessed immensely (since the beginning of our relationship) with wonderful community. People of all ages have poured into us with Godly teaching, emotional support, practical knowledge, and of course love.

We have a dear community group of a church we went to while in school. Mostly folks older than us, but they've treated us like kindred friends since we met them. This weekend we went to one of the couples' mountain home. Near enough to drive for a good long weekend. It was wonderful! (and of course we forgot our camera) 

The break was much needed for us. We've been busy busy the last few weeks, and even though we both did a little work while we were there, we got plenty of down time. I think down time in the mountains is better for the soul than down time at home. It also seems to last longer. 1 hour here seems to equal about 8 hours elsewhere. 

Our friends treated us like kings & queens! We ate wonderful food all weekend!

Here's a run down (since we all love good food):

Shrimp & Chicken Thai stir-fry

Great coffee & tea

Tried new wines: Petit Shirah (wonderfully dry & fruity)

and a Bordeaux that was mostly made of a Cabernet Sauvingon (it was delightful!)

Strawberry frozen yogurt w/berries & fresh gingersnaps

Steak & baked potatoes

Honey mustard & orange salad

asparagus

amazingly assembled sandwiches
snacks from an amish market

And if there's more, I can't remember! I wish I had some pictures of the food! Whenever my husband and I go to the mountains, we either forget to take pictures or forget to bring our camera.

For example, we spent our honeymoon in the mountains. This was the only photo we have:

I would recommend taking photos on your honeymoon, even if you never show a single soul!! They'd be nice to have for memories sake.

Alright, well on to get things done! Hope everyone is having a happy monday!

I'm Awake!

I generally feel pretty low when I don't wake up on time. My husband has an amazing (but what some might call "inhuman") ability to stay up late and jump out of bed early. Before we were married, I worked full time, and my schedule was: go to sleep at a reasonable time, wake up at the last possible minute to throw on clothes, grab food for lunch, and get to work on time. Goal: get 8 hours of sleep or more. I love sleep.


We've chosen that I will make the meals for our family, because this works best for our time together, and saves us money (plus I love to cook). We can get a few more minutes of sleep if I make breakfast and lunch while he gets ready for work. He's totally capable of making his own meals, but without me he'd most likely buy his meals (to save time).

I love to do this for him. When I'm on top of my game, I love being able to hand him a bag of food and give him a kiss at the door. It's sweet, he knows I love him, he is so grateful (which make me feel loved) and it makes us both countdown the hours till he's home again.

Yesterday morning though, I didn't wake up on time. I barely got a sandwich made and oatmeal thrown in a tupperware (w/o hot water) before it was time for him to leave. (I actually held him up). I feel bad when this happens, because it doesn't save us time, and he's still going to have to buy something else to eat with the sandwich (even though we have plenty of food in the house, and actually NEED to eat it so it won't go bad). Also because I'm rushed and he's clock-watching, neither of us feel super loved as he leaves. Don't get me wrong, we both love each other, and we both know that. He isn't mad at me when I don't get it right. Feeling loved is different than being loved, and as any married person will know, you don't always feel loved. When I don't wake up on time, it becomes one of those times. We learned about this in a couple of books you can find on the "Read" tab. (5 Love Languages & His Needs, Her Needs).

Anyways...

A few things I've learned about waking up when married:
I need my own alarm clock. Even if it goes off at the same time as his. I've realized it is false to believe I will wake up just because an alarm goes off, and my husband boldly jumps out of bed.

I need to set several alarms. Even if I wake up to the first one, I've realized it's also false to believe that I will get out of the bed once I wake up. I often fall back asleep. So I need to set a few alarms a couple minutes apart from each other.

Progress:
One thing I have gotten better at though, is timing. Once I'm awake and in the kitchen, I'm much better at cooking breakfast & lunch. I used to be slow at this, but now I've learned to cook multiple things simultaneously! So thankful that God is helping me learn! Getting better at waking up, is something I still want to do.

So anyways, this morning was much better than yesterday morning! Plus, it's Friday! I'll leave you with a couple of weekend songs:

One that's probably already stuck in your head because I said "It's Friday":

And, incase you accidentally watched the above video, here's a better one (to hopefully get that first out of your head):

Either way the weekend is finally here!

Go Jackets!

And What Do You Do?

One of the dreaded questions for a housewife (whether by choice, or otherwise) is the question that follows the excited, and animated conversation of a husband explaining his job to a new friend. The inquisitor, satisfied with the friendly response he/she received from the husband, graciously looks over at his "second half" and asks: "And what do you do?". All they get is a quirky, uncomfortable smile, and a blank look, and then some form of "I'm working at home, and just sort of learning to be a wife, and taking things slowly, and trying not to put extra stress on the marriage, etc." Since I've yet to come up with a complete (brief) explanation (that isn't offensive) I'm hoping this blog will help me see what I do and create an answer for acquaintances (and also dear friends & family that don't quite understand my choice).


When we were engaged, I would tell people that "I was quitting my job, and wasn't going to work because we want to really focus on the marriage and get used to things". My answer seemed to be endearing and acceptable to others. After about 3 months of being married, I guess I should have figured it out already, because this response no longer receives the same amount of understanding as it did. (I can only imagine how hard it will be for people to understand if "I'm still learning" after 3 years! Yikes!)


The explanation of why my husband and I chose for me to be a housewife is simple--but loaded: we believe marriage is a reflection of the unity attained in the relationship between God and the Church. We also believe that complimentary roles of a man and woman best reflect this relationship.


I'm not going to try to defend our belief here, and today I'm not going to try to explain it (because I need to work on my brevity). I do want to say that while the above statement is something we believe, we are learning what it means. We do not have it figured out yet (at all), and it's okay if we never do. The goal is progress. I'm not going to try to erase stereotypes, nor condemn you for not living the way we are. 


I'm new at this job, so I'm not great at any of it yet. I like to add things slowly so I can become an expert at the thing I'm doing, then learn something new and become an expert at that, and so on. With this blog, I hope to document what I do, but also what I want to do. I'm hoping this blog will in a way keep me accountable to do the things I want to do. I'll use the tabs above to keep "to-do" lists for myself. Right now I've got things I want to learn/accomplish in 4 main areas: books to read, things to do (practices to get better at, or things to go out an do), things to make (or fix), and food to eat (recipes or restaurants). These will probably evolve over time. 


Things you can be certain you'll find on this blog in the future:
Food!: we're foodies, so you can bet you'll see recipes, and restaurant reviews
Crafts: I love to do things myself, so you'll see lots of crafts, from slip covers to picture books
Thoughts on being a housewife: I need a better answer to "And what do you do?"
Thoughts on God: I want to be growing in all areas of life, but particularly this one.
Nature: Real life or created, I love seeing God's handiwork!
Life's happenings: I've got a lot going on, and so I'll probably share a tid bit here and there