Gerald

I have a new friend. We haven't always been friends, but it seems that we're kind of stuck together, so we've decided to become friends instead of life long enemies. No, I'm not talking about my husband. I'm talking about Gerald, the frog that lives in my bathtub.

He doesn't live in my bathtub as much as under it. A few weeks ago (or maybe months, I've lost track) I woke to the sound of a frog croaking near by. I had noticed a few days before that there was a large population of frogs taking up residence in our shed. I assumed that a loan frog had hopped it's little self around the house next to our bedroom. I stepped outside to see if I could find him and shut him up. It was a Saturday morning and I really wanted to sleep in. I stepped outside and the croaking got softer. I stepped inside again and the croaking got louder. After stepping in and out a few more times just to make sure my ears were not playing tricks on me I realized that the sound was coming from my bathroom. That thoroughly grossed me out. I don't hate frogs, but I don't want them in my bathroom. My husband wasn't home to deal with the frog, so I poked my head into the bathroom to see if I could just put him under a cup or something. But I didn't see him anywhere. Not under the sink, not in the window, or any of the cupboards. Then he stopped croaking. I crawled back into bed and just forgot about the whole thing.

The next morning I took my shower and was busy with my normal morning rituals when he started croaking again. I detective skills placed the noise coming from somewhere in the vicinity of the bathtub. But there certainly wasn't a frog in the there when I was taking a shower. I looked again just to be sure, but there was definately not a frog there. Even so, there were most assuredly ribbits coming from my bathtub. Weeks have gone by and he is still there, living somewhere under my bathtub.

I only assume it is a he because no self respecting she-frog would get herself trapped under a bathtub. Or maybe she would...but all the other frogs (when they were still around, it's much to cold now) were living far away from my bathroom. Every day Gerald calls out for someone to find him. I've tried to scare him away by jumping up and down and stamping my feet all around the bathroom, much to the amusement of my husband. That only makes him croak louder. He seems to like it when I sing though. At least he shuts up when I sing.

Now if you're wondering why I have put up with Gerald for so long, it is simple: I don't like going under houses. Especially when I know there are frogs under there!! And neither does my dear husband. So...Gerald seems to be stuck with us, or we are stuck with him. He has stopped waking me up on Saturday mornings though, so that's good. We've come to an understanding. He doesn't start croaking until I'm out of the shower, and I don't stomp around when I'm in there.

Anger Management

I keep starting posts and then get distracted, busy, or give up. I feel like all my posts should have a purpose. They should have some moral. Something spiritual and righteous at the end. It's been more than a month since my last published post and I'm coming to realize, they don't always end that way. But this one might...

Have you ever noticed that some people are just angry? No matter what the issue is, or what you can do for them, they are angry. Even if it isn't your fault, they're angry. Like the person behind me in line at the pharmacy who is grunting because the person in front of me is taking a long time. I offer to let them go in front of me because they are obviously in a hurry, and I'm not in any rush, and they don't say thank you, and they still give an attitude to the cashier. Or the customer who's DSL is down because the phone lines aren't working properly who yells at me because AT&T can't get to the location until Friday

Life happens. Take a chill pill. Street lights turn red. The line you're in is always the slowest. The cashier just ran out of quarters. Is it really worth becoming utterly enraged when something doesn't go your way? Life just can't be that bad; can it?

My live surely isn't. I work the early shift at a cafe (at work by 6:30 am) and I start seeing customers between 7-7:30. Many mornings people tell me I'm "too perky" or "too happy this early." My response? I get paid to be there and get off at 3:30 in the afternoon. Sure it isn't ideal, but it could be worse. I used to work until 6 or 7 at night and that was no fun.

Anyways, the moral of the story is: don't be a downer and angry all the time. It's not worth it.
To quote a group of famed philosophers and theologians:
Always look on the bright side of life. --Monty Python

Smart women have better sex lives?

A study of 2,000 female twins revealed that those with a high emotional intelligence (EI) had more orgasms.

The findings suggest a low EI — the ability to manage feelings — could be linked to common sexual problems.

In the study, three out of ten women had trouble reaching a climax.

Women in the bottom 25 percent of the EI range had twice the normal risk of infrequent orgasm. Experts hope the findings could improve sex therapies.

“EI seems to have a direct impact on women’s sexual functioning by influencing her ability to communicate her sexual expectations and desires,” said Andrea Burri, the study’s co-author who is from King’s College London.

So jealous

My parents are going to Rome. They are leaving today and flying out tomorrow. I wanna go!!!

*sigh* Anyways, Jake and I get to take care of my brother's puppy while they are gone. My lazy fat dog is going to stay at their house with their other dogs and my grandma and we get a puppy. She's sweet and all, but a whole week? Atleast she is potty trained. And my parents got her fixed so our dog Duke, who is not fixed, doesn't get any ideas. :)

wish us luck!!

Not a justification, just an explanation

Right now I work full time and am not in school. I do not plan on going back to school, and sooner rather than later would like to be a stay at home wife. I have only told a handful of people until now. I think most people are under the impression that I'm planning on going back to school in the fall to become an RN. I considered that, and it was an easy thing to tell people when I wasn’t really sure what my future held. Over the last couple of months I’ve been thinking, praying, and talking with Jake and have come to the conclusion that I don’t want an official career. I don’t want a degree or any academic title for that matter. I want to be a homemaker. It has been my dream since I was a little girl. I have just recently realized, however, that I don't need to spend all the time and money half-heartedly pursuing something else until we have kids. I shouldn’t have to justify myself to others, but I feel like I will have to, so here goes.

There are two questions I get asked since Jake and I got married. The first is “What are you in school for?” When people find out I am not in school they look at me with woeful eyes like I won’t amount to anything. The second question I am asked most often is “When are you guys having kids?” People ask me these questions as if those are the only two things I could be doing right now to make my life meaningful. Since I am not in school we must be planning a family for the near future. Since we are not prego I must be pursuing a formal education. I am not throwing my life down the drain because I’m not in school and Jake and I are not rushing to have kids.

Many people my age are in school. Many of my own friends are very school oriented. They want degrees and careers of their own. There is nothing wrong with that and I am truly happy for them. My greatest desire however, is not to have my own official career but to support Jake and raise a family with him. I have no doubt that it is a God given desire and I want to do everything I can to pursue that. All I was ever taught in college was to pursue my own career and that I needed to be dependent only on myself. I don’t want that. I am dependent on Christ and he has given Jake as my provider.

I realize that this sounds like I was taken away and kept in a box somewhere and brain washed. This is not the norm; in fact it is backwards from our culture. This is probably why I have met resistance when I talk about it. I have this insatiable desire to nest; to create a comfortable home that we are proud of and excited to have company in. I want to be cooking, cleaning, planting a garden, and taking care of our home. I want to be the Titus 2 woman loving my husband and children, being busy at home, and so on. I want to be like the famous Proverbs 31 Woman, working hard, honoring my husband and supporting him in all he does. I want to volunteer at the pregnancy center. I want to be free to meet with a girl from the youth group on her lunch break if she needs to talk. I want more time to invest in people. Also, for totally selfish reasons, I’d really like to be able to go to the bank when they are open.

I’ve been thinking about why this is such a scary thing to people. If I was training to be an Olympic gymnast instead of going to school, that would be acceptable. If I wanted to climb Mt Everest instead of going to school people would think I was an inspiration. I’d have something to show for those things: a metal around my neck or frostbite on my toes. Being a stay at home wife is more of a burden than an accomplishment these days.

How does our family feel about this? Our parents support us. I haven’t really talked to anyone else because I know some of them will be disappointed. The ones who think I threw my life away by getting married at 19. The ones who desire great wealth and prestige and think we should too. Jake and I don’t desire to be rich. We are quite content to live within the means God has granted us at this time. He has been more than generous with us.

I don’t mean this to sound stuck up or “we trust God and you don’t.” By no means! This is something we feel called to do. Obviously not everyone is called to the same things. I just wanted to clarify that. Some of the ladies who I have talked to about this get defensive because they work outside of the home. I don’t have a problem with that. I hope that they don’t have a problem that I’ll be staying home.

My mom asked me to finish this blog, so I finally did.

"Where is it?"

My mother told me the other day "I don't care about how much you respect your husband, where is this new blog about your new life?" She didn't even preface it with "what a good wife you are" or anything. Sheesh.

It is coming. I promise. I've told mom and dad what it is all about, but I haven't told my in-laws. I figure we should tell them in person first before I announce it on the internet. I don't think anyone (other than my mom) who knows them reads this, but maybe there is someone. It's not that I think they will be upset or anything (Jake and I are not going to become swingers or join a cult or anything) but there just hasn't been a good time to tell them. But I'm going to this week! This is my promise to you, whoever you are. :) So be looking for a new blog sometime in the next two weeks.

r-e-s-p-e-c-t

This is not the promised blog about my new decisions in life. That is still on my laptop at home getting edited. No, this blog is about respect. Not for me, but for my husband. Husbands in general really.

The other night Jake and I watched the movie A Beautiful Mind with Russel Crowe. It is a true story about a schizophrenic named John who winds ups being a genius and winning the Nobel Prize. This movie got me thinking about another Russel Crowe movie: Cinderella Man. The first time I watched this movie I was struck by the relationship between Jim (Russel Crowe) and his wife Mae (Renee Zellweger). If you haven't seen this movie, it is about a washed up boxer who is out money and work because of The Depression. His family is starving and freezing to death because they can't pay the bills. His children end up being sent to his in-law's house someplace warmer because they get sick. Jim is determined to bring his family back together and keep them together so he starts boxing again. Mae is not super supportive right away because it is dangerous and he has already been hurt so many times. But after a quick fight, she is on his side. She actually supports him and encourages him to do what he can to keep the family together.

What struck me about their relationship is her respect for her husband. He so dearly loves and cares for her and wants to provide for her and their children, and she lets him! Even though it seems stupid and even life threatening, she supports him and cheers for him. She doesn't just look on and nag him, tell him he'll never make it, and rag on him to all her friends. She actually stand by him and bolsters him up, roots for him, and publicly supports him even though the odds and against him. What a wife.

I realized that in A Beautiful Mind the wife is just a supportive. Her husband has schizophrenia. He is litterally going crazy and accidentally almost killed their baby. He secretly stops taking his meds because they were making him miserable. When the doctor says he needs to come back to the hospital for more treatments John refuses to go and decides that he can beat schizophrenia on his own. His wife Alicia stands by him. Maybe she is going crazy too. But you know what? He does it! He is still plagued by the things and people he sees, (in the movie they main people he has interacted with just follow him around looking sad that he doesn't talk to them any more) but he is able to ignore them mostly. He wins the Nobel prize and gives all the credit to his wife. She stood by him and supported him. Because of her he had hope to work harder. Perhaps a great deal of that was made for the movie because when I researched John Nash I found that he and Alicia were actually dicvorced for a time. They remarried but apparently were only room-mates until after 1994. But it sure made for a good ending to a movie.

I want to be a wife like that. I'm blessed to have a husband who loves me like these men loved their wives so it isn't all that hard. He hasn't decided to do something totally crazy yet, but I'm practicing respect while I can. :)

hello...?

I've been trying to start a new blog for a while. I don't have internet at my house, so I've been writing in Word, but then I have too much time to think about it and can't bring myself to post anything. But I am working a blog about a new decision in my life. I just haven't had my computer and the internet in the same place in a while. There will be one soon.

Not that anyone has been here in forever since I haven't posted in...forever.

“This must be it, welcome to the New Year"

It’s been quite a few months since I’ve posted a blog. I keep starting them, and then decide they aren’t good enough. I guess a new year is a good time to just go for it.

Jake and I have been living at my parents’ house since the beginning of October. There are no rentals that allow two big Labradors. After a couple months of searching, and a couple deals that fell through, we’ve bought a house! We’re still in escrow technically, but things look good. Escrow should close by the 19th of this month, and we can start the work. The whole place smells like smoke so we are replacing the floors, and texturing and painting the walls. So it may be a week or two before we can actually move in. But what a glorious day it will be. Not that it hasn’t been great living with my parents, but I have to walk through the snow to get to a bathroom.

All in all, it’s been a great year. Jake and I have taken chances, made mistakes, and stood by each other in uncertain times. Jake’s grandfather had heart surgery. My brother went to drug rehab. We’re still waiting to hear if Jake passed his licensing test. I decided not to go back to school for this year. Oh, and lets not forget…we’re living in my parents’ storage room. If that isn’t a time when we need to stick together, I’m not sure what is.

This New Year I plan on taking more pictures. I decided to make a new photo album of this last year for Facebook, and had to search my computer, my dad’s computer, and my grandma’s computer to find a handful of pictures! Our whole first year together, and a dozen pictures is all I find? We took trips. We had experiences. Exciting things happened. And I didn’t have a camera for any of it. That's my resolution. :)