Sunday, December 29, 2013

New Year's Resolution

I was talking to a great friend over this Christmas break about goals and being that New Year's is coming up..... 
my New Years resolution is to not allow myself to become numb and hardened to all the crap that is going on with my life and to still find ways to smile and laugh my way through the adversities of life and enjoy the little small day to day adventures and joys that come my way.  I want to still be able to be me and not be as closed up and guarded because of past events and current problems.  And if I am not able to complete this goal this year, then I will keep working on it for years to come even after Mr Right for me comes into my life.

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

In search of a "boring man"

I found this blog that I really like and want to remember it for the future.  Here is the link
http://www.aholyexperience.com/2013/11/the-real-truth-about-boring-men-and-the-women-who-live-with-them-redefining-boring/

The Real Truth about ‘Boring’ Men — and the Women who Live with Them: Redefining Boring

So not every guy proposes with lip syncing, rolling cameras, and a choreographed entourage.
Yeah —  so what if  your Dad didn’t?
He just pulled that beat-up Volkswagon Rabbit of his over in front of Murray Reesor’s hundred acre farm right there where Grey Township meets Elma Township, pulled out a little red velvet box, and whispered it in the snowy dark: “Marry me?”

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“He didn’t even get down on one knee or anything?”
You boys ask it incredulous, like there’s some kind of manual for this kind of holy.
And I’ve got no qualms in telling you no. No, he didn’t even get down on one knee – it was just a box, a glint of gold in the dark, two hallowed words and a question mark.
“Boring.”
I know. When you’ve watched a few dozen mastermind proposals on youtube, shared them with their rolling credits on Facebook, marvelling at how real romance has an imagination like that.
Can I tell you something, sons?
Romance isn’t measured by how viral your proposal goes. The internet age may try to sell you something different, but don’t ever forget that viral is closely associated with sickness – so don’t ever make being viral your goal.
Your goal is always to make your Christ-focus contagious – to just one person.
It’s more than just imagining some romantic proposal.
It’s a man who imagines washing puked-on sheets at 2:30 am, plunging out a full and plugged toilet for the third time this week, and then scraping out the crud in the bottom screen of the dishwasher — every single night for the next 37 years without any cameras rolling or soundtrack playing — that’s imagining true romance.
The man who imagines slipping his arm around his wife’s soft, thickening middle age waistline and whispering that he couldn’t love her more…. who imagines the manliness of standing bold and unashamed in the express checkout line with only maxi pads and tampons because someone he loves is having an unexpected Saturday morning emergency.
The man who imagines the coming decades of a fluid life – her leaking milky circles through a dress at Aunt Ruth’s birthday party, her wearing thick diaper-like Depends for soggy weeks after pushing a whole human being out through her inch-wide cervix, her bleeding through sheets and gushing amniotic oceans across the bathroom floor and the unexpected beauty of her crossing her legs everytime she jumps on the trampoline with the kids.
The real romantics imagine greying and sagging and wrinkling as the deepening of something sacred.
Because get this, kidsHow a man proposes isn’t what makes him romantic. It’s how a man purposes to lay down his life that makes him romantic.
And a man begins being romantic years before any ring – romance begins with only having eyes for one woman now – so you don’t go giving your eyes away to cheap porn. Your dad will say it sometimes to me, a leaning over – “I am glad that there’s always only been you.” Not some bare, plastic-surgeon-scalpel-enhanced pixels ballooning on a screen, not some tempting flesh clicked on in the dark, not some photo-shopped figment of cultural beauty that’s basically a lie.
The real romantics know that stretchmarks are beauty marks and that different shaped women fit into the different shapes of men souls and that real romance is really sacrifice.
I know – you’re thinking, “Boring.”
Can you see it again – how your grandfather stood over your grandmother’s grave and brushed away his heart leaking without a sound down his cheeks?
50 boring years. 50 unfilmed years of milking 70 cows, raising 6 boys and 3 girls, getting ready for sermon every Sunday morning, him helping her with her zipper. 50 boring years of arguing in Dutch and making up in touching in the dark, 50 boring years of planting potatoes and weeding rows on humid July afternoons, 50 boring years of washing the white Corel dishes and turning out the light on the mess – till he finally carried her in and out of the tub and helped her pull up her Depends.
Don’t ever forget it:
The real romantics are the boring ones — they let another heart bore a hole deep into theirs.
Be one of the boring ones. Pray to be one who get 50 boring years of marriage – 50 years to let her heart bore a hole deep into yours.
Let everyone do their talking about 50 shades of grey, but don’t let anyone talk you out of it: committment is pretty much black and white. Because the truth is, real love will always make you suffer. Simply commit: Who am I willing to suffer for?
Who am I willing to take the reeking garbage out for and clean out the gross muck ponding at the bottom of the fridge? Who am I willing to listen to instead of talk at? Who am I willing to hold as they grow older and realer? Who am I willing to die a bit more for every day? Who am I willing to make heart-boring years with? Who am I willing to let bore a hole into my heart?
Get it: Life – and marriage proposals — isn’t not about one up-manship — it’s about one down-manship. It’s about the heart-boring years of sacrifice and going lower and serving. It’s not about how well you perform your proposal. It’s about how well you let Christ perform your life.
Sure, go ahead, have fun, make a ridiculously good memory and we’ll cheer loud: propose creatively — but never forget that what wows a woman and woos her is you how you purpose to live your life.
I’m praying, boys — be Men. Be one of the ‘boring” men and let your heart be bore into. And know there are women who love that kind of man.
The kind of man whose romance isn’t flashy – because love is gritty.
The kind of man whose romance isn’t about cameras — because it’s about Christ.
The kind of man whose romance doesn’t have to go viral — because it’s going eternal.
No, your dad did not get down on one knee when he proposed – because the romantic men know it’s about living your whole life on your knees.
There are Fridays. And the quiet romantics who will take out the garbage without fanfare. There will be the unimaginative calendar by the fridge, with all it’s scribbled squares of two lives being made one. The toilet seat will be left predictably up. The sink will be resigned to its load of last night’s dishes.
And there is now and the beautiful boring, the way two lives touch and go deeper into time with each other.
The clock ticking passionately into decades.

End of a semester


Today was my last day of finals for the semester.  I have been worrying a bit as this semester I have turned into a procrastinating perfectionist.  After many a night where I have devoted extra time to my boys snuggling them to sleep, taking care of a sick child, or just playing and having fun with them I found myself at a place where I realized my straight A's were probably lost.  Thanks to a great conversation with a close friend and other comments on facebook I realized that it will be ok.  Grades are just that, grades.  In the end I need to do what I need to do to graduate and continue on in school.  And in the end the letter grade is not the most important thing, making sure that my boys emotional, physical, and spiritual well being is.  Plus is there really anything wrong with B's anyways?  Now to wait for my grades to be posted next week. . .

Sunday, December 1, 2013

A kiss

Today has been the perfect ending to our Thanksgiving break.  We started out visiting a friend's ward where Hyrum was originally worried he wouldn't know anyone.  When I picked him up, he asked if we could visit again because he knew a few of the boys in his primary class from cub scouts.  I have been able to watch the 2 movies I am required to watch for school and work on my paper that is due tonight.  The movies are not love stories, but have an element of romance in them and it is funny when the couples kiss to see Hyrum glance over at me and roll his eyes.  Kaden and Quinten ask me when it will be my turn to fall in love and kiss on the lips.  They both are convinced that if you kiss on the lips you will get married and are in love.

I have had the opportunity to go on a few dates with different guys in the last few months and it is interesting as I evaluate them in my mind after going out with them.  I have come to the conclusion that I want someone who is my friend first and then it turns into a romantic relationship next.  I want to find someone who will talk to me and listen and who enjoys reading and has life plans and goals for the future.  I want someone who encourages me to make correct choices and I don't feel like I am being ignored and just a piece of meat.  I want someone who knows that my love languages are quality time and acts of service and knows how to effectively implement them in our relationship.  I want to be important and loved and someone who will be the "Terry Eleiott" for my boys.  I want to find someone who will play tourist with me no matter what town or city we are in.  I want someone who is willing to come to me and doesn't always make me go to them.

After a lot of pondering and grief, it is safe to say I am in a position once again where I am willing to open my heart and give it my all and see what is returned.  I am looking for the thrills that life has to offer me.