Just Married

I’m sure if you live in the Savannah area you have probably seen several cars with the “Just Married?” written on the back windshield and wondered what was going on.  I’m sure several people noticed the website and meant to look it up when they got home but then forgot what it was by the time they got around to it.  Well, I’ll help you out on the big mystery.   Savannah Christian Church had the pretty ingenious idea of writing “Just Married?” on the back of every car that would let them in order to get the questions going and invite you to their marriage series.  The basic message is as follows (in my words…)

Just Married – GREAT!  A couple made the commitment to each other to stay together for a lifetime.  It’s a long hard road, one which you have to work at otherwise you will find yourself “just married”.  The life will slowly begin to leave your marriage and you will soon find yourself in the relationship for the mere fact that you are married.  So many marriages get to this point and it spirals out of control from there - soon they are knocking at Divorce’s door.  This is the rut that my church, Savannah Christian, is trying to keep marriages out of or rescue them from. 

I’m sure everyone KNOWS you have to work at a marriage for it to work but knowing and doing are two different things.  A few months back I had an epiphany regarding my marriage and how I treated my husband (Changing my ways and putting my husband first).  I figured that I couldn’t change him so I had to change myself (the same thing the first message of this “Just Married” series stressed).  For about two weeks my marriage was great – my husband was being thoughtful, I was being cool headed, things were good – but then slowly it began to revert back to how it was.  I quit holding back and began bickering again, the peace was gone.  My marriage is not bad, but it is also not GREAT and it could be better, just as all marriages could be. 

When I heard the first message of the series and the philosophy that you have to change yourself came about, my first reaction was “AMEN – see Honey, you need to change.”  It was at that point I knew I was in for a rude awakening.  If I changed then slowly he will as well – just as he did when I made a decision to change a few months back. 

As Cam said “Healthy breads Healthy.”  Makes sense right?  Don’t you smile when a bubbly person walks into the room just as your spirits drop when a person who is consistently negative is in the same area?  Look at your Facebook friends – there are people you want to read their posts and some you wish you could unfriend but know you would hurt their feelings if you did.  Wouldn’t that same principle apply to your marriage?  My dad once said watch a dog and see how excited they get when their owner gets home and do the same thing to your spouse.  As much as I hate admitting my dad is right – he was right.  If the first reaction to your spouse coming home is excitement – like you have been waiting for them to come home ALL day, it would be easier to have a great night then if you greeted them with complaints. 

If your marriage is lacking (or just could use a little freshness) I would encourage you to attend this series (or watch it online if you don’t actually want to go to church). 

p.s. I borrowed the car picture - it looked a lot better then my car.

How (and why) I lost 25 pounds...

Last summer my husband broke his wrist in a training class – apparently the police dog liked his wrist a little too much.  Being a guy he figured he could wrap his wrist and it would heal.  About a month later the wrist started to swell again so he finally went to the doctor.  Sure enough it was broken and apparently he would have healed it himself had he had a larger brace on it (which he ended up getting rather than casting it) but while he was there the Dr called him out on his weight.  I had been telling him for MONTHS that he needed to lose some weight but his excuse was always “I don’t have the time to go work out as much as I would need to.”  He never listened to me that if he watched what he ate he would get great results but when the Doctor said that he needed to watch what he ate (since he was older and working out would not help much) he finally listened. 

At this point I felt a little bad that he was going to have to go on a diet and here I was still eating McDonalds and whatever else I wanted with no consequence (granted I was still nursing so I could afford some extra calories).  I made a deal with Mark that I would change my eating habits with him so he wouldn’t have to do it alone.  All fast food was a no-no, soda was gone, Mark gave up his sweet tea (which he substituted with splenda water – gross!), fish and chicken was readily stocked in the house as well as lots of veggies. 

We never did get a good “starting weight” on him cause he refused to step on the scale but I have a pretty good idea.  I still had a few pounds to lose from my pregnancy so my starting weight was 152 (pre-pregnancy was 148).  I set myself a goal weight of 140 and no less than 135 cause I never dreamed I would ever lose more than that and didn’t want to set myself up for failure. 

Weight started falling off of me quicker then Mark, which I credited to the nursing, but he lost 15 pounds in the first month.  When I hit 140 within the first month I was shocked, then I hit 135, then 130 and I was getting a little worried that I was losing too much weight.  At that point every morning I weighted light I ate McDonalds for lunch to counteract it.  Right now (7 months after the “change” started) I am weighing in consistently at 127 (although I at one point hit 124 and ate horrible to gain that weight back).  Mark ended up losing at least 30 pounds (since we don’t have a starting number we can only go off what his first weigh in was). 

My sister told me when I started to lose weight to keep in mind that I will look good no matter what, that when I get thinner I will still think I need to lose more so be careful.  For once my sister was right.  As the weight dropped my weight limit dropped lower and lower.  I began striving for a lower number each day.  Eventually I realized what was going on and reminded myself that I couldn’t lose more weight without being too thin.  Still today I look down and find “pudginess” especially around my waist and think I can lose a few more pounds to get rid of that but I know that I will actually have to exercise that off (something that I really don’t want to have to do). 

I’m not trying to brag or say “look at me”, rather show that changing your behavior really does work, anything is possible.  I figured I would really have to work to lose 5 or 10 pounds and ended up losing 25 in 4 months.  This is also coming from someone who knows nothing about weight loss or any training what so ever but I am very good at self control (except when it comes to what comes out of my mouth – but that is for a different day). 

AFTER

BEFORE

(disregard the horrible hair and sunglasses - this was the only picture I could find)

The many faces of Colleen

"Daddy - Can't you see I'm driving?  Enough with the pictures"

"Hmm...this is really good - I wonder if I can get more?"

WHEEEE!!!

"Here I am!!!"

While I was away...

Life has been a little busy so here are a few “catch up” items…

• My little girl is growing up way to fast. She is already 17 months and learning new words every day. Her latest words are in the bathroom category – “Poo Poo” “Pee Pee” “Potty” and she knows what they mean. For the last week or so we have been trying to get her to actually use the potty but being the doubting mommy I somehow always manage to miss the opportunity. Today she was dropped off at my office and after she had a snack she walked to the hall and told me “potty” so I took her to the bathroom, stripped her down and sat her on the toilet. Since her diaper was wet when I took it off I figured she went potty and told me after the fact but I put her on the potty just to make her happy. After about 30 seconds she wanted down so I took her off the toilet and told her to stay so I could get a new diaper and in the 20 seconds I was gone she managed to “pee pee” on the bathroom floor. Mixed feelings about this – bummed cause I missed the chance of her going in the toilet ( a feat we have yet to accomplish), disgusted cause I had to clean up baby piss off the floor, and happy cause she actually had it right – she did have to go potty. One day we will get it right.

• Work has been a little crazy. This was the first year I did tax returns, which made me a little nervous but I managed none the less. I actually got the hang of them and by the end I was pretty confident that I wasn’t doing anything wrong. It helped to know that my boss was reviewing them after I did them to catch anything I messed up and am happy to report that I did pretty damn good! Although I did enjoy the extra responsibility I still did not enjoy the season much. I have a lot of guilt due to the fact that I could not work as much as I would have liked. With Mark’s schedule and lack of sitters I couldn’t really work much on the weekends while my boss was there every weekend starting in February. Perhaps next year Colleen will be able to come to work and play by herself and not get into everything so I can take a little more off my boss’s plate.

• I’ve decided to go back to school and get my MACC degree and take the CPA exam. Being 26 I have a lot of life ahead of me and there is so more opportunity if I have the 3 letters at the end of my name. Right now I’m at a standstill because in an office like ours there is nowhere I can go without going back to school. I am hoping to start in the fall (that is if I pass the stupid GMAT test and get accepted into graduate school. I’m planning to take the test in the first week or two of May so hopefully I can get the ball rolling on the studying thing.

• My church search is over and I have found a home at Savannah Christian. For the past few months I have been volunteering in the nursery which has been doing wonders for my baby fever – each week with the little ones crying and spitting up on me further puts that urge to have another baby far out of my mind.

Well, that pretty much sums up my life lately…

How NOT to have an affair...

So tonight a page I was following did confessions segment for fun – which it was fun and disturbing at the same time. I’m sure I’m not the only one disturbed by the amount of people who cheat on their spouses or significant other. I find equally disturbing the number of people who “like” that fact. Imagine how many marriages would stay intact if people wouldn’t cheat. Do marriages get stale? Sometimes – but that doesn’t mean that you give up and find someone else to fill that void. When you get married you stick it out. Sure, I might sound a little hypercritical since I’ve been divorced and didn’t stick it out but I didn’t cheat. Granted I didn’t wait for the divorce to be final before I continued with my life but the relationship itself was over and there was no going back.

How to avoid an affair…

Have sex – often (read my blog on sex in marriage) – if you are going weeks and even months without sex (and your spouse is NOT deployed) then there is a real danger of you or your spouse straying.

Confess – if you have thoughts of straying tell someone – if you can’t keep yourself honest then bringing a friend or even your spouse into your thoughts can keep you honest. I know if I ever told my husband I was having inappropriate thoughts about someone else he would make sure I was taken care of (not that I’ve had to do this).

Don’t put yourself in a position where you can have an affair – don’t go party and get drunk without someone to protect you otherwise you may find yourself waking up with someone else not knowing how you got there – better yet, don’t drink to get drunk.

Keep your distance – you don’t want to confess everything to someone of the opposite sex to be consoled – you will find yourself liking this person better than your own spouse if you are having problems already in your marriage.

Give your spouse access to everything you own – when you are in a marriage there should be no secrets (other then what you plan on doing special for your spouse). Would it be so bad if your spouse read your emails and logged into your facebook account or even checked your phone to see who you were talking to? If so – ask yourself why – what do you have to hide and should you be hiding that? If you want to keep something private, write a journal – at least it is only you and the paper and nobody else.

Surround yourself with people who have the same values – if you hang out with someone who is cheating on their spouse then they are likely to bring you down instead of preventing you from doing the same thing.

If you find yourself in a position where you think another party might believe you are interested in them be straight up with them. Make sure they are aware that you have no intention of starting anything. The worst thing that will happen is they think you are a little conceded but at least you are on the same page.

Decide not to – if you never give yourself the option to have an affair then you won’t.

Lastly – Respect yourself and others. Just as you wouldn’t want to be cheated on don’t be the one someone is cheating with.

Sex in marriage...

1 Corinthians 7:1-5

Now for the matters you wrote about: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

Who would have thought that this would actually be discussed in church – it is officially my favorite passage in the bible. I actually found this passage several months ago and sent it to my husband who laughed and said that only I would be able to find something like this.

It’s a proven fact that couples fight the most about two things, sex and money. Without divulging too much personal information, this is a “discussion” I’ve had with my husband several times. It is pretty obvious to anyone that there is a large age difference between my husband and I (18 years to be exact) and while there isn’t much that the age difference affects our sex life is one of them (me being 26 and at my peak).

Sex…it has become a dirty word and a casual act at the same time. While I am not one to preach about saving sex until marriage – I didn’t wait, however I wish I had. I was by no means loose – I can count the number of men I kissed on one hand and my ex husband was my first. Sex is more of an emotional connection for me and before my husband and I were married there was always something missing and once the “I Do’s” were said something changed, perhaps it was the shame that was no longer there. Now it is the physical intimacy that makes me feel the most loved and that is what I crave the most…the love, not pleasure (not that it’s not pleasurable – because it is amazing).

Sex and marriage go hand in hand. In almost 3 years of marriage I could probably count on one hand the number of times I have said “not now” because I feel like it is my job as a wife to keep my husband from looking elsewhere for it, although he would argue that its because I’m a nymphomaniac. Honestly, in today’s society there are so many challenges to marriage, why risk the possibility of adultery by denying your spouse? If you are sexually satisfied then why would you look elsewhere?

I’m a firm believer in not putting yourself into positions that could lead down a dangerous path. While I understand my husband has friends of the opposite sex and even his boss is a female, I trust that he won’t ruin our family with one of them. At the same time I expect him not to develop any new relationships with other women on a personal level. Although I trust him, I do have check mechanisms in place so that if he began to stray he would have to be very sneaky to do it and hopefully an alarm would go off in his heart to keep him from pursuing it. Some may say I’m not trusting because I do keep tabs on him but I see it more as protecting my marriage. I don’t do anything behind his back, he knows everything I look at and he agreed to allow me to keep tabs on before we ever thought of getting married. He has the same free reign of everything I have as well although he doesn’t take advantage of it. If you could do something to protect your marriage, wouldn’t you do it as well?

We have both been married before, so we are both aware that marriage is not guaranteed to last if we don’t put the effort into it. We make a choice every day to be married and if there is a hard day we do what is necessary to make it to the next day. I’m sure everyone has had make-up sex at one point or another – this has a way of reassuring one another that everything is going to be ok. I’m sure I’m not the only one who is nicer when I feel loved, wanted and appreciated.

So what’s the lesson we learned today…Have sex because it will make your wife (or husband) nicer, it will keep third parties out of your marriage, and most importantly…God said so.

No need for grand gestures…

I don’t need a fancy car or diamond rings – I need love and affection.

Valentine’s Day is not about presents and flowers...it's a day to go out of your way to let the special someone in your life that you really love them. Sure you love them every day but life tends to get in the way of really showing it...

Life tends to go a little something like this…

Wake up. Take shower. Get kids ready. Take kids to school, daycare, Grammy’s house etc. Go to work. Come home. Cook dinner. Clean up. Get kids ready for bed. Go to bed and start again the next day.
Where is the romance in there – where is the time that you can really show your spouse that you love them. When is the extra effort made to say “Hey, I really appreciate what you do for me and our family and by the way – you look AMAZING.”

Since Colleen was born (and most likely all during the pregnancy) I’ve been struggling with feeling like I am appreciated and loved. I’ve struggled with balancing working, momhood, being a wife, keeping the house clean, and everything else I am tasked with. I am often times in my own little bubble with nobody to share my thoughts and feelings with since I have no time to venture off and find a group of friends. I often feel so alone and need a jump start to feeling at peace again. Then Valentine’s Day comes up…

On Saturday I called my husband up at work and told him I wanted salon grade shampoo and conditioner for Valentine’s day (really it was an excuse to buy the stuff since I would feel too guilty to buy it on a regular day). He then proceeded to tell me that he wanted to get me a new charm for my bracelet – one of a cross or something to that nature. GREAT IDEA! I decided to look online and see if I could find one I liked at the stores around – and found that Belk was having this awesome sale going on that day until 2 so I told Mark and he said to go get it (why not save money when you can). He does get credit for the idea – the thought counted.

Monday night rolled around and it was late – almost midnight before I went to bed and Mark was still up. I thought it would be cute to put his card on his pillow so when he came to bed it would be past midnight and officially Valentine’s Day. I don’t know when he came to bed but when I woke up the next morning he had written on the mirror “Happy Valentine’s Day – I love you” – nice gesture and I should have accepted that at that. I figured when he got his card it dawned on him that he forgot my card so he was buying himself some time and I was ok with that. He called me later in the day and asked if we had any plans for the night cause he was asked to watch the boys. I said I didn’t have plans – I figured he did…well I was wrong. So I get home – ended up ordering pizza (not my favorite food in the world) but there was a card…from Colleen and the kids…not from my husband. He thought that the writing on the mirror was a substitution for a card. He actually said I got my card this morning on the mirror, and I got my charms and even got something unexpected (card from the kids) so he did more than he needed.

I don’t need presents – the only reason I like cards is because there are so many to choose from you have to read so many to find THE ONE that fits the best – it takes thought and time. Valentine’s day is about presents and flowers to the stores – not to me. I just want to feel loved and thought of. I figured a special dinner would have been cooked since I told him we couldn’t afford to go out to eat again since we just ate out on Friday. I feel like such an awful person for getting upset over a day.

Someone had said that they don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day because they show they love each other every day – well I like to celebrate because I don’t feel loved every day – I feel alone. I am constantly begging for some type of attention – please just talk to me – can we turn off the TV and the computer, can we just spend time together? Can you spit out the nasty crap so I can have a kiss? Can I try to come on to you without you pushing me away?

I have a problem – I analyze everything and it gets me into trouble a lot and makes me feel horrible a lot of times. With special days such as this when nothing special is done I feel like I’m not special enough to do anything for. I’m not important enough to take the time to write down a few words in a card to say how much I’m loved. I’m not worth spitting out the nasty stuff to get a kiss. I wouldn’t have thought I would have to specifically spell out that a kiss is a requirement for Valentine’s Day but apparently I do (making mental note). I think next year I’m going to rip the day out of my calendar and try to forget about it entirely – think of it as just another day because I’m tired of feeling this way – feeling as I do every day compounded 50 times because it was suppose to be special.

I love my husband and while I know he loves me too I don’t think he knows how I need to be shown that I’m loved – and that’s not his fault. I need to work on getting over my insecurities, get over my need to feel needed, get over my fear of being just another face in the crowd that nobody will ever notice. I'm afraid that if I do get over it all then I really wont be needed, loved or noticed...