New Year’s Resolution No. 2568490320- Learn to be more proactive; instead of reactive.

During lunch…

Matthew: You and I are reactive people. Not proactive people.

Me: Why do you say that?

Matthew: We don’t work out to stay in shape. We work out because we got fat.

The events of yesterday evening were the kind that make people question what they are doing with their lives.  They make people ask themselves, why did I marry this person.  They make people weak, angry and defensive and blamers. Yes, blamers.

As we pulled into the drive way, we notice the lights were all off in the house. I confirmed with Matthew that we did indeed leave them on this morning.  Then we walked inside.  I flipped a light switch. Nothing.   I turned to Matthew, “They turned the lights off.”

I quickly searched the cabinets  for candles because if you know me, I am terrified of the dark.  Seriously. I will hall ass down the hallway to the nearest light switch if I wake up in the middle of the night.

Matthew called the energy company. We had not received a bill in a over a month or a disconnection notice. WTF?!?! How could they just do that?

Billing was closed. And nothing could be done till the morning. We light candles eat dinner and I hear Matthew upset. I kept telling him everything would be fine. What’s a few hours without electricity?  I was not trying to comfort him, I was really okay with it.

This made me think about my previous marriage.  If this incident had occurred back then, all hell would have broken loose. I would have blamed my ex-husband, screamed that I wanted a divorce for the 100th time that week.  And I would have packed my bags and stayed with my parents.

Not this time. The truth is we slacked off. We have not made time to look at bills the last month.  We have both been so busy with other things that we did not make this a priority. Forward to today at noon when we had the conversation at the beginning of this blog. We agreed, we make too much money for this to happen. And we need to be proactive about bills and not assume that the other person took care of it. Sometimes, I think we are too busy being in love that we forget to be responsible grown-ups.

As a side note- earlier yesterday I had been super grumpy and moody.  I was crying at lunch about not knowing what to do with my life. Matthew was sure it was his fault I was unhappy. Ugh so much drama! By 9:00 pm, I had perspective.  Silly woman, you married your bff. Calm down.

All wonderful, relationship growth aside- it was interesting living in third world conditions for ten hours.  Things got real, real fast. First of all, I had no idea we owned that many candles. Second of all, i spent most of the evening terrified we were going to burn the house down. I stayed awake as long as I could just so that I would not forget to turn off the lights. I can not explain how terrifying it was to have to use the bathroom in the middle of the night without lights.  I wore my big girl panties well, walked quickly through the hallway, walked quickly into the bathroom making sure not to look at the mirror at all while washing my hands.  At one point one the cats scared me. I could have sworn she was a giant rat. God, I hope it wasn’t a rat.

As I write this, Matthew plays Halo 4.

So in an attempt to turn things around, we decided to go to the gym early this morning.  Seeing as I would not be able to blow dry my hair at home, we decided to shower and change at the gym.  In an effort to lose all this happily in love marriage weight, I started this 12 week fitness challenge from The Sweaty Betties http://thesweatybetties.com/
. I am on week 1 Day #2 and I love it.  It is definitely a great workout.  Fifteen minutes later, I was drenched in sweat. Matthew decided to try it out. He did well, except for his criticism of my squats.

This week has been intense. I would like to think that I have grown as a person and as spouse.  This weekend will be filled with board games and budgeting.

Friday, I welcome with you open arms.  For real, hold me closer tiny dance.

 

 

Don’ttouchmymustache.

Last night hours before the Phase 10 fiasco we had a minature golf double date. The place was super cute, dark with black lights everywhere. The decor definitely screamed Monster Golf (the name fit it well).

During the second to last hole- an impossible one I might add- some young kid randomly walked up to the dj booth to ask a trivia question for a prize. The question: Is a shark a fish or a mammal?  First of all, I can not believe that was a question but hey some people may not really know right?  The young kid, said that we had to walk up to the booth to give the answer.  So I took two steps and claimed my prize- a super cute mustache. 

I thought about donning it during the rest of the game- the entire last hole but decided against it.  I have big plans for this ‘stache.  The possibilities are endless.  Seriously.

En fin…tomorrow is Monday. Vacay is over.   I wish everyone a splendid Monday.  Kick ass and take names.

“Little Miss, little miss, little miss can’t be wrong…” or in this case Mr.

Today is a day full of sorrow and melancholy.  In 16 hours my vacation will be over and I will be thrust back into the reality of normal 9 to 6 life.  Don’t get me wrong, my normal life is not bad at all.  I am fortunate enough to LOVE my job.  Goodbye sleeping in past seven.  Goodbye trash TV.  Goodbye lounging in pj’s all day.  You have been good to me.

Last night we had some friends over.  And we began to play phase ten. It blows my mind how intense card games can actually be.  Things became heated and Matthew and I ended up disagreeing on a move.  The details are irrelevant but as a result I decided to bow out of the game. 

Now- I love to win.   Nothing makes me happier than to kick everyone’s ass at a anything.  However, I am a firm believer in being fair.  And if things are not fair then I would just much rather step out before I begin to act like I had just recently been exposed to gamma rays.  Unfortunately, my bowing out was considered throwing a fit.  Fine, I’ll take it. Maybe I was being a little pansy but eh.  Whatevs.

What I found fascinating is the need to be right. What is it in us that makes us want to be right so bad that nothing else matters?  We will stop at no length- even hurt someone’s feeling publicly just so that we can be right…

In the end, it turns out I was right.  Of course. Of course.

 

The not ugly, just unflattering wedding dress.

I spent most of this afternoon rearranging our bedroom.  Matthew was sweet and helped for about five minutes till I made a snappy comment- he then found refuge in the kitchen among the dishes.  I organized our dresses, nightstands and closets.  Almost everything was complete except for Matthew’s dresser. I can not understand how someone can own so many t-shirts.  There are t-shirts from high school, 5Ks we completed, comic strip t-shirts- oh so many.  I even found the t-shirt with the sleeves cut off (seriously, why?). 

I was so excited to show Matthew everything I had accomplished (I was still annoyed by his playing of Halo 4 but that’s another story for another time).  When I opened his closet, I spotted a photo album on the very top and I thought perhaps now was the time to reveal the contents.

We are each others second marriage.  During our “courtship” we often shared stories about our past lives (although there was some overlap on my end-again for another time).  We discussed the people we were in those marriages and our expectations then and now.  It has been about nine months since we married- and fifteen months since we declared our love for each other. 

During this time I have mentioned on a few occasions that I hated the wedding dress I wore during my first wedding ceremony.  I’ve tried to describe it but was never quite able to conjure up enough adjectives to describe effectively.  That is until today, when I decided “why describe? why not show?” 

Matthew’s words, “It’s not ugly just not flattering.”  What a sweetheart.  The entire time I was cringing as we flipped the pages.  The photos were filled with lots of people that I no longer know and lots of actions.

Perhaps that is why the second time around, I chose to have a simple wedding.  Nothing fancy shmancy.  Just us at a park with our closest friends and family.  There was no reception. No first dance. No throwing of garters and bouquets.  Just lots of love and laughter. 

Where was I going with this?

Evidently there will need to be a follow up post.

 

Not my first time at the rodeo…errr marriage…

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to cook more for my husband, Matthew. We carpool to work each morning and without fail he makes sure that we stop at Starbucks so I can get my fix. He knows exactly how I life my coffee and if that morning, the bold of the day sucks- he knows my back up choice.  This means that every morning we spend an extra 10-15 minutes of our morning-on me.

Today as I was dropping Matthew off after lunch I thought of our Starbucks runs.  Matthew loves Sonic-but it would not be healthy to stop every morning for a large cranberry slush.  How can I show Matthew the same loving gestures that he shares with me every morning.  I can feed him home cooked meals.

That is what I will do. Starting today.  In a previous life, I rarely cooked.  Rarely.  I was always too busy…but now I know that I can make time. Every day-week I can set time out to plan our meals.  Matthew has been complaining about his weight lately.  We both have gained some weight since we married.  He has started calling himself “fatisito,” which sounds completely adorable and makes me giggle every time.

First home cooked meal of 2013- Chicken and Rice soup.  This will probably be dinner and lunch for the next few days.  My next goal- learn how to cook for two people.

Matthew describing how he feels and coining the term fatisito.

(for the record, i do cook—just not as often as i should).

The Year of Three Last Names.

Towards the end of 2011, I remember being excited about 2012.  The anticipation of new start and a clear defining line separating the past from the present filled me with hope.  2012 proved to be a great year. Quite possibly one of the most challenging years I have ever experience, but nonetheless a great year.

The first half of the year was dizzying blur.  It was like riding one of the scary old carnival rides.  The adrenaline in your body causes you to have a mixture of different emotions from scared our of your mind to super excited in anticipation of the speed.   In a period of four months-I had three last names.  Two different versions of me existed-seized to exist and then morphed onto a mega version of me.  A happy version of me.

In January, I still carried someone else’s last name.  In  February, my family’s name and in April- the name of the man I was meant to share my life with.  This was the perfect beginning to the rest of 2012.  I spent the other half of the year learning about the married me.  A completely different version of the person I had been previously.  So many other life changing events happened as well, but the most important was that I learned to love myself while loving someone else.

This morning, after our friends had left, in the quiet of our bedroom as I listened to my husband sleep, I could not help but feel overwhelmed with excitement about 2013.

New Year’s Resolution- January 2013- Dance More.