Sleeping Beauty

At my house every game is somehow turned into a princess trying to flee from some evil person and a prince coming to her rescue.  Thank you Disney and nearly every other fairy tale movie out there! 

This is what I find while putting away laundry one day and I had to capture the moment.  Yes… Journey is Sleeping Beauty in a plastic “under bed” storage case, with couch pillows and blankets awaiting the kiss of her prince, who that day was played by Trinity.  Trinity, while wearing a long flower gown with boots and a doctor overcoat and chef hat, marched up, and with as deep a voice as that little lady can muster, declared her love for the sleeping young lady and kissed her.  Too funny!  I love being able to witness these moments.

  

Talking To the Heart

We were all created differently.  We look different, we think different, we perceive things different and, even though we umbrella classify emotions under static terms like “happy”, “sad”, “frustrated” and “love”, we feel different too.  One person’s trash is another’s treasure, right?  The same can be said for emotions.  What your significant other feels is fine, or even great, can leave you feeling empty and unappreciated. 

I have been married for 10 1/2 years now and together with this man for nearly 15.  You would think I know him well, and I do, but we are still mastering our ways of showing the other our affection and love in a way they perceive it best.  It is harder than you might think.  What one person craves in order to fill their “love bank”, so to speak, could seem like nonsense to the other, or shallow to the other, or it just might not be anywhere on their spectrum of “ways to show how much I care”.

So, www.5lovelanguages.com is a great site that you can go to and both you and your significant other can fill out a short quiz that will compile things to give you an idea of your “Love Language”.  There is a book that has been recommended to me for couples and another for children.  They have expanded to have a dating and work place edition as well if you are interested.  Brian and I took this quiz and I was able to predict his result rankings right away and he was surprised by mine.  Reading through the explanations it was interesting to see what helps a person that speaks each language, but what I found most interesting is what hurts the most for each kind of person.  Of course there are probably a million derivatives of these love languages, and the limited questions on the short quiz do not cover every aspect of our love palate, but it is a good tool for couples to use to start loving each other in a better received way.  It helped me understand Brian a bit better and it helped him discover more about me and what I need.  I am not big on putting out there what I need because I am better at concentrating on what others need more, but for a healthy marriage both parties need to really feel received love, not just given love.  I would tell any woman to talk to her husband about her needs, but I am better at giving advice than taking it in some areas.  Aren’t we all?  (please say yes!)

Take a few minutes of your hectic and wild days and take the short quiz, maybe even buy the book, and see how your relationship can grow even further.  No, I have not a single affiliation with this company.  I just like when I find a little something that could make this life a little richer.  

January Showers Bring February... ?

Since when did strolls around the block, bike riding, playing on the swing set and a good game of tag in the backyard become commonplace for January in Indiana???  As many of us know, this has become more of the norm lately.  Usually at this time we are forced to endure the bitter cold, bundled up, eyebrows frozen hours of shoveling or ice breaking.  What strange, wonderful, curious and somewhat bothersome winter weather we are having.  But, we mine as well enjoy it.  Right?

The girls and I have been spending a lot of time outside and this week was no exception.  The wind blown hair, rosy cheeks, skinned knees and bruised legs and elbows from falling off bikes and swing collisions can all prove it.  This past Tuesday we were even able to have a picnic outside on the nearly 60 degree day.  Why not?  In spring the rule is usually 50 degrees, so why amend it because it is January?

I hope everyone is getting out there and breaking up their winter blues with some surprise spring-like days.  Who knows how many we will get and I am sure, now that I have written this, we will have a snowstorm of historical magnitude tomorrow.  Maybe then we will build an igloo and have a picnic in there!