So I figured since it's our six month anniversary tomorrow I should write something, right? :)
I had a friend (this was long before I was married) that told me...."My husband and I just had our six month anniversary and we felt it was a HUGE milestone in our lives!" Even though I wasn't married and didn't know how that felt I was kinda like...."Uhhhhhh....right..." and now that I have been married for that long I'm thinking.....milestone?? I feel like it's only been a couple of weeks! Ha ha ha. k, so maybe it's been a little longer than that, but I still feel like a brand new married person.
Being married teaches you a lot of things. I decided I would write a little top ten list of things I've learned SO FAR....
10. Differences in political views can't stop love. Ha ha ha ha! This one is funny. I don't know much about politics, but what I DO know, I'm passionate about. I know that makes me sound like a dud, but meh...it's true! I'm moderate in like.....everything....I can see the views of conservatives and liberals and kind of mix my views from both. Jeff is definitely more Republican. And since Jeff is a lot smarter than me, I usually try to argue my ideas for like 15 minutes and then he wins. Ha ha ha! Granted we only have these chats only a couple times a month, but it's still kind of funny. We end up laughing more than anything else.
9. True love is when your spouse knows what you want from all fast food franchises. Ha! Our conversations whenever we go out to eat usually sound like this....
Jeff: "You want the...."
Amber: "Yep."
Jeff: "Thought so."
8. No matter how many times I ask him he will NEVER have any suggestions for baby names. He will ALWAYS turn down 75% of the names I say, but won't ever come up with any. Ha ha ha ha! I always tell him....Well, if you can't come up with any you must not care too much. And he always says......I know what I don't want! Isn't that good enough? :)
FYI: We aren't having a baby for awhile....but OBVIOUSLY when you get married you're going to talk about your future babies. They are huge deal! They end up taking up 100% of your time for 20+ years! :)
7. Having someone to cook and clean for is actually a very fulfilling feeling. I love taking care of him. :)
6. School is 200% easier when you're married. I was so burnt out before I got married. I wanted to quit very badly and didn't see the point. Now that I'm married I can see how important it is to finish school and Jeff gives me the motivation I need to finish. It will benefit our family so much and make everything so much more secure. I've done really well this semester and I'm taking 18 credits which is crazy for me. I would have never been able to do it before I was married. Also, since we are married it makes studying easier because we don't have to go anywhere anymore. When we were dating we lived a half hour away from each other, plus we were constantly doing things with our friends. Having friends really puts a damper on studying. Ha ha ha! We actually will spend our nights studying now and I LOVE it!
5. The greatest language isn't spoken. That's pretty much self-explanatory. Basically all of the things that Jeff does, but doesn't say makes me very happy. How he provides for me. How he helps me feel better without even saying anything. He always is one step ahead of me in knowing what I need at all times. I love him for that.
4. I think a sign that we are becoming the same person is the fact that the phrase: "I was just going to say that." is said in our house many times a day. It makes me glad that we are on the same page so often. It makes living together a happy experience!
3. I have this firm belief that if you always make eye contact you won't ever stay frustrated very long. I have noticed that the main times Jeff and I have ever had miscommunication or were frustrated with each other have been when we weren't in the same room or didn't make eye contact. Eye contact is so essential to good communication and seriously can solve any dispute. Jeff and I don't fight in the first place, but I've noticed that when we make eye contact we are just flat out happier with each other and are in better moods.
2. This one is kind of funny and Jeff might be mad that I'm going to say this. This one has to do with sickness. I have decided that the way a family is raised to handle sickness stays deeply embedded in a person's personality. I have also kind of decided that maybe Jeff's family handles sickness better than mine does. All the while, while I was growing up my family was taught to tough it out and man up when it came to sickness. If you were not feeling well you would still go to school (obviously only if you weren't contagious). You would still go to work. You were expected to perform at the same level as when you were healthy. I'm not railing on my parents, because they actually never laid it out that brutally, but that was the idea behind it. That was just the way they lived THEIR lives, so my siblings and I followed suit. (Maybe they will read this and think I'm nuts)
Jeff's family does it in a lot cooler way. When someone is sick they receive things like....comfort food! And they aren't really expected to do much. When Jeff and I first started dating he asked me what my comfort food was and I was like... "My......what???" Ha ha ha ha ha! Jeff's family probably does it better.
However, like I said, it's deeply embedded in a person's personality to be that way so I have a hard time with it sometimes. Jeff will tell me not to do stuff if I'm not feeling good, so as I'm getting dragged by him to lay down and relax I'm usually spouting off the 10 things I needed to do right then. It's strange sometimes.
1. And finally.......my definition of true love is when you can feel more natural being around the person you love than you feel when you're alone. I've always been a really shy person (whatever, Mom, yes I have). I try to be pretty normal and outgoing and most of time it works pretty good! (?!?) But I have never felt more like myself then when I am with Jeff. I have never been more of who I truly think I am than when I am with just him. He makes me my actual true shy, but crazy inside self and I consider that a HUGE blessing. That feeling of being healthy with loving yourself and who you are is a great blessing and I know he has brought that into my life. I don't have to be trapped in wondering if he's judging my fascade of the person I want people to think I am. I know he loves me and knows me better than I know myself and to me that's the BEST feeling ever. I never have to pretend with him. If I ever did pretend to be feeling something I'm not he would be able to tell.
That fact that he knows me and my needs better than I know myself is the best part about being married. <3
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Saturday, September 10, 2011
El Mundo
Yep, the title is in Spanish...and yep, it's not December and I'm already writing again, ha ha!
I've been wanting to write the past couple of days and now I finally can! Hooray!
I'm reading a novel for my Children's Literature (pretty much the best class ever) that's really great! It's called the Devil's Arithmetic and it's about the Holocaust. Not only has this book made me think, but also other things like how tomorrow is the 10 year anniversary of 9/11 and what not, I've just been...thinking lately.
Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. I don't know how many people died from 9/11, but when you look at it, these were two significant events of total destruction and heartbreak and ciaos.
But really, heartbreak is happening everyday all around us. Obviously not to the same magnitude, but there is destruction happening all over the world (el mundo).
In my ESL class there is a student who had taught in Georgia and she said that a large part of the students she taught lived in cars with their families, or lived in cars alone because their parents were in jail. To me that's heartbreak.
We always seem to think of Africa (which is totally a country) when we think of starving people, but I have kids in my autistic class that come to pre-school hungry.
It's super sad reading the book that I am right now because it makes me feel really selfish. It started storming while I was reading and I immediately thought "oh no! Thunder! Jeff's not home!" ...........psh...it's thunder. Ha ha.
The people who lived through the Holocaust didn't have food for days, lived in trenches, and watched their family die, and I'm getting scared from thunder?
I am so blessed. I'm filthy rich compared to 2/3 if not more of the world and I still worry about money sometimes.
Not only am I lucky that I have ALL of my basic needs, a free country to live in, higher education, a car, a laptop, a cell phone, but I have the Gospel in my life too.
I have faith to believe in, and hope to live by. Even though the world is crazy with politics and war and poverty, I have the light of Christ to see me through all of it. I don't have to be afraid like the Jews were during World War II. Like so many people are in the lower socioeconomic statuses.
I always say it's a good thing that Jeff really looked up to the senior missionary couples in his mission cause it's always given him the desire to serve a mission (if not a couple) when we are old. I figure till then I won't really have a way to go out into the world and help.
For now I just get to help with the people in my own world. I go to work everyday and I can see the difficulities that the little boys in my class face and I feel like I'm making a least a little bit of a difference. For these boys, they don't have to suffer like so many people in third world countries do, but they have to fight another kind of battle. They struggle with basic motor skills, social skills, couping skills and for most of them they will struggle their whole lives. It's really neat though when the one little boy who can only mumble and doesn't articulate finally says his name clearly during circle time. To me, that's a beautiful thing.
I don't really mean to sound like a downer in this post, kind of the opposite actually. In the Devil's Arithmetic the older Jewish ladies in the concentration camps are always telling the younger women that they need to laugh more. When the younger girls tell them they are crazy, the older women just say....if we laugh then we won't cry. We are in God's hands now.
I believe that we are always in God's hands. Whether we are rich or poor, married or not, Christian or Jew....we're always in God's hands. There is not a person on this earth that our Heavenly Father doesn't love. Our only problem as His children is we don't love each other.
Anyways, I feel really priviledged to live where I do, with my loving husband, and with the wonderful family we have, the opportunities we have to learn and help others.
There have been dozens of times already since Jeff and I have been married where he has helped people move, helped fix their houses, taken people things they need, etc....and he always says to me... "I can't take peoples money when I do stuff like that...I was just raised to willingly help people like that."
I love him for that. :)
So I guess, going into 9/11 tomorrow I'm just going to be thinking a lot, not only about the people who suffered from that event, but also about the future and how it can only get better if we choose to make it that way.
"People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered; forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies; succeed anyway. If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; be honest and frank anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; be happy anyway. The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; do good anyway. Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; give the world the best you've got anyway. You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God; it was never between you and them anyway." -Mother Teresa
I've been wanting to write the past couple of days and now I finally can! Hooray!
I'm reading a novel for my Children's Literature (pretty much the best class ever) that's really great! It's called the Devil's Arithmetic and it's about the Holocaust. Not only has this book made me think, but also other things like how tomorrow is the 10 year anniversary of 9/11 and what not, I've just been...thinking lately.
Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. I don't know how many people died from 9/11, but when you look at it, these were two significant events of total destruction and heartbreak and ciaos.
But really, heartbreak is happening everyday all around us. Obviously not to the same magnitude, but there is destruction happening all over the world (el mundo).
In my ESL class there is a student who had taught in Georgia and she said that a large part of the students she taught lived in cars with their families, or lived in cars alone because their parents were in jail. To me that's heartbreak.
We always seem to think of Africa (which is totally a country) when we think of starving people, but I have kids in my autistic class that come to pre-school hungry.
It's super sad reading the book that I am right now because it makes me feel really selfish. It started storming while I was reading and I immediately thought "oh no! Thunder! Jeff's not home!" ...........psh...it's thunder. Ha ha.
The people who lived through the Holocaust didn't have food for days, lived in trenches, and watched their family die, and I'm getting scared from thunder?
I am so blessed. I'm filthy rich compared to 2/3 if not more of the world and I still worry about money sometimes.
Not only am I lucky that I have ALL of my basic needs, a free country to live in, higher education, a car, a laptop, a cell phone, but I have the Gospel in my life too.
I have faith to believe in, and hope to live by. Even though the world is crazy with politics and war and poverty, I have the light of Christ to see me through all of it. I don't have to be afraid like the Jews were during World War II. Like so many people are in the lower socioeconomic statuses.
I always say it's a good thing that Jeff really looked up to the senior missionary couples in his mission cause it's always given him the desire to serve a mission (if not a couple) when we are old. I figure till then I won't really have a way to go out into the world and help.
For now I just get to help with the people in my own world. I go to work everyday and I can see the difficulities that the little boys in my class face and I feel like I'm making a least a little bit of a difference. For these boys, they don't have to suffer like so many people in third world countries do, but they have to fight another kind of battle. They struggle with basic motor skills, social skills, couping skills and for most of them they will struggle their whole lives. It's really neat though when the one little boy who can only mumble and doesn't articulate finally says his name clearly during circle time. To me, that's a beautiful thing.
I don't really mean to sound like a downer in this post, kind of the opposite actually. In the Devil's Arithmetic the older Jewish ladies in the concentration camps are always telling the younger women that they need to laugh more. When the younger girls tell them they are crazy, the older women just say....if we laugh then we won't cry. We are in God's hands now.
I believe that we are always in God's hands. Whether we are rich or poor, married or not, Christian or Jew....we're always in God's hands. There is not a person on this earth that our Heavenly Father doesn't love. Our only problem as His children is we don't love each other.
Anyways, I feel really priviledged to live where I do, with my loving husband, and with the wonderful family we have, the opportunities we have to learn and help others.
There have been dozens of times already since Jeff and I have been married where he has helped people move, helped fix their houses, taken people things they need, etc....and he always says to me... "I can't take peoples money when I do stuff like that...I was just raised to willingly help people like that."
I love him for that. :)
So I guess, going into 9/11 tomorrow I'm just going to be thinking a lot, not only about the people who suffered from that event, but also about the future and how it can only get better if we choose to make it that way.
"People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered; forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies; succeed anyway. If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; be honest and frank anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; be happy anyway. The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; do good anyway. Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; give the world the best you've got anyway. You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God; it was never between you and them anyway." -Mother Teresa
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