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Does He Buy You Avocados
Chris: Michelle and I have been married for a while and have had our fair share of ups and downs. We have also gone through a lot of things together, some of which tested her patience with me and mine with her. But our marriage is a partnership. One in which I accept the differences between us as well as the little things that can drive me crazy, knowing she will do the same. Michelle: Recently, our twenty-five year old daughter and I were talking. I told her, I had some great new marriage advice: Marry the man that buys you avocados. This may sound like strange advice, but here’s…
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Why Go It Alone
Michelle: When our daughter was three, she and I were walking out of Target. Before we walked out the door, I asked her to put her coat on. As I was putting my own coat on, I noticed that she was putting her coat on upside down. I bent down to try to help her when she yelled the inevitable three-year-old battle cry, “I can do it myself.” For approximately five minutes, I watched as she wriggled out of the coat, struggled because the sleeves were then inside out, finally getting the coat on correctly and proudly exclaiming, “See, I told you!” How many times have we all struggled, knowing…
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Post-Holidays – Blues or Bliss?🎄📦
The holidays have come and gone. As we’re taking down lights and packing away decorations, we thought we’d take a little time to reflect on how our different attitudes in the post-holiday season impact our relationship.
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Have New Year’s Resolutions Become Cliche?
Millions of people make New Year’s resolutions. Some make the same resolution year after year. It doesn’t take statistics to show we are not great at keeping them. Have New Year’s resolutions become cliche? Or are we making the wrong resolutions, or the right resolutions but for the wrong reasons?
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Marriage Is a Teeter-Totter Ride
If you’ve spent time on a playground before 2004, you’ve probably hopped on a teeter-totter. Marriage is a teeter-totter ride. It can be relaxing, a gentle give and take. Marriage, like a teeter-totter can also be an experience of thrilling highs and the dizzying feeling of dropping low.
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Be Ready
Chris: When I was a kid, I played whatever season’s sport was up. One year during baseball season, the announcer realized that his typical way of calling batting order, player’s last name followed by ‘at bat’, ‘on deck’, or ‘in the hole’, would not be appropriate given my last name (Seaman). In the hole was quickly modified to ‘be ready’. While I may have been momentarily embarrassed by this obvious (and a little funny) change, the idea of ‘being ready’ stuck with me and has been a mantra of sorts for me throughout my life. The first day I met Michelle, I told her I was going to marry her someday. While she…
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Start Intentional Gifting and Celebrate Your Valentine All Year
Valentine’s Day is second only to Christmas for gift buying. Cards say what we can’t put into words. A fancy dinner is treasured time, but flowers fade and chocolate quickly disappears. What if you could spend less and give more by offering a gift of love nearly every day? You can with Intentional Gifting.
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Our “One of a Kind” Marriage
Our marriage is one of a kind. While we’re two people who have come from different places, we put together our past and present influences to become something new. Looking Inside My Family of Origin Jen: Family of origin has had a strong influence on our marriage. My parents stayed married throughout my childhood. I saw elements of disharmony, but since my parents were still together, I brushed off any worry. When I was in college, my parents divorced. The disharmony had gotten worse over time, and I figured this must be the natural progression of marriage. I met Nick not long after my parents split, and we got serious…
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Our Anti-Resolutions List
Every New Year, articles pop up about making resolutions. This year, we have taken some common resolutions and would like to propose our own list. We are calling it Our Anti-Resolutions List Number Five: One of the most popular resolutions is to travel to NEW places. While we are a big supporter of seeking new adventures, in our anti-resolutions list, we offer, rediscovering the OLD places you have traveled to. Who cares that you always go to the same destination? You don’t live there and something is guaranteed to have changed since you were last there. Ask a local, go for a drive or simply take a walk. Sometimes, when we change how we experience a familiar…
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Just
Michelle: When our daughter was in the second grade she was asked to write about what her parents did for a living. She wrote three (front and back) pages about Chris’s job as a research scientist. She went on and on about the inner-workings of his day to day life in the lab, entering data and what his research could lead to. As I read, I was proud of the work and influence that Chris had on her and I couldn’t wait to read about my own. However, I began feeling concerned as the pages were becoming fewer and fewer. Then, there it was. The last line of her paper, “And…
