We are coming to an end of sorts and a beginning of sorts...it was the best of times, it was the worst of times...hahaha...anyway, too much caffeine today. We have a bottle of champagne in the fridge and Levi keeps wanting to open it and celebrate the sale and purchase of our new home. The thing is we have not officially sold the old home or purchased the new one. And I just can't let him open the bottle of champagne yet. I have not heard any fat ladies.
I love reading stories of mountain climbers...in particular stories of Mt. Everest. I am amazed, encouraged, and awed at the determination, dedication, and sometimes huge risks that mountain climbers exhibit just to reach the top of a mountain. Although I love to hike, I will not be the huge mountain climbing sort. I have lived at sea level all of my life. I get a headache in tall buildings, but I love to hear the stories. Mountain climbers can sometimes experience something called "false peak" or "false summit." Basically it just means that they see what they think is the top of the mountain in the distance and when they reach that point they realize that it was not in fact the peak and they have further to go. This phenomenon can be psychologically detrimental to the climber and often causes them to give up before they reach the top. It can make them feel like a failure.
I experienced this once while climbing a large rock that is 425 feet tall on a trail that is a little more than half a mile. I realize many of you live in and around mountains and this would not be anything of note, but for me this was not truly difficult, but very exciting. It required only the occasional use of hands and no equipment was necessary. Considering the tallest things around here are freeway interchanges and skyscrapers, it was fun and a new experience. It is very discouraging to say the least to think you are almost to the top and then realize that you have more to go. I would rather have gotten to the top by surprise.
I can't open the champagne because I fear that that "peak" is not truly the "peak." I worry that if we celebrate and start to get excited that something will happen and we won't be truly done with the process. This is unusual for me as I am a glass half full kind of person most of the time. I just don't want to be let down, but I wonder if I am letting my husband down.
Is my fear interfering with my happiness and excitement or am I just being cautious?
Am I protecting Levi from disappointment or dampening his excitement?
How can I protect my feelings and share in this excitement with him?
Shouldn't I just be excited and have faith that him and I can push past any false summits together?
Aren't false summits there to teach us something?
How can I get past the fear to enjoy the journey?
Should we just open the damn champagne already and celebrate the trail ahead or is it a bit premature?
I am not sure why I thought I was going to have more time after having the house ready to put on the market. I am also wondering why none of you pointed out that I may in fact be delusional and need to hang up my fairy wings and step off my unicorn. It has been crazy around here!
We put the house on the market and had almost 20 showings in 4 days. Keep in mind that I have three kids and a dog. That was an adventure!! We received 5 offers. We are waiting to close at the end of the month and have gone out 4 times to look at homes. It was so much easier to pick a house with no kids. You could focus on the house and the neighborhood. With kids you have to think about the house, the neighborhood, the schools, nearby activities, check for registered offenders, etc. etc.! We did find one finally after being outbid on our first choice. We are now packing.
Where did all this stuff come from?
I loved moving in college. Everything you owned fit in one vehicle. You threw some crap in garbage bags or luggage and tossed it to your friend out the second floor window, carried down your fish and microfridge and you were good to go. Even when you get married and get your first apartment you barely have enough to fill the closets and cabinets and you sell your second hand furniture before you move into your first house. Then you have children...
And you ask yourself...Where did all this stuff come from? Did we just get so busy with the kids that we didn't notice that our closets were about to spill out into the rest of the house? I am pulling things out of closets that I have not seen since we moved in. And before anything goes into a box, I am asking myself...Do I really want to move this? We just had a yard sale and I have three more boxes to go to Goodwill. And this is after we staged our house and filled a 10X5 storage unit. And no, my house does not need to be on hoarders. I think that I need to research becoming a minimalist.
The longer you live, the more and more stuff that gets stuffed in your closets. Pulling these items out and packing them is a roller coaster ride in and of itself, but then you add the "other" stuff stuffed in the closet that comes to the surface as you pack.
I feel like my closet "stuff" is going to suck me into another dimension or deliver the beast like that closet in Poltergeist. Moving is stressful. It ranks right up there with getting married, losing a loved one, having a baby, and getting divorced as on of the top stressful events that can occur in one's life. Add to it a four hour daily commute, stressful job, end of school, swim team, ER visit with our youngest, health issues, camp, expensive vet visit, etc, etc. and the adults in the house are starting to lose it. The kids might be losing it to. We arrived at a restaurant the other day and my oldest forgot his shoes. I think my life could be a tv drama or comedy depending on the day.
This is so not what moving looks like! We find ourselves yelling often, not being patient with each other or the kids, not connecting emotionally, and generally not having any fun. We hardly speak, fall into bed exhausted, snap at each other, and are not having much in the way of horizontal connecting either which puts both of us in a bad mood.
I know this all will pass and life is good...blah, blah, blah. I get it, no really, I do! Cleaning out your closets sucks, but is a necessary and freeing experience. There is crap in there that you hold on to thinking that you need it and find that you don't. There are things that used to be important and now just aren't anymore. There are things that you aren't even sure what they go to, where they came from, or why you still have it.
Does one woman really need 8 bottles of lotion? Do your children really need 11 baseball caps (4 of which no longer fit)? What in the world does this little doohickie thingie go to? Do I really need all this emotional baggage that I have stuffed in here? I would say no and hopefully this stuff can stay here and not follow us to our new home.
Until then: We will just fake it till we make it:)
I have 5 posts that are sitting unfinished in my drafts. This isn't how I typically write. I usually have a thought or issue and sit down to type it all out at once. I check spelling and hit publish before I chicken out. Having these unfinished posts is driving me a bit batty. I am not sure why I thought that because I was finished painting the house (I actually still have a couple of doors-so that isn't even finished) that I would have a little more time to write...which I truly enjoy. That is not how things have worked out.
Our house went on the market last week and in a matter of days we had almost 20 showings (with three kids and a dog was...well, you can imagine), the kids had dentist appointments, swim practice and a campout, 5 offers came in, the dog got sick and we had two vet visits, our youngest finished her year of school, the boys had events to attend and we had several meetings with our realtor. I haven't had any time to finish anything.
Have you seen this?:
I will admit that I have closure issues myself. Apparently it is in my personality type. I hate when people don't say goodbye, I hate if I have unfinished projects, I hate when a conversation gets interrupted and you can't finish because you can't remember what you were talking about. I hate getting to the end of a puzzle and realizing that you are missing a piece. And apparently I hate having unfinished blog posts in my drafts...so much so that I have almost just deleted them all. I hope that I will be able to finish soon.
But all this need to finish got me to thinking..We aren't really ever "finished" are we. I am reminded that my need to be "finished" and my obsession with it is not allowing me to enjoy where I am at. We are going house shopping today and I am already worried about everything going just right instead of looking forward to the adventure of finding our new home. I am a planner by nature and not only does it drive me crazy when things are unfinished, but I also hate having to change my plans. But I am reminded that someone has my six. I am reminded that someone has a plan, a plan that is not my own, a plan that will be prosperous and plans for a hopeful future (Jeremiah 29:11). I love this video when God is laughing at Evan about "his" plans.
I probably will always be a planner and will hate to leave things unfinished, but I will remind myself to be patient because God is not finished with me yet. That he is the potter that will make something beautiful out of the lump of lifeless clay that I started as. I will remind myself that he leads me to where he wants me to be even when I don't realize that I was being led. It is more than okay that I am not finished. It means that I am exactly where I am supposed to be.
So, I will wait and see. Oh, don't think I won't plan and worry and have some freak out moments...but what do you expect?...after all, He's not finished with me yet.
I have written before about how I love the show Renovation Realities (here). Levi and I were watching a couple of episodes the other day that started a great conversation. The first one we watched was a kitchen remodel. Apparently, they wanted to try to sell the cabinets that they were removing from the kitchen. Now, they started the show explaining that they bought the house and were remodeling the whole thing and living somewhere else. The husband said that they needed to hurry and finish so that they could stop having two house payments. If you looked at their old kitchen, it wasn't awful, just a bit boring. And after watching it, I can with 100% accuracy tell you who doesn't want to live in the house while they remodel it. I would bet the bank on it.
So, they begin taking down the cabinets and she has something to say every 5 seconds while she stands next to him: "Be careful" "Ugh, Don't scratch the cabinets" "Ooooo be careful" sighing loudly (I have never done that!) and so on. Her voice was ridiculously whiny. You could tell that she thought her husband was an idiot and that she could do it better. He was doing just fine by the way. This woman drove me nuts. I felt so sorry for her husband and at the same time was wondering why he didn't tell her, "Enough" or as I read about here, "You done?" Or even a, "Let me know when you are done and we can continue here," and walking away. Later, when she happened to be right about something she was trying to tell him, he was in no mood to listen. I can't say I blame him...I was telling the TV to shut up! Levi reached over at one particularly annoying part and hit mute. I am not sure how the man didn't just walk out. How horrible to be constantly barraged with comments that make you feel like you must not know what you are doing. I asked Levi, "Please tell me I wasn't that bad!" He smirked, patted me on the leg and said, "Not quite...she is pretty horrible."
The next episode was completely different. They were also remodeling their kitchen but they had to move a wall and take the walls down to the bare bones. The wife was pregnant and was therefore a little overly emotional at certain points. They had to have an inspection and did not pass...they convinced the inspector to hang out for an hour so that they could finish the things that they needed to do to pass inspection. They had to fill something with nails and insulate the walls. She had to run to the store to get the insulation and you could tell when she got back that she was starting to stress out, but she pulled it together and helped her husband insulate the kitchen.
She didn't argue. She didn't berate him for not knowing that the walls had to be insulated. She just jumped in and did what needed to be done. They passed inspection and the wife got a little emotional...her husband took her face and said, "We are going to be alright....it's ok." She immediately calmed and you could tell that she melted a little. What a difference! That could have gone differently if he were to blow her off or be too alpha at that point. She just needed to know that everything was going to be ok. By the way, the face holding thing...that is hot.
Like Bob says about his Three Little Birds:
It got me to thinking about my three year old daughter. She is me reincarnated...she is that kid that your mom hopes you have that is JUST LIKE YOU. And sometimes she loses it. This girl can throw a ridiculous tantrum over the most ridiculous things. I am a no nonsense, natural consequences kind of mom. If you throw a fit, you will throw it somewhere else cause I don't want to hear it. So when she starts up (usually after I have told her no about something) I will give her a chance to cut it out and if she continues then she gets carried to her room (cause otherwise she just drops herself to the floor and I don't want to drag the child) and told that she can come out when she is done. It is amazing to me how quickly she can turn it off. And she always comes out cute as ever and says, "Mommy, I stop now:)" It's enough to drive me insane.
There are other times though that I can tell that she is tired, hungry, an emotional wreck and really upset about something. Those are the times that I will pick her up and cuddle her and tell her that everything is going to be fine. (and then I usually distract her with something else) There are a few times that I have guessed wrong...like the time that she screamed in her room so long that she just fell asleep...in hindsight we had had a very busy morning and she was probably just overtired (apparently mommy was too:))...or the time I kept trying to console her and then had to put her in her room anyway, but I typically have the wisdom to know the difference. After all, she is just like me.
So Levi and I were talking about this, and I shared with him that sometimes I just need him to tell me everything is going to be alright and that I will calm down. Here lately I have been quite anxious about everything going on in my life (low thyroid doesn't help either). There are times that he handled this anxiety well and other times not so well. There are times I handled it well and not so well. When I get anxious I can't let it go...I don't get down on Levi anymore, but I just question everything. For example, recently our pilot light went out on the water heater. Levi relit it...no big deal. Except with all the anxiety about the house we were laying in bed and I just couldn't let it go. We were spooning and I just kept saying things like: "But why would it go out? Is that a fire hazard? Do you think it will break? I don't want to have to replace the water heater before we put the house on the market!" Finally, Levi turned my face, gave me a big kiss, put his hand on my boob and said, "It's fine, now go to sleep." And I did. If he had said, "Are you done?", I think it would have made this situation worse. I think I would have felt like he didn't care and I would have still been anxious.
Now what I am talking about is different than an argument with merit...you can learn how to properly argue with your spouse here: http://www.averagemarrieddad.com/?p=2032 with Average Married Dad. I am talking about female drama. Sometimes we just can't help it...it's in our hormones or something.
My thought is this: If the freak out is coming from anxiety over a situation or a heart worry, then saying, "Are you done?" and walking away will backfire. On the flip side, if the freak out is directed at you and over something ridiculous and things are being spouted at you that are not going to help until things are calm, or you can tell that someone is just in a mood, then saying, "Everything is going to be alright." will backfire.
Levi and I were sitting around yesterday after the kids went to bed talking. He asked if there was anything in particular that I wanted the kids to get me for Mother's Day. Levi and I are very practical gift givers...if there is something that we want that is a tad pricey then we wait for a holiday. I know...not very romantic or spontaneous, but neither of us have "Receiving gifts" as a love language (from Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman) and we are both very frugal with money.
So I said, "Hmmmm, well, I need some new shoes and I think I want a Magic Bullet."
I wish that I had had a camera ready. I wish that I could recreate the look of shock on my husband's face! Priceless.
He replies, "They have "magic" ones? You want the kids to get you that!?" said in disbelief.
I just busted out laughing.
What I meant was this:
So that I can make my smoothies without pulling out the blender and having to clean the bulky thing.
The time of year that I will take extra care with my appearance is here. I will shower with scented body wash. I will take extra care to wash my hair and massage my scalp and not do the typical five minute dash before the kids have a chance to destroy what I just spent all day cleaning.
I will shave my legs...my whole leg...not just the bottom half. I will realize that I have been using a very dull razor (for probably months) and change the blade. I will yell at anyone who dares to open the bathroom door and let the cold air in. I will painstakingly (and carefully since I now have a new blade) trim and shave my bikini area.
\
I will buff my heels and soles. I will trim, clean and paint my toenails. I will be embarrassed that I let my toenails get so bad that there is no longer any polish on my last two toes and not because it chipped off, but because they have grown that much since I last bothered to paint them. I will get over it and choose a bright, bold color. I will curse when I mess up the polish on the wall I just stubbed my toe on.
I will brush my teeth, floss, and pull out the mouthwash (is this stuff still good...does it go bad?) I will use scented lotion on my whole body. I will pluck my eyebrows and give myself a facial. I will put on makeup. I will wonder where the hell that new line by my eye came from.
I will wear matching bra and panties even though no one will see them but me. I will choose something to wear that is comfortable and flattering. I will wear flip flops for ease of removal.
All to hear: Mrs. Bea, you may put your feet in the stirrups now.
Yes, it is that time of year again. Time for my annual visit to the gynecologist. For men reading this...you will probably not understand my neurosis in regards to my appearance before my annual exam. Women, however, know exactly what I am talking about. So for you men, let me explain...I am not attracted to my ob/gyn...he is old enough to be my father, but he is the only other person in my life that sees me completely naked. Oh, sure, they give you a ridiculously thin sheet (cough cough...piece of paper) to cover yourself with and only uncover what they are dealing with at any given moment, but even though it isn't all at once...they see you naked and poke and prod things that only your husband pokes and prods at. It seems silly, but for some reason you want to look your best. I have friends who see female doctors and they still follow the same routine. Now, I don't go to extremes and vagazzle anything, but I want to be clean, trimmed, and Dear Lord not smell, in any way, remotely bad.
(No, this isn't me, but trying to show paint clothes...not what I first got when I googled paint clothes and got very distracted by the people with clothes painted on them...geez)
As I was getting ready for this appointment, I began to wonder why I don't often go to this much trouble to please my husband visually. Now, don't get me wrong I try to shave, keep the bikini area where he wants to visit on a regular basis, and put on makeup occasionally. But I very rarely go to this much trouble for the man I love. I had been improving but with all the home improvement going on, my primping lately has involved a shower and scraping the paint off my fingernails and wondering how I still have paint in my hair. I want to be attractive for my husband and spend some time looking good for me, too:)
Why do I spend so much time getting ready for a 10 minute doctor visit, or a trip to the mall, or a once a month date night? Why, on most days, do I aim for looking good enough to visit Walmart? Why do people try to make you feel badly and label you vain if you spend what they deem too long on your appearance, which seems to be anything longer than 10 minutes? Why do people try to make you feel badly if you want to look nice for your spouse?
Something I have time to ponder while I wait two hours because my doctor had to go deliver a baby.
The good news: no kids allowed:) Ahhhhhh...silence is golden. Just me and the preggos.
Right after I got married, I had a friend who was having difficulties with her fiance and wanted to know if she should get married. Why do people always ask me the heavy questions? Yikes!
I didn't feel like, as a newlywed, that I had the wisdom yet to give this sort of advice so I told her what my mother told me: if you are marrying him expecting him to change...he won't. So make sure that you can live with the things he does that irritate you. If you can't accept them, don't get married. Well, she got married, he didn't change and unfortunately less than 4 years later, they divorced.
I feel like I have a bit of wisdom that I could have given her then, but only after having lived it. If you want marriage advice about having a successful marriage, ask someone who has one. Don't ask the single person in the next cubicle whom has never been married and complains about the opposite sex all the time, or for that matter the newlywed who is still in a state of bliss from her honeymoon. My brother used to ask me dating advice when I have been married for 13 years and haven't dated anyone but my husband for 16 years. I can honestly say that I am not an expert in the field of dating dear brother, maybe you should ask someone who is.
What do I wish I could tell my friend now? Marriage is hard. Those little things that slightly irritate you now...will drive you bat shit crazy in a few years if you don't do something very important.
Accept them.
Accept the fact that you can "love" and be with a person and not "like" everything that they do.
To clarify, I am not talking about abuse, alcoholism, etc. etc. I am talking about those little things that drive us all nuts like leaving your shoes all over the place, not being as OCD as you are in the cleaning department (which is one of the things my friend was upset about...the slobiness of her fiance), ignoring you when they watch sports, not being able to see something of theirs that needs to be picked up that they just walked right by, and the list goes on. I would have told her that she needed to
accept it
or
talk about it
or it would fester and get worse.
Levi used to do something that drove me nuts...actually, he still does it; it just doesn't drive me nuts anymore. What's changed? I flipped the acceptance switch and I stopped taking it personally. This is his problem, not mine. What can I do to help him? Because throwing my hands in the air and grunting as I walk away is probably not helping.
Levi does not like to make mistakes...EVER. It's completely unrealistic. I don't know if it is because he is the oldest in his family, a perfectionist, afraid that I will not think him worthy or a combination of all three (or even something completely different). We are all going to make mistakes. I grew up a complete klutz. Ok...I am still a complete klutz, but I think that this helped me learn to laugh at myself a bit. When Levi makes a mistake he is nowhere near laughing it off. This irritated me when we first got married, but over the years it got worse. And I am going to be completely honest with you: It is unattractive. There, I said it. Getting all upset and down on himself when he makes a mistake makes me not only irritated, but chips away at my attraction to him.
Here lately, with my attempts at being a better wife, I have come to realize something. I can't change how my husband reacts to something, it is probably so ingrained in habit as to be a part of his personality, but I CAN influence it in a positive or negative way.
We borrowed a pressure washer from a friend in order to make our house and driveway sparkle for our upcoming move. He started it up and we took turns (cause I had to try it...that looked like fun!). Then, it ran out of gas. We pulled over the gas can and filled it up, but, oops, we overfilled it and now the darn thing won't start. Levi is quite upset, calls himself an idiot, stomps around the garage, trys to start it so many times I am concerned that he will make things worse, and I could feel myself starting to get upset. Was I upset that he had overfilled it? NO. I was upset because he called himself an idiot in front of his daughter, upset with myself and guilty for how unattracted to him I was at that moment because he was being down on himself. I didn't know what to do. I never seem to know what to do in these situations, but I stood silently for a moment, took a deep breath and decided to not take it personally and thought: what can I do that will not hurt his ego, but will help him see what he should do? I wanted to try to be a helpmeet.
I very quietly said, "You are not an idiot. I wish you wouldn't say that."
He said in a blustery way, "What?" like he really didn't want me talking to him in that moment.
I said, "I said you are not an idiot. I don't like it when you say that about yourself. It is not true." in a much more forceful, firm, loving way.
He looked up at me, as he was now sitting next to the pressure washer grumbling about how he shouldn't have overfilled it and he should have stopped, and seemed...flabbergasted. I wonder now if it was because he expected me to be upset or disappointed in him cause he overfilled it. Since I had his complete attention, I said, "We can't undo what we did. What can we do to fix it?"
He got up, and after thinking a moment got a cup to drain some gas and after a few tries and a few more drains we got it to start. Before he started to pressure wash again, I gave him a big kiss, smiled, and said, "Thanks for fixing it babe." I then took our toddler back inside and let him finish.
I know this may not seem like a big deal to everyone else, but this was BIG STUFF at our house. I didn't think before how he may have taken my reaction to mean something other than what it was. My typical reaction may have made him feel like I was upset about his mistake and not the way he was handling it. Now I have something I can do to help. I feel empowered instead of helpless and guilty.
Do I think I will handle it perfectly every time? NO. Everyone makes mistakes:)
