So some friends and I were sharing our engagement stories... It's always fun to look back and remember those times. :)
Rich and I started dating very reluctantly. We got set up on dates twice - once through a church activity where we got paired together and then proceded to ditch each other at the dance at the end of the night, and again through a friend of mine that was looking for someone to go on a double date with him and another girl and I told him to find me a date and I'd go. This was at the end of February. So... after those two dates Rich still wanted to date me, and I had relegated him to the "lets be friends" category.
After the first date I went out with him about once a week, and I just happened to be getting dates with other guys about 2-3 other nights each week. (And I wonder why my grades took a nose dive that semester??? Too much playing??) As I kept going on dates with him, the other guys in our Ward stopped asking me out and after 2 months we were pretty much exclusively dating, but I really didn't see it as serious or anything.
I moved out of the apartment complex we both lived in and out of the ward and to another area near campus, and tried to back off and "free" myself to date other guys too- while still wanting to date Rich. I took off on a vacation with my roomates and came back and realized I did want to date Rich exclusively. Now it was the beginning of May and we started seeing each other on a daily basis after work I would go to his apartment and we would hang out and spend time together until after dinner and then he would walk me home (about 3 miles).
In June I went on another trip with my mom and sister to visit my granny in Nashville. On the trip Rich and I talked daily and he sent me 2 dozen roses at my Granny's house. I got back from the trip on a Saturday, and the next day I went with him to his Grandparents house for the traditional Sunday taco dinner... his cousins and aunt and another relative just happened to be visiting that weekend, along with the family members that lived closeby- so there were a bunch of us sitting outside eating taco's when his 3rd cousin (or something) asked him something in spanish. Rich blushed deep red and then muttered something back to her and she laughed along with his cousin who knew spanish. I nudged him and asked him what that was all about and he told me he would tell me later.
That night we went back to his apartment and were sitting at the table eating dessert and I asked him what his cousin had said... he told me that she had asked him "when are you going to marry that girl?" and then just waited for my reaction. I asked him what he had told her, and he said "When she decides she wants to." I think asked him if he was asking me to marry him? He said "I guess I am". I was honestly completely surprised... I knew I wanted to marry him- we had stopped in Nauvoo on my trip and I had gotten him a "nail ring" which the LDS pioneers used as "intended" rings for a while because they didn't have anything else- and even had it in my pocket ready to give to him, but was so shocked I told the poor boy that I would have to think about it.
I drove back to my apartment and sat in my room for a while and then called all my friends and told them I was going to get married... and then realized that I hadn't told him yet... So I called him and asked him when he wanted to get married... The poor guy thought I was going to say no and had called his mom heartbroken that I was going to reject him...
We went and picked out my ring together and when the ring was sized and ready to be picked up, Rich took my up the canyon for a picnic dinner and asked me to marry him again and gave me the ring.
Friday, February 09, 2007
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Blogs
I've had this blog for myself for a while, but I use it a lot for my thoughts and I don't give a whole lot of space for just the day to day things the kids do and pictures of them. I've decided to open a second blog where I'll post more pictures of the kids and their day to day accomplishments with less of my personal thoughts clouding up the page... lol!
http://newtonaaaa.blogspot.com/
will be the second blog. I'll put a link to it on the side bar. I'll still post some pictures on this blog on occasion, but that blog I'll give out more freely the website to others to come and check it out. I've been a little more slow to give out the blog addy of this blog since I tend to put more personal reflection thoughts on this one.
There isn't much on it right now, but I've been realizing that the kids are growing up so fast and I am not taking the time to "record" about it through pictures and writing things down- so I hope to be able to start taking more pictures of the kids to put up and share.
http://newtonaaaa.blogspot.com/
will be the second blog. I'll put a link to it on the side bar. I'll still post some pictures on this blog on occasion, but that blog I'll give out more freely the website to others to come and check it out. I've been a little more slow to give out the blog addy of this blog since I tend to put more personal reflection thoughts on this one.
There isn't much on it right now, but I've been realizing that the kids are growing up so fast and I am not taking the time to "record" about it through pictures and writing things down- so I hope to be able to start taking more pictures of the kids to put up and share.
Exercise, eating habits, physical and emotional well-being
Well yesterday went pretty smoothly. Today was okay. A little less enthusiasm from Alex about the morning chores than he had yesterday, but Ashley was still excited.
I went to the YMCA monday and yesterday. I think I'm going to take a rest day today and then go again tomorrow and friday. I do every other day for the weights, but am trying to work myself up to every day on the cardio machines (elliptical or treadmill). I've stalled out at 160 pounds and just can't seem to loose the rest of my weight. I'd love to loose 20 pounds and get down to 140, but if I could even just loose 10 pounds and stay around 150 I'd be satisfied.
I have grown up in such a comfort food culture, that it is hard for me to change my dietary habits and move towards more healthy choices all of the time. I really don't eat extremely badly- I cook a lot of things from scratch and we use whole grains and healthy foods- but I still do use lots of butter and I use sugar in things that I probably should find alternative recipe's that aren't as sweet. The thing is intellectually I can look at food choices and see what it healthier and the reasons they are healthier, but emotionally the pull to make the foods that I enjoy cooking is stronger than the intellectual side. I've tried explaining this to Rich and he just doesn't seem to understand. For him cooking seems to be just a means of preparing food- I don't think he has an emotional connection to cooking that I do. Cooking things that I know how to do and cook without a recipe is part of who I am and it's a part of me that I don't want to give up. I've tried finding healthier recipes to exchange and cook instead, but they don't taste as good and I don't get the satisfaction out of them that I get out of making my families favorite foods. I know I just need to experiment more and find more new favorites.
I also have decided that I will just have to be more active to counteract the calories I consume by making my favorite meals. Cutting out those foods completely may be healthier for my body physically, but emotionally it isn't- so I'll find a middle point and mix the healthy foods with my favorite recipes and exercise more to try to stay healthy that way.
I went to the YMCA monday and yesterday. I think I'm going to take a rest day today and then go again tomorrow and friday. I do every other day for the weights, but am trying to work myself up to every day on the cardio machines (elliptical or treadmill). I've stalled out at 160 pounds and just can't seem to loose the rest of my weight. I'd love to loose 20 pounds and get down to 140, but if I could even just loose 10 pounds and stay around 150 I'd be satisfied.
I have grown up in such a comfort food culture, that it is hard for me to change my dietary habits and move towards more healthy choices all of the time. I really don't eat extremely badly- I cook a lot of things from scratch and we use whole grains and healthy foods- but I still do use lots of butter and I use sugar in things that I probably should find alternative recipe's that aren't as sweet. The thing is intellectually I can look at food choices and see what it healthier and the reasons they are healthier, but emotionally the pull to make the foods that I enjoy cooking is stronger than the intellectual side. I've tried explaining this to Rich and he just doesn't seem to understand. For him cooking seems to be just a means of preparing food- I don't think he has an emotional connection to cooking that I do. Cooking things that I know how to do and cook without a recipe is part of who I am and it's a part of me that I don't want to give up. I've tried finding healthier recipes to exchange and cook instead, but they don't taste as good and I don't get the satisfaction out of them that I get out of making my families favorite foods. I know I just need to experiment more and find more new favorites.
I also have decided that I will just have to be more active to counteract the calories I consume by making my favorite meals. Cutting out those foods completely may be healthier for my body physically, but emotionally it isn't- so I'll find a middle point and mix the healthy foods with my favorite recipes and exercise more to try to stay healthy that way.
Monday, February 05, 2007
Family Home Evening
So we've had lots of struggles with the kids lately about helping out around the house and doing chores and stuff. Tonight for FHE we'll talk abou them and why we have chores and responsibilities and lay down a new plan to help motivate everyone.
I’ve been looking at websites and reading up on different things and ideas that people have about chores and what kids can be expected to do. I think we need to actually look at it as three different levels of “work/chores” so to speak.
1- Individual responsibility- individual chores the kids are expected to do and receive some form of positive encouragement for their individual accomplishment
2- Child led group responsibility- Something the kids are asked to do together and work and accomplish together for a group reward.
3- Family responsibility- larger things that the kids can’t do on their own, more items that we need to accomplish, but by involving the kids in it they learn the reward of working together and accomplishing a job and they learn the skills to do it on their own in the future.
1-For individual responsibility- I’m making new chore charts, I’ve been reading about age appropriate chores for kids, and I know since the kids aren’t doing much now we need to work up and start the better habits and practices for them- so I was trying to figure out some chores that I think it would be reasonable for us to ask them to do.
I think we will have a “family council” of sorts and let them have input on what chores they should be doing.
I was thinking with Alex and Ashley they can have the responsibility of making their bed, putting dirty clothes in the hamper, and putting away their clean clothes. I also thought that they could each have one or two nights where they help clean up from dinner.
With Alyssa I thought we could have her make her bed and put her dirty clothes in the hamper, and I think during the day I would have her help unload the dishwasher. I can start doing that earlier in the day and then it’s all ready to be loaded in the evening.
2-For the child led group responsibility- I was thinking is that the kids need to have an incentive for cleaning up- or it just becomes me yelling and randomly taking away privileges from them and we all get frustrated. They love to play games so much, and I thought if I give them the incentive to clean up before dinner each night- then perhaps we can play a family game each night after dinner/before bed, or read a book together or something? My other thought was that dessert would be dependent on finishing the chores for the day, but that is more of an individual thing and doesn’t encourage them to just work together to clean up the living room- the goal of playing a family game might. Also I don’t know that we need to tie dessert as a reward for doing chores.
3-For the family one was that once a month we could have a “family cleaning” where we choose something that needs to be cleaned up as a family and work on it together- that could be cleaning the garage together, weeding the flower bed, catching up on house cleaning- doing the windows or baseboards or blinds that I never can seem to get to on my own.
Rich asked me where I found the above stuff and I had to tell him that it’s kind of bits and pieces from different places. I was initially looking up age appropriate chores- and came across different chore charts that listed what age appropriate chores different sites recommended. I looked at them and decided ones that I thought would work for our kids. There were actually more chores on the charts for Alex and Ashley, but I thought I needed to work with some simple things first and then add to their charts after the basic habits were started. Most of the sites advocate some form of allowance tied to chores, and I can see the benefit of that, but didn’t want to have all of the responsibilities tied to an allowance (whether monetary or paid in tv/x-box/computer time allowances). So while I was reading through that stuff I knew that I still needed to find some way to get the kids to cooperate and help clean up more general things and make it be a group goal instead of just an individual goal of accomplishing their chore to get their allowance.
Then I started thinking about how to put “clean your rooms” on the charts. For Alex it’s pretty simple and straightforward- the mess in his room is from him, but with Ashley it isn’t as simple. The mess isn’t always from her and it really isn’t fair to expect her to clean up her room all the time on her own when 70% of the mess is from Alyssa and Angela. So I got to thinking about the times when the kids really do clean up well and work together. Usually it’s before we do something and they are motivated to clean up so we can go somewhere or something. Right when I’m making dinner and before you get home really seems to me to be the time for me to motivate them to clean up, and then after dinner the cleaning will be done and we can play games and stuff- the thing is you and I have to be in agreement and willing to sit and play the games or read the book - whatever motivating factor we decide to give them before it is too late and time to get ready for bed.
I was also searching through the LDS site for some articles or something to help me base my lesson on, and I ran across tons of articles on working together as a family on chores and goals and the closeness that that creates which helps as the kids get older and stuff and thought that that is another thing we need to start trying to do more.
So I was trying to figure out which “philosophy” so to speak to try and focus on tonight, and then I thought- well why do I have to choose just one? Why can’t we just separate it into individual, group and family responsibilities and talk about how we have to learn and do things individually sometimes, and as a group other times and with the family- it can be a lot of fun to work together and accomplish a job.
So... hopefully I'll be able to convey to the kids tonight what I've been able to type up. Because on paper it looks good, but I know getting things from paper- to mesh and make sense in kids brains- isn't always easy. ;)
I’ve been looking at websites and reading up on different things and ideas that people have about chores and what kids can be expected to do. I think we need to actually look at it as three different levels of “work/chores” so to speak.
1- Individual responsibility- individual chores the kids are expected to do and receive some form of positive encouragement for their individual accomplishment
2- Child led group responsibility- Something the kids are asked to do together and work and accomplish together for a group reward.
3- Family responsibility- larger things that the kids can’t do on their own, more items that we need to accomplish, but by involving the kids in it they learn the reward of working together and accomplishing a job and they learn the skills to do it on their own in the future.
1-For individual responsibility- I’m making new chore charts, I’ve been reading about age appropriate chores for kids, and I know since the kids aren’t doing much now we need to work up and start the better habits and practices for them- so I was trying to figure out some chores that I think it would be reasonable for us to ask them to do.
I think we will have a “family council” of sorts and let them have input on what chores they should be doing.
I was thinking with Alex and Ashley they can have the responsibility of making their bed, putting dirty clothes in the hamper, and putting away their clean clothes. I also thought that they could each have one or two nights where they help clean up from dinner.
With Alyssa I thought we could have her make her bed and put her dirty clothes in the hamper, and I think during the day I would have her help unload the dishwasher. I can start doing that earlier in the day and then it’s all ready to be loaded in the evening.
2-For the child led group responsibility- I was thinking is that the kids need to have an incentive for cleaning up- or it just becomes me yelling and randomly taking away privileges from them and we all get frustrated. They love to play games so much, and I thought if I give them the incentive to clean up before dinner each night- then perhaps we can play a family game each night after dinner/before bed, or read a book together or something? My other thought was that dessert would be dependent on finishing the chores for the day, but that is more of an individual thing and doesn’t encourage them to just work together to clean up the living room- the goal of playing a family game might. Also I don’t know that we need to tie dessert as a reward for doing chores.
3-For the family one was that once a month we could have a “family cleaning” where we choose something that needs to be cleaned up as a family and work on it together- that could be cleaning the garage together, weeding the flower bed, catching up on house cleaning- doing the windows or baseboards or blinds that I never can seem to get to on my own.
Rich asked me where I found the above stuff and I had to tell him that it’s kind of bits and pieces from different places. I was initially looking up age appropriate chores- and came across different chore charts that listed what age appropriate chores different sites recommended. I looked at them and decided ones that I thought would work for our kids. There were actually more chores on the charts for Alex and Ashley, but I thought I needed to work with some simple things first and then add to their charts after the basic habits were started. Most of the sites advocate some form of allowance tied to chores, and I can see the benefit of that, but didn’t want to have all of the responsibilities tied to an allowance (whether monetary or paid in tv/x-box/computer time allowances). So while I was reading through that stuff I knew that I still needed to find some way to get the kids to cooperate and help clean up more general things and make it be a group goal instead of just an individual goal of accomplishing their chore to get their allowance.
Then I started thinking about how to put “clean your rooms” on the charts. For Alex it’s pretty simple and straightforward- the mess in his room is from him, but with Ashley it isn’t as simple. The mess isn’t always from her and it really isn’t fair to expect her to clean up her room all the time on her own when 70% of the mess is from Alyssa and Angela. So I got to thinking about the times when the kids really do clean up well and work together. Usually it’s before we do something and they are motivated to clean up so we can go somewhere or something. Right when I’m making dinner and before you get home really seems to me to be the time for me to motivate them to clean up, and then after dinner the cleaning will be done and we can play games and stuff- the thing is you and I have to be in agreement and willing to sit and play the games or read the book - whatever motivating factor we decide to give them before it is too late and time to get ready for bed.
I was also searching through the LDS site for some articles or something to help me base my lesson on, and I ran across tons of articles on working together as a family on chores and goals and the closeness that that creates which helps as the kids get older and stuff and thought that that is another thing we need to start trying to do more.
So I was trying to figure out which “philosophy” so to speak to try and focus on tonight, and then I thought- well why do I have to choose just one? Why can’t we just separate it into individual, group and family responsibilities and talk about how we have to learn and do things individually sometimes, and as a group other times and with the family- it can be a lot of fun to work together and accomplish a job.
So... hopefully I'll be able to convey to the kids tonight what I've been able to type up. Because on paper it looks good, but I know getting things from paper- to mesh and make sense in kids brains- isn't always easy. ;)
Thursday, February 01, 2007
The good days
I think after having had bad days, I appreciate the good days so much more. Yesterday Rich stayed home and wasn't feeling very well. Since he was "hogging" the computer I didn't get on here much and since he was around to help amuse the little kids, I got a lot of housework done. It is such a feeling of accomplishment to be able to clean a bathroom (really clean it... I used a toothbrush in the showerstall!!) without any kids yelling or screaming or trashing another room while you were cleaning the bathroom. :)
I've found that the sense of accomplishment that I felt yesterday has carried over to today. I didn't get as much done sine Rich was back at work, but I'm feeling better about what I did do, and focusing on that instead of the things that I didn't get accomplished. My kitchen floor didn't get mopped, but I did vacuum the living room. All the clothes aren't folded and put away, but since I caught up yesterday and actually put clothes away- the three loads that I washed today aren't too big of a pile and they don't seem overwhelming when I think about taking a 1/2 hour this evening to fold and put them away.
Tomorrow may be a bad day again, but I'm going to enjoy my good day today and make a yummy dinner that Rich and I like... the kids will complain- I'm sure (lately they always do) that they don't want to eat what I make, but I'm having a good day and tough cookies to them- but their complaining isn't going to bother me today. They actually like the meal and can eat it even if they would rather have something else today. lol!
I've found that the sense of accomplishment that I felt yesterday has carried over to today. I didn't get as much done sine Rich was back at work, but I'm feeling better about what I did do, and focusing on that instead of the things that I didn't get accomplished. My kitchen floor didn't get mopped, but I did vacuum the living room. All the clothes aren't folded and put away, but since I caught up yesterday and actually put clothes away- the three loads that I washed today aren't too big of a pile and they don't seem overwhelming when I think about taking a 1/2 hour this evening to fold and put them away.
Tomorrow may be a bad day again, but I'm going to enjoy my good day today and make a yummy dinner that Rich and I like... the kids will complain- I'm sure (lately they always do) that they don't want to eat what I make, but I'm having a good day and tough cookies to them- but their complaining isn't going to bother me today. They actually like the meal and can eat it even if they would rather have something else today. lol!
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