Posts Tagged ‘marriage’

Day 186 and Counting…Planning an Amazing Valentine’s Day!

Posted: March 6, 2013 in Love and Marriage
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Friday, February 11, 2011

It’s been extremely slow at Macy’s.  Part of it is the weather.  Part of it is the time of year.  Part of it is that I work the evening shift and most of the furniture sales happen during the day shift.

That’s ok.  I’ve been using the time to get ready for Valentine’s Day.  

While it’s slow, I’ve been searching websites for creative Valentine’s Day ideas and I’ve found some great stuff.  I don’t want to do the usual card, flowers and go out to dinner this year.  I want to do something in keeping with the changes in our lives and our marriage.

I want to show my love to my wife in a deeply personal way, that touches her soul.  I don’t want to just do the obligatory, “It’s Valentine’s Day, so I have to try to impress her with what I buy,” I want to give her a gift of myself.  I want to make a memory this year.

One site I found is www.theromantic.com.  This is Michael Webb’s website, and I found him through Mort Fertel.  He has all kinds of great romantic ideas, not only for Valentine’s Day, but for any day of the year.  He also has a number of ebooks for sale, and I bought and downloaded some.  

One of them tells specifically how to give a full body relaxation massage.  One of them is a collection of romantic coupons that can be “redeemed” throughout the upcoming year.  I sweet talked a lady in the jewelry department of of one of the little metal watch boxes that say, “you and me” with hearts on the sides of them.  You’re supposed to get one when you buy a certain kind of watch, but I got one to put the coupons in.  

I printed them off on some red, pink, and white sheets of paper and cut them out.  I took the leftover parts of the paper and made some confetti out of it.  The best part, though, is the idea I found of serving her with an “official notice.”  

On a heavier stock piece of paper, I typed “Official Notice” in large, bold print at the top.  I then tried to make it look like a legal summons by stating, “in the matter of the marriage of…” and starting each paragraph with “whereas.”  Each of those paragraphs was actually a declaration of one of the many reasons why I love her.  

Valentine’s Day is on a Monday this year, so we’re going to mainly celebrate it on Sunday, instead.  We don’t like to fight the crowded restaurants and we love to cook, and Ceecee has asked me to make her a seafood dinner this year.  We are also going to a theater production of Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” on sunday afternoon at our local University.  It’s my wife’s favorite Disney movie, so the timing is perfect!

Day 184 and Counting…Snow, Snow, And More Snow!

Posted: March 5, 2013 in Love and Marriage
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Wednesday, February 9, 2011

We’ve lived in the Missouri Ozarks for about five and a half years now, and we’ve never had a winter with as much snow as this one.  We thought when we moved here from Western Kansas that we would be moving to a place with nicer and less extreme weather.  Yeah.

A tornado destroys our house in March of ‘06.  An ice storm leaves us without power or running water for 23 days in January of ‘07.  Now, in the winter of the restoration tour, we’re having blizzards and snowstorms every other week, it seems.  

The difference is, those other storms were a bad thing for us and our marriage.  They interrupted and changed our lives in negative ways and I especially didn’t handle them well.  Where they seemed to be a curse to us, these snowstorms have been a blessing.  

Yes, we are home yet again experiencing ANOTHER snow day!  

These days have not been filled with the hassle of shoveling driveways and walks, dealing with the lack of electricity, or wondering where we are going to live or what we are going to do.  Instead, they’ve been joyous days of bonus time to spend together, cooking, playing, trying new things, and nurturing our ever growing trust and intimacy.

Day 181 and Counting…Home From San Antonio In One Piece

Posted: March 2, 2013 in Love and Marriage
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Sunday, February 6, 2011

Back home and not nearly the adventure on the drive back.  That’s OK.  There were parts of the drive where the roads were STILL extremely icy, but we made reasonable time and got home without any mishaps.  Overall, it was a very successful trip, although I’m not sure we have any plans to go back anytime soon.

Day 180 and Counting… 20 Hours Later….

Posted: March 1, 2013 in Love and Marriage
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Saturday, February 5, 2011

What was supposed to be about an 11 hour drive turned into 20.  Yes, that’s right, 20 hours in the car, most of it driving on ice.  After our slide off and back on the road in Oklahoma, we started getting a little bit silly.  At a place we stopped for gas and something to eat, I commented that it looked like a set for a redneck comedy.  Later, Ceecee noted that “I Spy” isn’t much fun on a dark highway.  

The real sign that we had been driving too long with too much stress though, was when we started making up acrostic poems based on friends and family members’ names.  We were posting them on Facebook and other people started adding their own, even using our names as subject material.  I suppose it was around midnight by then, and we had left our house at about 8:00 that morning.  

As we headed south through Texas, an ice storm began to develop that was making the highway so slick, semi trucks couldn’t get up some of the hills.  It got to the point that we could only go about 30 miles an hour and then they closed down the highway and made everyone exit.  Thank goodness for GPS and a front wheel drive car that handled things just fine.  We finally got to our hotel and into our room at 4:00 AM yesterday morning.

We had to get up just a few hours later to go see Taylor.  Some of the roads were still closed and we had to go around some detours and eventually broke the law by driving around some cones and just taking one of the roads that no one was supposed to be on.  By that time, the sun was shining and it was no longer icy, so we figured we’d take our chances.  

We got to take Taylor out for Chinese food after watching him inhale his cupcakes in the car.  We spent part of the day with him, but turned him over to his Dad pretty early so we could go back to our room and try to catch up on some much needed sleep.  We’ve actually got a really cool room here for three nights, so we did the tourist thing today and we’ll be making the drive home tomorrow.

Day 179 and Counting…Signs, Miracles, and Trying To Get To San Antonio

Posted: February 28, 2013 in Love and Marriage
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Friday, February 4, 2011

How to try to describe yesterday….

We got up in the morning still iffy about actually heading out on the roads to drive to San Antonio.  I mean, it’s about an 11 hour drive under normal conditions.  The conditions yesterday were far from normal.  Even on the major interstates, there was still about three inches of solid ice.  Around town, some of the residential streets were still nearly impassable.

I’ve never been a big believer in using a “fleece” to ask God for a sign, even though I understand that it is a Biblical concept.  I’ve just never had faith for it.  (See Judges Chapter 6:36-40 if you don’t know the context)  In this case, with our safety at risk, I figured I needed to know whether it was going to be all right for us to make the drive, so I asked for a small sign.

While he’s been in Basic, Taylor has only been allowed to eat what they feed him.  When he graduates, he gets a little bit of time to go off base with us and do what he wants, and what he wants is cupcakes.  Not just any cupcakes, though.  He wants cupcakes from The Cup, a specialty shop downtown real close to our loft.

Some of the downtown businesses have been closed due to the blizzard, however, and we hadn’t gotten any cupcakes.  We were going to have to leave early in the morning to get to San Antonio at a reasonable time, so I told God that if there was someone there at The Cup and they would let us in before they were open and they had any cupcakes made that they would be willing to sell us, I would take that as a sign that it was going to be OK for us to make the drive.

We drove around the corner and it happened just exactly the way I prayed.  A short time later, just as we were hitting the edge of town, we got a report that the interstate was closed ahead due to a fatal accident.  We were going to have to be rerouted onto a lesser highway that was likely to have even worse driving conditions than the interstate.

Even though we had the cupcakes with us as a tangible answer to prayer, I prayed again (like Gideon) and asked God to have the detour take us onto a clearer highway to confirm that it was going to be OK.  Almost immediately, the sun came out and we hit nearly clear and dry pavement.  God had shown us again that He was with us and keeping us safe.

I’d like to say it was all smooth sailing after that, but it was anything other than smooth.  In Oklahoma, we were once again driving on a few inches of ice and at one point, the car suddenly went out of control in a slide.  We slid all the way off the road to the right, down the slope of the embankment, then inexplicably back up and back onto the road pointing in the right direction and none the worse for the experience.  I imagined it was angels flying alongside and pushing the car back onto the road.

I’ll finish the story tomorrow…obviously we made it, but not without further adventures!

Day 177 and Counting…TV? None For Us, Thank You

Posted: February 27, 2013 in Love and Marriage
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Wednesday, February 2, 2011

I realize that this is unthinkable to most Americans, but Ceecee and I don’t watch TV.  At all.  We’re just not interested and there’s so much to actually do that it just seems like a total waste of time to sit in front of the TV or let the television schedule dictate our lives.

The only thing we watch is some sports or the weather channel when there’s storm danger or warnings.  Our daughter told us about the show, The Big Bang Theory.  We weren’t interested, but she insisted that it was good and we would like it and offered to bring us the first few seasons on DVD.  We’ve watched a lot of episodes yesterday and today and it is really funny.

We also got out and watched our wedding video this evening.  Cheesy, I know, but I wanted to.  It was crazy how young we looked.  Everyone always thinks the bride is the most beautiful in their weddings, but I have never seen anyone more beautiful than Ceecee at our wedding.  I’ll never forget the way she took my breath away when I saw her at the back of the church that day.

The great thing is, she still does.  There are times when I’m around her and I can hardly breathe.

On another note, we’re supposed to be going to San Antonio tomorrow to see Taylor graduate from basic military training, but the roads are still snow and ice packed and travel isn’t really advised right now.  We’ve already reserved a room and i can’t imagine not being there, so we’re praying about it and tentatively still planning to head out in the morning.

Day 176 and Counting… Loving The “Blizzard of The Century!”

Posted: February 26, 2013 in Love and Marriage
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Tuesday, February 1, 2011

So, I’m getting all kinds of blizzard warnings on my phone and I’m thinking, “I’m being paid to stay in my loft with my gorgeous wife and this is a problem, how?”

Of course, I’m being a bit facetious.  This is actually a very unusual amount of snow and winter weather for the Missouri Ozarks.  In fact, this particular winter storm is being dubbed as the “storm of the century” and such by local meteorologists.

The truth is, it’s probably a major problem for a lot of people.  In our case, we are looking out the windows of our loft and enjoying the whiteness and realizing once again just how blessed we are.  Being teachers, we don’t have to work today (or probably for the next few days by the looks of things).  We are warm and cozy in our loft.  We have plenty of food, and we have all of downtown right around the corner from us if we do need or want anything.

More importantly, I have a restored marriage that’s getting stronger everyday.  My wife is a true woman of courage, honesty, and love.  I can’t stop giving thanks for her or for what God has done in our lives and our marriage.

Now, what to do today….

Day 174 and Counting…Restoring St. Louis

Posted: February 25, 2013 in Love and Marriage
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Sunday, January 30, 2011

The restoration trip to St. Louis has been more than I even hoped for.  Ceecee has been so amazingly sweet and loving and has just said and done everything right to make this an unforgettable and tremendously healing weekend.

When we set out in the car yesterday morning, we had to talk a little bit about we uncovered last Monday, which was OK, but I didn’t want to put a damper on the trip before we even started.  It’s just that we’ve learned through all of this not to let things sit and stew and become a problem later.  We’ve learned that you just say it and talk about it, but you do it in a loving way that puts the marriage first and any personal agendas to the side.

As we approached St. Louis, we had talked about where we would go and what we would do, but there was something that kept bothering me, so right before we got to town, I just asked my wife if she minded if I changed the agenda a little bit.  I told her what I was thinking and feeling, and what I wanted to do and she was more than fine with it.  She said that if it was important to me than we should definitely do it.

That’s how this weekend and how our “new” love has gone.  We communicate, we’re honest and open, and we put each other first.  I’m not sure why we needed to go through so much pain and heartbreak to get here, or even if we needed to, but I’ll never stop being thankful for what we have now.  I’ll also never stop trying to build what we have now into a house that will stand up to the test of time and the storms of life.

Day 172 and Counting… Reaching Out

Posted: February 21, 2013 in Love and Marriage
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Friday, January 28, 2011

Have I mentioned that my wife is amazing?

We’ve been going to North Point Church since we’ve been back together and we’re loving it.  They have small groups that meet in homes and Ceecee has been wanting to make some new friends, so she’s wanted us to join one.  The main problem is that I work so many nights at Macy’s and my schedule varies from week to week, so I don’t have regular nights that are free.

They have this event every few months where you show up and mix and mingle and try to find a group to join.  Tonight, I had to work, but Ceecee went by herself.  She called me at one point and said she’d found a couples group that was going to be starting up on Tuesday nights and she wanted to join.  I told her that I often worked Tuesday nights, so I might not be able to go often, but that was fine if she wanted to.

Later, she called and told me that she had joined the Tuesday night group and that if it was OK  we were going to be starting a group at our house on Sunday nights.  I asked her how that came about and she told me that our daughter and her husband, who hadn’t been going to church much, would come to a group if it was at our house.  Then she said she ran into another couple we used to know who also said that if we had a group they would come to it.

So she went to check it out and in a couple of hours she had joined a group and started a group.  Like I said, amazing.  I love her more all the time!

Day 171 and Counting…Back On Our Bikes

Posted: February 20, 2013 in Love and Marriage
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Thursday, January 27, 2011

The weather was nice enough to take our bikes out today, so we got in 12 miles after work.  Well, let me qualify that.  The weather was nice enough FOR US to take our bikes out.  Of course there are cyclists who ride year round regardless of weather, but we are not those cyclists.  We’re wimps when it comes to riding in the cold.

Anyway, it was a nice ride and the first time we’ve been on two wheels in a while.  This weekend, we’re taking an unscheduled restoration trip to St. Louis.  After what went down  Monday, we need to get to our city and fix some hurts and disappointments.  I’m a little scared of what fallout there might still be, but we’re also really committed to seeing ourselves healed, whole, and as strong as can be, so I suspect this is going to be a blessing on multiple levels.

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