Blessed

13 November 2014, 1:57 pm by Giggles
Categories: Family, Happy Things, Relationships

Here are some of the not-too-sappy and public-appropriate reasons why I am blessed to be married to Brett, in no particular order.

  1. He’s a lot warmer and firmer than my body pillow.
  2. I don’t have to do the dishes every night (I HATE doing dishes).
  3. I couldn’t have made Iddo without him. (Or the doctor, but that’s a longer story.)
  4. He’s awesome with Iddo.
  5. He’s genuinely interested in whatever intellectual pursuit I have at the moment.
  6. He supports all my dreams and ambitions.
  7. We are never at a loss for a conversation or never awkward when there isn’t one.
  8. He thinks my crafting skills are awesome.
  9. We have a stable, secure, loving home in which raise to our children in.
  10. I have a stable, secure, loving marriage in which I find the freedom to become the best me ever.

Love you Brett! :kiss:

5 Shared thoughts

Wedding memories

12 November 2014, 9:02 pm by Giggles
Categories: Family, Happy Things

This weekend we celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary. We’ve been jokingly counting down to this anniversary since before we got married on account of an inside joke (someone, rather vindictively, predicted Brett would discover I’m mean and divorce me before we reached our fifth anniversary).

There are many things I remember about the days leading up to our wedding. I can tell you exactly what we did five years ago this very day – getting him at the airport, getting our license, going out for Taco Bell and then getting his tux, having my amazing bridal shower with my friends and family. I can tell you exactly what happened five years ago tomorrow, the day before we got married – attending the temple with our families, going out for some shopping, dinner with our families at Tucanos. I relive the day we got married – waking up refreshed and ready to go, a run in the snow with my dad, blowing a fuze when we tried to both curl my hair and steam my dress from the same outlet, picking him up at his parents house, everything at the temple, photos, the reception. I know how the next two days went as we relaxed and went to the Church museum and the zoo. The drive home Tuesday. It all plays back in my mind whenever I want.

Part of why I remember so much is because we made sure in the weeks that followed we took the time to write down everything, and I mean everything. And we did it without consulting the other person so we got it all from our own perspective without any input from what the other person remembered. It is fun to see what details and aspects we each thought were worth writing down. We did the same thing last year with the birth of our daughter and our two accounts clearly show how different our roles were in that.

Another part of why I remember so much is because I do play it back in my mind, and often. Rehearsing the memories makes them stronger. And I like that these memories are strong.

I remember what it was like to be single. But I can’t imagine being anywhere else but here now.

6 Shared thoughts

Happy Veterans’ Day

11 November 2014, 6:16 pm by Giggles
Categories: Musings

I love this country. I grew up loving this country. When I left this country to live elsewhere I really came to appreciate what we have here (and also started understanding better this nation’s faults). Since living abroad I get a little misty eyed every time I sing the national anthem.

My grandpa served in the Army during WWII. I have cousins (and cousin-in-laws) who have served in different branches of the military. We have a nephew who just joined the Air Force. We have several friends here with husbands in the Air Force as well. I am grateful for all of their service and proud to know them.

A friend of mine, who currently serves in the Army, pointed out today that we should be grateful for all the other people in our lives who serve selflessly in many other capacities and different types of uniforms – the doctors and nurses, the teachers, the mothers and fathers, law enforcement. There are so many people who serve so much. The service that I have given in my life has greatly enriched my life, and I hope the lives of others, even though I’ve never worn a military uniform.

Thank you to all who serve in whatever capacity you do.

4 Shared thoughts

The Power of Dad

10 November 2014, 5:40 pm by Giggles
Categories: Family

Earlier this year I read an article on Scientific American called “The Power of Dad.” Like the author of the article I grew up with an amazingly awesome dad. He is a baby whisperer and can calm any child. He played with us. Read to us. He cooked for us. He honored and respected our mom. He was an awesome dad. And that is what I learned dads were supposed to be like.

So when I was looking for a dad for my children, I was looking for someone with similar qualities. And I found one. Brett is an awesome dad to our daughter. He plays with her. He reads to her. He puts her to bed every night. She flosses every morning because she sees him do it. How many 1-year-olds do you know that floss? If he’s home then she needs to be with him and I just won’t do. And I take absolutely no offense to that. The only thing he hasn’t done for her since she was born was breast feed (but there are stories).

And I trust him completely to take care of our children. I don’t micro-manage how he does things because his way is dad’s way, he doesn’t have to do it mom’s way. He does not “babysit” our daughter because he’s not the babysitter.

There might not be a lot of research yet on the importance of fathers, but it is coming. In the mean time I have a lot of anecdotal evidence of just the kind of positive power a good dad can have in the lives of his children, a super power both my dad and my husband share.

4 Shared thoughts

Followers of Christ

9 November 2014, 4:23 pm by Giggles
Categories: Gospel

And we talk of Christ,
we rejoice in Christ,
we preach of Christ,
we prophesy of Christ,
and we write according to our prophecies,
that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins.

2 Nephi 25:26

That our children may know.

4 Shared thoughts

Pruning friends & junk mail

8 November 2014, 8:59 pm by Giggles
Categories: Random

Technology has made it super easy to connect with long lost friends. But it’s also made it hard to lose friends that have long since moved on. You can’t just slowly drift away and disappear any more. It actually takes effort to leave a friendship now. The New York Times wrote a piece almost three years ago (did I not mention last week I have a lot of drafts stored up?) about this exact issue – It’s Not Me, It’s You.

It probably stood out to me then because I’d recently done some more “pruning” of the people categorized as friends on social media that I wasn’t really friends with any more. It’s not that I don’t like them any more (except in one or two very specific cases), it’s more that we’d just moved on and I really didn’t care what was going on in their lives any more and figured they probably weren’t that concerned with what was going on in my life either.

I find it’s necessary to keep the pruning process going. We have a tree in our backyard that needs to be pruned two or three times a year in order for it to not completely take over our yard and house. I don’t prune friends that often, but every now and then I think it’s good to clean up some social clutter from our lives. I prune the blogs I follow for similar reasons.

—–

Somehow I ended up on L.L.Bean’s mailing list. We just got their winter catalog and I went through the same ritual I do every time it arrives.

I flipped through it and looked at all the warm clothes and thought how great they’d be to bundle up in. Then I remembered I live in Southern Arizona and don’t exactly need to do a lot of bundling up.

Then I saw all the great outdoor supplies and thought how great they’d be for when we go camping. Then I remembered we aren’t they type of people who go camping and don’t need camping supplies.

I plan to do the same thing the next time one of their catalogs arrives.

4 Shared thoughts

Philology

7 November 2014, 8:41 pm by Giggles
Categories: Books, Education, Learn Something

I subscribe to dictionary.com’s word of the day. I enjoy learning new words and I really enjoy seeing the words they feature that I already know. Doing vocabulary assignments in school always took me forever because I always got distracted by all the other real cool words in the dictionary (a fact Brett likes to make fun of me for whenever I bring it up).

One word that came up recently was philology. It’s a word I think I need to use more often in my life.

In today’s age it is normally used as the study of books, learning their history, establishing their age and authenticity, that type of thing. Two of my favorite classes at BYU were my history of civilization classes which I took through the honors department from the curator of the Special Collections at the Harold B. Lee Library. We studied the history of the world through what was written down. We saw Samarian clay tablets, the drawing Napoleon had done when he was in Egypt, velum manuscripts, illuminated bibles, and so many other amazing pieces of written history. I could definitely use “philology” when talking about that class.

The word is also related to the study of historical and comparative linguistics. I’m pretty sure Brett’s got us covered there. His study of ancient Greek and Hebrew counts. And he’s getting a jump on me in Latin right now too. Brett should start using the word “philology” more often.

I think my favorite meaning of the word though is its obsolete definition – the love of learning and literature. Ah. That’s my style. I love learning. I love finding out new things or deepening my understanding of things I already knew. And literature, the written word. Well, I wouldn’t have taken that version of the history of civilization if I didn’t like literature. And I wouldn’t be planning a wall and a half of book shelves in our house to hold all our books and still wonder if that will be enough space if I didn’t like literature.

Philology is definitely a word I need to use more in my life.

Does anyone else get distracted when reading the dictionary, or is that just me?

5 Shared thoughts