Bedtime Conversations: On Skype

Me: Heeeeey! I can see your face for the first time in daaaays.

C: (not looking at me) Hey beautiful girl.

Me: (waving my hand in front of the camera) Hello? Should I let you go? Is there something going on in there?

C: Oh, sorry. Its just that I haven't seen t.v. in forever!

Me: Excuse me? You haven't seen what in forever (I helped him by circling my face with my finger)? Want to try that again?

Boy, you're lucky I love ya! Its mostly just because you are so scrumptious to look at.

                                              

I am in mourning about sex

A question has been on my mind for months now. I can't shake it. I am swallowed with sadness every time I think about it. 


Why is casual intimacy a thing, a very very common thing even? Why is fidelity dying? 

I watch a lot of New Girl. I adore it. Its clever and funny and delightful. However, one thing that has bothered me from the beginning is the casualness with which they talk about sex. They are intimate with people they don't know, and at one point Schmit expresses distress when he realizes he is in love, and now has to have feelings in order to take pleasure in sex. 

I am so sickened. Its not just New Girl. Its EVERY show. ew.

How are we so off the mark as an entire society.

Relationships are not easy. This is not new news. Putting two lives together takes communication and compromise. It always will. 

Good relationships take a good esophagus that is equipped to swallow lots and lots of pride. I have had an awful lot of practice apologizing through gritted teeth because I knew it was what I should do, but far from what my ego wanted me to do. I am not tooting my own horn. I am not perfect. I haven't done the right thing every time. My pride wins out in turns.

I am not a relationship expert, but here is what I think. Teenagers shouldn't be having sex. Twelve year olds should be roller skating, not worrying about being popular or getting a boyfriend or girlfriend. Married couples should stay married, unless divorce is really the best option (Which I acknowledge totally does happen. Abuse of any kind and other kinds of issues of that nature do not apply to my point). 

I don't believe people just fall out of love. That is poop. Forgive my French. At least one of the people in that relationship stopped trying. They stopped doing things for their spouse, they stopped holding hands. They stopped saying 'I love you' every day. They stopped discovering each other. What are relationships without discovery? I am not saying every day of the rest of your life with the same person is never going to seem mundane. It will. But it won't always. 


This whole post is a bit disconnected,and far from my best attempt at prose, but this topic is important. So important.

Lets take a little, or a lot, of the sex out of our media and society, and save it for people who are ready to commit to each other until the end. Save it to be special and precious.

In the mean time, talk, walk, and have adventures to get to know each other instead of taking off clothes. 

How love and belly button lint connect

Lets talk about love for a minute.

I keep seeing things in books, television, and movies, that try to suggest that love and attraction should start as an intense, irresistible chemistry, and that the intensity should never fade. 

Your skin should burn every time his skin touches your skin. Even when his elbow accidentally touches your arm because he is taking way too wide of an eating berth at the table. Smoldery burniness along side ,"please pass the salt". 

Stephanie Meyer tells lies. Hollywood tells lies. Karen Carpenter tells lies.

I love Karen Carpenter as much as anyone, but she sometimes sings untruths with that buttery voice. Lies stolen from Barry Manilow. 

I was singing this song while doing dishes the other day, and realized how awful the lyrics are:

At any moment he'll be walking through that doorBut he won't find me behind it'Cause the feeling is gone and just won't come back any moreI worked so hard to find it
I've been up, down, tryin' to get the feeling againAll around tryin' to get the feeling againThat one that made me shiverMake my knees start to quiver every time he walks in
I've read every book, looked for every meditation and poemJust to bring home that old sweet sensationBut it ain't no use to me to try to get the feelingI wanna get that feeling again

KJ Translates: (ahem) I am going to disappear mysteriously from your life because you aren't exciting anymore. I don't get all melty around you. I miss feeling melty. I haven't really liked you for a while now, so I read a couple meditation books about how to find you exciting again, but they were garbage. Ciao.

 What rubbish!


C and I never had this burning, irresistible chemistry. You may not believe it
when you see this picture from his junior year in high school....who could not feel warm fuzziness in their hearts while looking at that?!

Adorable even underneath that permed mop. I digress, as usual. 

Anyway, we were just two people who got along really well,(after a few months of me grudgingly holding on to an unfounded dislike) gave dating a try, and here we are! Love is vital to my life, and can be so exciting, but it isn't all fireworks and passion (maybe I'm missing out? But it actually sounds exhausing).

Love is eating your own pride for breakfast, and trying to keep it down for the rest of day.  

Love is NOT running when the newness and excitement wears off, and it will. I am not saying that relationships can't start with sparks and that knee quivery feeling, but realize that it wears off! Besides, you would end up with really bad knees, and probably get annoyed if it didn't wear off.  

Love is making yourself hold his hand in the car when you are super mad because you know you can't stay mad too long that way. 

Love is learning to not freak out when he throws is belly button lint into your hair because he knows it freaks you out. He kills the big bugs, so...

*disclaimer for C's benefit. He has done this only one and a half times. It was so traumatic that he will never live it down.

Point: Don't read Stephanie Meyer or watch any movie ever again. Pfff. Yeah right. Watch those delightful romantic comedies. Read those silly, books if you must. Enjoy them while recognizing that they pretty much don't portray any part of reality.

Use them to escape, and don't get too upset when belly button lint floating in front of your face pulls you back into a real and loving reality. 

Q & A Session: With Myself

Q: Saying that Elder Holland is stellar is cliche by now, but will you say it anyway?

A: Duh. Elder Holland has a special gift to touch the hearts of people who listen to him. I am certainly not an exception. 

Q: How many episodes of Doctor Who did you watch this weekend?

A: Well, I didn't count on purpose because I knew I would be ashamed. The number mostly likely reached the double digits. 

Q: What is a current fear that you have?

A: That Maverik won't know how present I was in his infancy because there will be few pictures of us together. I am always behind the camera. Selfies can only be done from so many angles. He might think I had no body. Also, chicken thighs. I loath them. They always have veins and blood left in them, but I keep buying them because they cost so much less than breasts.

Q: Is it acceptable that the sexiest thing you have worn in the past three months is your husbands spandex baseball thermals? (Too much?)

A: a. They are soooooo comfortable, and I was tired of my sweats.  b. It is hard to find time to be sexy on purpose. (waaaaaay to much?) c. No. I will go cook something delicious for him immediately.

Q: Can you continue to have kind thoughts for the 12 people that trudge heavily and unceasingly in the apartment above you into all hours of the night?

A: It is getting iffy. I mostly wonder how two grown families can stand to live in a two bedroom apartment. I applaud them for pulling it off, but if they don't get hover-socks soon, I might have to start morse-coding mean things at them with my broom handle. 

On Loving Long Distance. Also, in General

So, Hubster and I have been living apart for a ridiculous amount of time now.  Four months will seem like hogswallop to military wives, but is really practically the entire life of our 5 month old little man. Forgive the melodrama, but he has been gone a LIFETIME! ...literally.

Sidenote: I wish people would look up the definition of the word literally before they would use it in an expression such as, "I literally just put my heart out there. There is nothing else I could have done."  I mean, ouch. Not to mention you must be dead, so I don't blame you for being able to do no more.

There is the possibility of Ches being gone for even longer blocks of time in the future, so I wanted to remember how we handled being apart for so long while still trying to build on our relationship, and have our feelings for each other continue to grow. Stagnant love is stinky love I always say...well not always, but I have said it now! But seriously, love takes effort.


Ches and I express love very differently. We took that cheesy, but valid, love language quiz, and came out in completely different categories.

I am a letter writer, and a vocalizer. I don't use the L-bomb lightly, even in my relationship with my spouse.  I love to receive love letters, and things of that nature.  Flowery expressions of love, and a list of things that one loves about me will make me smile, and get that warm, burny feeling in my heart.

Let me show you what a love letter from my husband looks like...

This beaut is from when we were dating.  I spent a week as a counselor for a youth retreat our church does every summer.  He has done this for me since we have been married as well.  As you can see, our levels of expression are quite different, however I have no doubt that had he had the option, King Tut would have been scrambling to solicit these skills to ornament his sarcophagus.

Ches is a server and a gift giver. I never have to mix up my own fry sauce or go to the fridge to grab my own water bottle.  (There was even one night I didn't have to brush my own teeth.) Each occasion that calls for gifts, I get showered upon (not literally).  needless to say, I am spoiled. I am the loser of the world when it comes to giving thoughtful gifts, and I sometimes get so busy letting Ches do things for me, that it doesn't even cross my mind to think of something he needs.

How do we fit together? How do we know that the other loves us?  Especially from so far away??

Number One: Biggest and most useful advice I could give to any couple anywhere under any circumstance is to try and understand the other person's point of view.  Ches knows that I thrive off of romantic expression in word or script, so he tries. His expressions may not be long, or full of beautiful language, but he DOES it! 

I really do try to be thoughtful in the gifts I give, but haven't been very successful yet. I try to blame it on the fact that our anniversary, his birthday, and Christmas are all within a month, one every two weeks, and who in their right mind can be THAT thoughtful in THAT concentrated of a time period ( I mean really, couldn't his parents have thought through their actions a bit more)...but it is just an excuse. To make up for this I have tried to do things like make the non-fun phone calls, and make sure he has a hot breakfast every morning. If you know a Lewis, you know breakfast is a BIG deal.

We both continue to try, and we are learning a lot about each other.

Number Two: Whether you live together, or are apart for reasons out of your control. Talk ALL THE TIME! Sometimes this isn't an option, but luckily it is for us. Sometimes most of a day will pass, and I will realize that I haven't talked to or heard from my husband really at all. Thinking about this made me realize that sometime we will sit in the same room for an entire evening, and barely talk because we are both so into our own things. SADNESS! When our kids are grown and gone, I don't want to discover that I don't know my husband because we didn't just talk often enough.

We have tried to be better.  Don't feel bad if you are not one of those couples that can talk endlessly always. We have those moments, but most of the time converstaion for us takes thought and effort.  So, at night our FaceTime conversations look like this:

In the end this very wordy post is mostly about those two final things. Whether you are trying to resolve something on which you think differently, or simply trying to learn to love each other more greatly and deeply, talk like you aren't going to be able to talk ever again, but every day, and always try to see through the heart of the other. 

I think Ches is on lunch break. I'm going to call him now.

Fuzzy Back Teeth

Just about every night about the time that I a quickly fading away into a drool on my pillow state, I decide I should wash my face and brush my teeth, so as to hygienate  myself in an appropriate manner (do you like my new word?).

A least every other night I ask husband if he wants to brush my teeth for me.

He has always politely declined. I always have the most polite reply of sticking my tongue out at him.

Last night the routine, and I dare say my life, changed.

He was brushing his teeth, and I said, "Can I help you?" and he said..nod nod.  So I got off the couch, and proceeded to brush my husbands teeth.  Getting my fat hands in that little mouth was a little difficult.  I think next time I will have him sit on a stool because I will be able to reach the back better.

Then....

I put toothpaste on my beautiful green toothbrush, handed it to him, opened my very large pie-hole, and....HE BRUSHED MY VERY OWN TEETH!  He missed the back completely, so I had to fix it for him, but I hurried and fixed it while he wasn't looking....well he was looking, but I couldn't have fuzzy back teeth in the morning.

I quickly became glad that we live in a basement apartment where no one walks by our one window.  How odd would it bee to walk by a window, look in, and see two grown people brushing eachother's teeth.  Not odd, I argue, INSPIRING.

Jelly Beans

Usually almost always consistently just about at least once a day I get to feel like this



What does this feel like you ask? I will tell you.

Like I am the most delicious, hilarious, wonderful, beautiful, desirable, spontaneous, voluptuous woman in the entire world.

All of those are good things.

I am SO lucky that even if it is for 5 seconds, husband makes me feel like this at least once every day.

If your husband doesn't do this, sick a jelly bean up his nose. (Mike N' Ike's work as a decent substitute).

Sometimes

Sometimes wife actually tries to cook dinner for husband, and sometimes it happens to be that she has enough ground beef to cook both sloppy joe AND taco meat. Sometimes she decides that they will eat the sloppy joes tonight, and save the taco meat for tomorrow. Sometimes wife sends husband to the store to get potatoes so they can have homemade fries with the aforementioned sloppy joe sandwiches of joy, and he is quick and compliant. Sometimes when wife does this she bites into her carefully and lovingly prepared sloppy joe, only to find that the meat is freezer burned and tastes of yak buttock. So sometimes wife doesn't finish her sandwich, and eats a half a bag of frozen corn instead. Usually husband doesn't even notice the icky taste, so he eats all of his sandwiches anyway. Sometimes wife wonders if he eats this ground yak posterior only to make her feel better. Wife throws away the meat. Wife does the dishes. Wife is very glad husband also bought ice cream at the grocery store, so they can have butterfinger shakes after he is done at helicopter school.

Yeah. Try to make THAT sound appetizing.
Its impossible.

Copy Cat: Then and Now

My fantastic friend Amanda wrote an inspiring post on the journey she and her husband have had together. I am totally stealing this from her. Chesley and I did not meet when we were young teenagers, having hand holding sessions on choir trip buses, but I think we have come a long way regardless.

Then...I thought you were stuck up, and had no desire to talk to you
Now... I think you are the funniest person in the world, and I make you turn the radio off in the car just so we can talk.

Then...I reluctantly went out with you. I tried to unload you on a friend.
Now....I gleefully go anywhere and everywhere with you, and feel rather smug when I notice other women noticing how handsome you are.

Then...I compared you to other men I knew and respected.
Now....I compare everyone to you. No one measures up. You're so weird. It's awesome.

Then...I had a little crush on you, and when you held my hand it made me blush.
Now....I am am pretty much in love with you, and live with constant blushing.

Then...you did things like take me off roading, and show off your frisbee skills to impress me.
Now...all you have to do to impress me is do the laundry. I've been permanently impressed.

Then...I would stay up until 1:00 a.m. so I could see you for five minutes after you got off of work
Now...I got to bed at 10:30 p.m. so the time will go faster, and you can kiss on the temple when you crawl into bed.

Then...I had to pray about you every night. Such anxiety in the decision.
Now...I pray with you every night, and it is much more anxiety free.

Then...I had no idea what was coming.
Now....I still don't, but you're coming, so it'll be neat

My Vast Experience Has So Far Concluded...

1. Sleeping in someone's arms feels oober nice and secure, but the actual sleeping part becomes more difficult with someone latched to you.

2. In consideration of #1, I'd rather sleep less than not be latched on to.

3. I think I can just deal with the toilet seat being left up.


4. Tithing = very very very very huge blessing


5. Splitting time between families is hard. You either get all time with one, and none with the other, or not enough with both.

6. I find myself counting down hours then minutes to when he gets off work, and sometimes I sleep to make it go faster.


7. Because of work, I see my husband a lot less than I saw my boyfriend , but I like to think that the time spent means more and more.


8. Although not being able to drive my own car bites, it is REALLY nice that he drives everywhere.

9. You don't have to be the lame disappearing married couple. Single people can still be good friends!

10. Sometime I've really got to learn to be less concerned about myself.

11. It IS possible to act like newlyweds you're entire life. An old man told me so.

Cliche = Truth= Best Day of My Life

Luckily our photographers made us appear highly attractive....

Because although we are genuinely happy....

We are also genuinely special....

and highly awesome.

This is just a SA-WEET picture.

Chuck Taylor = Best Man

My dress made me a babe, and well....he was my James Bond even before the bow tie.

THEY'RE HUGE!

Do you think anyone will notice if I casually stick my finger up your nose?

wind + lip gloss = hair stuck to mouth

I got your back babe

Now I got your back so much that my face is on it

My flowers smell looooovelyyyy, as well as look incredible

This is our most graceful dip-kiss yet. Yesssssssss.

He makes me laugh. I love it. Life is good.

Okay. Let's be honest. He is so attractive that it hurts. You know it does. I need an aspirin too.

"Goooood day Sunshine!"

We've got a long, wonderful way to go.
Not a bad view either. Wink.