Wednesday, February 24, 2010

My Husband Thinks I Should Connect With the Vacuum Cleaner

So if I understand the practice of Lent correctly (by all means, pipe in if I’m off base here), the idea is to give up something that takes your time/thoughts off God and spend that time you’ve gained in whatever way you connect with Him.

Well, here’s what I experienced last year: I gave up Facebook games. I used to spend hours upon hours playing Facebook games. I would even take time during vacations to update certain games. A really cool thing happened after Lent season – I didn’t go back to playing the games. It freed up so much of my time and I was glad to be free of that particular addiction. When I start something new, I tend to jump right in and Beat It To Death.

Here’s the rub: That extra time in my day, the hours upon hours I had spent playing those games, got replaced by some of my other habits; i.e., TV. I may have started out Lent spending some intentional time with God each day, but that TV time crept in and replaced that time with Him.

An experiment I’ve decided to try this year (see Hallmark Hates Me blog – I’m feeling very experimental), I’m going to try a new plan of attack: Instead of focusing on what I’m giving up during Lent, I’m going to focus on what I am going to do, which is committing to connect with God on a regular basis. Not too shabby if this is one of those habits I Beat To Death. Time to get started; Lent has already begun!

Now you know what the title means…

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Hallmark Hates Me

I didn’t want to celebrate Valentine’s Day this year. Call it an experiment. Call it bah humbug. I’m not sure what my intentions are. But I mentioned it to my husband, he looked at me strangely – he’s done that a lot lately for good reason – and readily agreed with my request. I enjoy those “chick flicks”, but when it comes down to it, when I ask my husband for a little romance, it ends up grossing me out. I know there are issues there, but we’re both fine with that. After all, I’m married to a guy who didn’t formally propose. It came out that we were getting married as part of a conversation while we were talking about purchasing a house. And once I came to the realization that I’m not the romancy type, it took a lot of pressure off our relationship. When I go to those movies, I don’t expect our relationship to look like that fantasy.

Getting back to what I’m going to call the experiment, I think this has been our best Valentine’s ever. Because it fell on a Sunday this year, let me call it Valentine’s weekend. Friday night was spent at a couples group my husband and I just joined – something totally new for us to do together – with two other couples. Good food, if I say so myself (it was my turn to cook), and lots of laughter. On Saturday, my son had a party for four hours, and our time was spent picking out a couple lamps and - wait for it - some new toilet seats. We had lunch, came home and watched a couple DVR’d television shows, and just relaxed together.

What I think has made this so enjoyable? There have been no expectations to make this “holiday” weekend so special. There’s been no pressure to pick out the perfect card, find the perfect gift, and plan to make the day memorable. I felt relief not to fall in that trap I fall into of trying to feel feelings (to be clear, I feel the love; it’s the gooey romance!) I just don’t feel the rest of the year, let alone on this day.

I’m settling into being comfortable with myself; that it’s okay for me not to be a romantic, gushy woman. My husband is quite pleased I’m embracing this fact, and it actually makes our marriage stronger for it. So after all this, I guess we did celebrate Valentine’s Day, and I hope you enjoyed your special celebration as well!