I finally did it

I went and got myself a gym membership. It finally dawned on me that I am exactly the same weight now that I was when I was 19 and 9 months pregnant with my first child! What the heck? I decided that was unacceptable! I started looking at gym memberships around here and really felt like they were sort of expensive. Then while driving down road I saw an advertisement for a local gym Spring special for only $25 a month. $25 a month?! How could I not go and sign up!? I went in and signed up that day!
I have now been to the gym 3 days in a row! I get the weekend off and then should be in the gym every day during the week.
M, W, F is weights and then 45 -60min on Cardio
T, Th is just 60min of Cardio
So far, I am enjoying the cardio. The weights aren't bad but good god are my arms sore! I mean seriously sore! Owwww! Oh well, they keep telling me it will be worth it. I am trying to stay motivated and so want to make sure I don't quit! I want to keep going and lose some weight, tone my body, and stay healthy. After my dad has his heart attack last year, it's never to early or late to start a change for the better!

Menu for the week

I know that today is Tuesday and I should have gone grocery shopping but a friend invited me to go shopping so I did that instead. :-) Tomorrow I will tackle the job of grocery shopping for the week. So here ya' go, here is my menu.

Tuesday - Leftover turkey with Gravy, cranberries, carrots, and mashed potatoes

Wednesday - Sloppy Joes and Fruit Cocktail

Thursday - Spaghetti and Meatballs, Garlic Bread and choice of salad or green beans

Friday - PIZZA and a movie night

Saturday - Marinated Steak (will search food network for a new recipe), some form of potato, and grilled asparagus

Super Bowl Sunday - Cuban Burgers, Spinach and Artichoke dip with chips, Brownies, and whatever else we decide to munch on while watching football!

Monday - Grilled Chicken with Salsa or BBQ, Roast potatoes, Corn

Should be a good week with a lot of food that the kids will eat without to much complaining! Sloppy Joes are something we eat on a pretty regular basis and something we all love! Spaghetti is also an easy family favorite!

Friday night pizza night NEVER changes. This is my one free night off of cooking! I look forward to Fridays so much! When I was a little girl my parents would put a big sheet on the living room floor, order good Chicago pizza, and then we would sit and watch The Dukes Of Hazard! I look back on those pizza nights and just remember how much I loved it! It was the one night of the week that we were aloud to have pop with dinner and that we could eat in the living room. I have such fond memories of those pizza nights and wanted to continue the tradition with my kiddos. We don't watch The Dukes of Hazard anymore but instead pick a different movie each week. We always have pizza while watching the movie and I let the kids each have one can of pop on Friday nights! It may not be good Chicago pizza but it is so relaxing and the perfect end to the week/start to the weekend!

Back to boring posts

Okay, I am all done getting on my soap box about the importance of Sex in a marriage and how we teach our children about Sex. Now I will get back to the more mundane posts of life!
I had a GREAT night out with just my Stephanie on Saturday. Her and I went to Ruth's Chris in downtown Savannah and I let her order whatever she wanted. It was her first Fine Dining experience and she really liked it! It was nice to just talk to her without the interruptions from other siblings and just spend some girl time together! Pretty soon my girl will be driving and possibly working, trying to treasure the moments I have with her because I know they will get less and less as she approaches adulthood! Here is a pic from our night out! I guess we sort of look alike! :-)

Might as well talk about Sex some more.....

In case you haven't figured out from reading my blog, I am a Evangelical Christian. I was born and raised in the church, I believe what the Bible says and putting those principles into my life. Knowing this might allow you to understand some of my view points and where my ideologies come from.

When you are raised in the church a big part of your adolescent years are spent being told to wait for marriage before you have sex. As a girl, you are told how to be modest around boys, to watch what you wear and how it can bring attention to you and your body. You are told that all boys think about is sex and how it is ALWAYS on their mind! Girls don't think this way about sex so adults tell them over and over again how a boys brain works! None of this is wrong, and I would like to think that even if I wasn't a Christian I would want my daughters to think of these things too. BUT sometimes I have to wonder if a girls attitude towards sex is somewhat "warped" due to the way it is taught though. Hang in there with me and see if you can follow my line of thinking.

I have a 14 year old daughter who is in High School. She has AWESOME friends that also have AWESOME parents that are also involved with church and raising Godly Children. One of her friends got a book from her parents about modesty. I was in the car one day when her friend was reading the book and all of sudden she says out loud, "Ewwwwww, Stephanie you have to read this!" At the time I didn't know what she was reading so I was intrigued and asked her what was so gross. She told me about the book she got from her parents and this little part of the book that was talking about the way a guys brain works. She said that it explained that you need to be modest in the way you dress because if you bring attention to your body and a guy is looking at you, thinks you are cute, because he is a boy, he will most likely start to fantasize about you and even go so far as to picture you naked. This totally grossed out this 14 year old girl! The girls started talking about how gross boys are and why do they do that and why would he want to picture me naked. Ewww, ewww, ewww!

Ok, that was the scenario. After the girls got out of the car I started thinking. I understand that they are 14 and thankfully they think that sex is still gross BUT I couldn't help thinking that maybe, just maybe this book and the way sex is taught in the Church was warping their view on sex and males. From the beginning girls are taught that boys think of girls as sexual objects and almost anything we do as females makes them think of sex. Then girls are taught that sex is wrong before marriage, and that all these things are bad, bad, bad. I'm just not sure that is a fair and/or healthy view point.

God made men and woman different. What kind of world would we live in if, men and women wanted sex all the time OR if we lived in a world where men and women never wanted sex at all?! Instead, God, in his divine plan, created men and woman different. Men have needs and wants just like women have needs and wants. Are they always the same? No! But is it the "fault" of the male that he thinks like that? No! That is the way God created men to "work". That does not mean that a guy can do whatever he wants sexually because that is how he was created or that he has no control over it. Boys needs to learn how to turn away when tempted, to respect a girl, and control his desires until marriage. Just like a girl needs to learn how to be modest and have control over her sexual desires too. BUT, I just feel like sometimes, the Christian community puts down men for the way they view sex. I don't want my 14 year old girl to start thinking that a boys view on sex is gross, wrong, and unimportant. Because someday I want my girls to grow up, get married, and have a great sexual relationship with their spouse! I want them to respect their husbands view on sex and not just push it to the back burner because she has been taught that a boys sex drive is bad!

Lesson Number Two

Keeping with the MOPS theme, the other "lesson" I learned to change my marriage was also learned at MOPS. This lesson is a little bit more personal so please bear with me! Along with learning how to care for my family and take care of young children while at MOPS, once a year we had a lady come and talk to us about Sex. We all knew her as the Sex lady and I remember the hushed chatter around MOPS the first time she came to speak. I must have missed her talk in years past because I know I would have remembered her talk before. I know for sure I can't do her talk any justice here on my blog because 1) It was a long time ago and 2) I don't retell stories very well.

The lady was there that day to talk to us about Sex with our husbands. Obviously we all knew what that was, since we were there with young children. But sometimes the problem with marriage is that for women, Sex tends to get put on the back burner. I know for a fact I can remember times I told Jason, "I'm just not in the mood" OR "I'm so tired honey, maybe another night." I remember how much it seperated us when I would tell him that. He was never ugly to me but it just sort of put a wall between us. I never understood how he felt or why it was such a big deal. The sex lady got up this one day and started talking about her husbands needs or more practically all our husbands needs. We all know that God created men and woman different. Men seem to think about Sex ALL the time and woman...sure we think about it but not ALL the time like men.

Think back to when you first got married, I remember how I could not get enough of my husband. It was just the two of us, we were all alone, of course I was in the mood for sex. Sex was new, Sex was fun, Sex was exciting. If he was in the mood, I was in the mood. It was GREAT! Everyone was happy! But slowly, as in every marriage, sex seemed to get less and less important to me. We had kids, and I wasn't leaving anything at the end of the day for my husband!

The sex lady talked that day about how there are two kinds of sex. One is the over top really good sex and the other she called the peanut butter and jelly type sex. Over the top sex happens late at night or when the kids aren't home at all. It is time consuming, it is satifying, and it is wonderful. Sex like that is GREAT and we all enjoy it but sex like that can't happen all the time!

The second kind of sex is the peanut butter and jelly sex, this is the sex that is maybe not over the top but still satisfying. It is the "bread and butter", the "slam, bam, thank you mam!" I am not trying to sound crude or discredit this second act of sex but honestly...the really good sex just can't happen all the time and that is OKAY! My husband married me and said that he would be faithful and love only me. How fair is it for me to hold Sex as something that he can only have when I am "in the mood" OR when "I'm not so tired"? Do you think anybody would ever get married if the vows included something about sex being available only when the wife is in the mood? No man would ever want to get married!

It is hard to put into words on a short blog how strongly I feel about this issue. I remember the MOPS sex lady talking about how she would ask her husband if he actually needed sex on the nights he wouldn't necessarily ask for it. Ask her husband for sex? I thought she was a little nuts! But the more she talked and the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to be the woman that asks my husband if he needs me for sex at night!
Sexual intimacy between a husband and wife is more than just physical, there is the emotional and spiritual as well. My husband does everything to meet the needs of our family. He goes to work every day and provides the finances to have a roof over our head, food on the table, money to pay the bills, and even extra for the fun things like movies, games, and dinners out! Out of love and respect I want to provide myself in a sexual relationship to my husband to meet his needs!

I am a person who does not think that Pornography or Strip clubs is okay for any man in my family. This is something my husband and I have discussed and come to an agreement on. But I know that if I want my husband to only have eyes for me and to stay away from the temptations of pornography or other woman, I have to give all of myself to him. Not just when I feel like it but ALL the time, even when I think I am to tired! If all we can do is the quick peanut butter and jelly sex than that is okay with me. It's sort of like the bread holing our marriage together.

Besides what the MOPS sex lady said on that day I also read a book called, Every Man's Battle. Please understand that I did this to help me understand men and not because my husband has ever struggling with pornography. I would encourage all wives to read this book and get a fresh perspective on how guys think or are wired to work when it comes to sex. Again I read it many years ago but there was something in the book that talked about never letting your husband go more than 3 days without sex. I don't remember the full context but it is something that has stuck with me. If I don't want my husband sexually tempted than I need to be giving him a sexual outlet with me at home!

I know it is a lot harder when the kids are little and maybe you are still getting up in the middle of the night to feed your baby BUT, after the kids grow up and are gone, it's just you and your husband again. You can't have a relationship if you put it on the back burner for 18+ years while your kids are at home! I will admit that there are times I'm not in the mood but I still give myself freely to my husband so that we can be one again in Marriage...besides after a little while, you may find yourself more in the mood after all. ;-)
So for me and my husband I have found that these two lessons that I've shared with you have changed my thoughts and views on my role as a wife. It helped me to be less selfish and more giving to my husband. Of course my husband never complained about this fresh new perspective either! You have to do what works for you and your husband in your relationship, I am not posting these things to tell you that we have it all figured out or that you NEED to do these things or else. I just wanted to give you my perspective and show you what has worked for me in my marriage! Even after 15 years we have found new ways to express our love and keep things fun and new! I just don't feel like things would be as great for my husband and I if I hadn't applied these lessons in our relationship so many years ago!

Two Lessons That Changed My Marriage

When Jason and I lived in Arkansas I attended MOPS. For those of you who don't know, MOPS stands for Mothers Of Pre-Schoolers. It met twice a month at our church and was something I looked forward to every Friday it met!
The concept behind MOPS is, very briefly, to give moms a chance to be with other moms while the children are cared for. Every meeting consists of some time for fellowship, a craft, a speaker, and then some group time to discuss what the speaker talked about. Speakers could come and talk about anything from Baby Massage to Birth Order. How to plan meals or how to start traditions. No matter what it was, it was always GREAT! I was a young mom and was a little sponge just soaking up the wise words of these older Mentors.
As my kids began to get a little older and I had been in MOPS for a few years, I decided to get involved in the leadership team of MOPS. When you are a leader you are then given the opportunity to go to the Annual MOPS leadership conference. I think I attended two of these conferences but it was at one that I learned my first little bit of information that slowly started changing my marriage.
The speaker at the conference was Elise Morgan who was the President of MOPS at the time. She spoke about how our role as a mom is very important but went on to talk about our roles as wives. When you are young mom you give and give to your young kids. All day long they NEED you. I mean literally NEED you. Without you, the mom, your children could not feed themselves, bathe themselves, clothe themselves or change their own diaper. They would not climb into their own crib and take a nap or make sure the diaper bag is packed before you head out the door. There is laundry to do, beds to make, clothes to change, dishes to do and diapers,oh the diapers! So much time giving all day long to this little person! I remember the analogy she gave so clearly. She said that moms are like little Juice Boxes (the Capri Sun kind that inflate in themselves). All day long your little person is sucking more and more out of you. Diaper change (one little suck), breakfast, lunch and dinner (a few more sucks). All day long the child is taking taking taking and you are giving giving giving!
Then, 5pm rolls around, daddy is now home and you have been sucked dry. With just enough of yourself to get dinner on the table, you and your little juice box self are empty! You get the kids into bed and there is your husband looking over at you with those eyes. You know the eyes I am talking about! The ones that say he wants to go in the bedroom for fun and you just want to go in the bedroom for sleep! But Elise went on to encourage us and challenge us to remember this analogy and to remember to make sure our own personal juice box doesn't get sucked dry before our husbands come home at the end of the day. We all know the demands of children can be exhausting but we need to save some of our giving for our husbands as well!
That little analogy stuck with me so well. Even after over 8 years I can still hear Elise, see Elise and feel like I am right there. It was also a good analogy because with toddlers in the house, at the time, I was constantly filling that sippy cup! It helped me remember that I had to save some "juice" for my husband at the end of the day.
Was it always easy? Nope! Did I ever fail? All the time BUT I will say that little by little it go easier to make sure I had enough of myself to give to my husband each and every night (I'm not talking about having to have sex every night, just being able to give of myself to be with him and not be selfish at the end of the day.)
God was still working on me, this little analogy had been placed upon my heart but God had one more little tidbit to teach me....but that will have to wait until tomorrow! :-)
So keep your juice boxes with a little extra today, just for your hubby when he walks in the door tonight at 5 O'Clock!

Nicholas's Prayer

Nicholas prayed at dinner tonight and said, "Thank you God for making daddy's flight get canceled so he had to stay home a whole extra day!"
We all said AMEN! :-)