Time Flies When You're Having Fun

Well, another week has almost gone by. Time is flying by fast. I want it to slow down. Roger is going to L.A. next week to visit friends and I know that time is going to fly by fast and then we'll be at the end of April. That only leaves a month for us to hang out together until he has to go back to work full time at the end of May. Oh, if only we could keep living like this. Yeah, I'll stop dreaming now.

So we had a great anniversary weekend. Sorry, we forgot our camera Saturday night. So we don't have any pictures of us dancing the night away. But the benefit was great. We had a lot of fun dancing and socializing and the benefit raised a lot of money for Ty. He was there which was a real treat. He's so little because of his health. It's quite sad. He's almost seven and he's smaller than my nephew who is going to be five in May. Ty is going back to the Mayo Clinic for more testing and such. They still don't know what's causing all his health problems. He brought a tear to our eyes when he said in his tiny, whispery voice after the live auction and raffle, "Don't worry about me. I'll be fine." It's so sad that children that young and innocent have to deal with such things. It's just not fair.

On to the next topic, I had to give up my ring Monday. We went to see John so he could solder my rings together and do a new appraisal for our insurance. I know "giving it up" sounds so harsh, but I just got it. And I don't get it back until next Monday. We're going to College Station this Friday and Saturday for Parent's Weekend at A&M. Then Saturday evening we're going to Houston for an Astros game with Kezia's family and Sunday Kezia's sister's children are being dedicated at their church. It's been hard without my ring so far, so I'm sure this weekend will be tough. I keep checking my finger for it and feeling for it because I'm so used to it being there. I keep feeling like I've forgotten it or lost it. I can't wait to get it back on Monday. We'll take some pictures then.

Roger's spending this week working on electrical stuff on our back patio. He's adding a ceiling fan, track lighting for his grill, an outlet for the rotisserie motor on his grill, a motion sensor light for the yard, a new light fixture at the back door and installing GFCI outlets where they should be in the kitchen and bathrooms. We made a new friend at Home Depot on Monday in the electrical section who happens to be a retired electrician and volunteered to come over and help us. Talk about a blessing. I can't wait for them to be done so we can have them over for dinner and use the grill so they can see all their handy work. It's going to be so nice out there. We'll actually be able to use our entire backyard now. They bought all the materials today and will do the work tomorrow. So I won't be here to take any pictures since I'll be in class.

Speaking of class, I made an 80 (B) on my test last week! Yeah. Not great, but better than I thought I did. That gives me an 87 in the class so far. I am going to try hard to make a high A on the last exam to hopefully pull my grade up to an A for the class. In class we are entering the Iron Age which has even more references to the Bible than before. We ended our last section of material at the Late Bronze Age with a highly debated topic in the field of Biblical Archaeology as to the dates of the Genesis patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, etc). We read an article by Kenneth Kitchen in Biblical Archaeology Review (1995: 21/2) illustrating with archaeological, internal and external Biblical evidence why he believes the dates of the patriarchs to be the Middle Bronze Age. It was a really interesting article and I loved reading how he compared so many aspects of the Bible to external sources that establish reliability of the Biblical time periods. If anyone is interested in reading it, let me know and I'll email the article to you if you can't get access to it through their website. There are always interesting articles in this journal.

Lastly, I've entered a USAT sanctioned triathlon the last Sunday of April. It's called the Ranger Triathlon and it's being held at and benefits the Texas School for the Deaf and I'm really excited about it. I haven't done a triathlon in over five years. But I'm pretty sure I'm ready for it. It's basically a mini-triathlon with a 200m swim, 6 mile bike and 2 mile run. I had to time my 200m swim for lining up purposes of the triathlon. Since the swim portion will be in a pool and not open water, you're lined up by time so faster swimmers aren't swimming over slower swimmers. I was quite surprised by my time which was 5:23 and that was two weeks ago. I have lengthened by swims since so I'm pretty sure I'll be faster by the actual race day. Now I've got to start working on training for the bike portion and transitions. I have to be able to fix a flat or any other incident that might come up by myself with no help from anyone so I need Roger to show me how to do all that bike stuff again. Since it's a USAT sanctioned event, they are pretty strict with the rules. I had to become a member of USAT to be able to participate. Since I had to pay for a year membership, I'm going to try to do some other mini or half triathlons during the year. I'm not ready for a full triathlon and I don't know if I will ever be ready for that. But I am planning to add another day of swimming each week starting next week. We'll see how it goes.

Okay, that's it for now. This is too long as it is. Check out more pictures of Roger grilling and other house pictures on the right. Chao!

Real Love

I just have to tell you that I’m married to the most wonderful husband in the world. Roger & I had a wonderful time at dinner last night. It was just amazing. We strolled around the Warehouse District holding hands after dinner. During dinner he completely surprised me with a beautiful platinum and diamond anniversary band. I was so shocked by it I started to cry. I wasn’t expecting it at all. I had kind of forgotten about it with all that’s been going on lately. And since he didn’t mention anything to me since he’s been home about getting it I figured he hadn’t gotten a chance to think about trying to get it. But all this time he’s been secretly meeting with our friend John the gemologist. He’s so good. I really love being married and especially being married to Roger. Check out some pictures below.

Today is our fifth anniversary. So far this morning we’ve laid in bed holding each other and talking. It’s been a really special morning. Now we're off to have some breakfast. I can’t wait for the rest of the day. We’re going to dance the night away tonight at a benefit concert by my favorite local country musician Jason Allen.

I wrote the following in my electronic journal a while back, but thought today was a good day to share it, “I found real love at the same time I was starting to know God’s love. After many years of crazy relationships, I always knew they weren’t real love but didn’t really know what real love was. I knew what it wasn’t. You can’t have that many doubts about a person or your relationship with them, to not know what real love isn’t. But I think because I found real love as I was beginning to understand how God loved me, is how I knew it was real love. They were almost the same, sacrificial. God would do anything to show me and make me feel how much he loved me, as Roger and I would do for each other. And there were no doubts. It was like God put in my heart the knowledge and wisdom that it was the real thing. I can’t explain how I knew it, other than God told me Roger was the man he intended for me to marry.”

Learning To Be Married Again

So why would we have to learn to be married again? Roger and I were separated for the last nine months. While we were separated we could be and were very selfish. In marriage you have to be selfless. We are relearning to put the other first. Not an easy thing to do when you are human! Only the Lord can help with that. The other skill we are relearning is how to communicate. I know some people will think, “Well, you talk to each other so you are communicating.” Wrong. Communicating is not talking at someone else. Communicating is being honest about how you feel and telling the other person in a respectful way. You have to share things you wouldn’t normally share outside of a relationship. You also have to listen. My biggest advice to newlyweds has been and will always be: You can’t read their mind, so don’t expect them to read yours. Tell them exactly what you want them to know. How do you expect a man to know you need him to help with the dishes or laundry if you don’t tell him? We keep forgetting to share all the details of our plans or expectations. And both of us need to know. Two have become one. You have to enlist patience for both of these, selflessness and communication. Another request only the Lord can help with.

It’s kind of funny that the topic of learning to be married again has come up so close to our five year anniversary tomorrow. (I finally get to wear my little black dress tonight.) We’d like to think we have it down by now, but marriage isn’t constant. Thank goodness. Nothing worse than a stale marriage. We haven’t had a chance to be stale in the past five years. I don’t think stale is in our vocabulary.

Religiously Transmitted Diseases

I drive to Texas A&M every Tuesday and Thursday listening to my favorite local radio station, The River (102.3). And when I lose the River, I switch over to KLOVE (92.1, 97.1 & 106.3). Sometimes I can switch back to the River but if I can’t, I move over to a Houston radio station, Country Legends (97.1). I love that station. It’s my favorite country music and I wish I could get it all the time. When I can’t get any radio stations, I turn to my MP3 player, a CD or for two more months, XM Satellite radio. XM is nice when you can’t get a decent radio station. But I’m frugal and will not be subscribing to it when my free three month subscription runs out. I already have a 4GB MP3 player, which holds more than enough music for me. Why would I throw that kind of money away? I only listen to a few channels as it is.

Anyway, Tuesday morning I switched over to KLOVE and the DJ was talking about a book he is reading called Religiously Transmitted Diseases by Ed Gungor. The title is misleading and it’s supposed to be. It is targeted to the church or believer who has lost “the joy of their belief” as one reviewer stated. The DJ spoke about one chapter in particular regarding judgment and giving people second chances. It sounded really interesting and funny. I wish I could read it, because I know I experience periods of “spiritual disease” and would benefit from this book. But as the semester has begun and I already have another book I’m trying to finish, I must add this to the list. I found a really cute article regarding his book plus a test you can take to see if you suffer from an RTD. Some of the diseases he lists are humorous, like spiritual elephantiasis, evangelistic rabies, afluenza, last days flu (I know people with this one.), sovereignty shingles and inferiorphobia. Most of the reviews said it was funny. I can’t wait to read it. I’m sure I’ll be suffering from some of those viruses then too.

Yesterday was the one month anniversary of my new car. I have already put over 1200 miles on it. And I still love it. But I need to wash it. I keep forgetting to call my doctor about my jaw x-rays. I'm going to do it now. The muscle relaxers aren't helping with the joint jaw pain, but they sure are helping with menstrual cramps.

One Year Ago Today

At 12:15 a.m. this morning, Roger said to me it was one year ago today that he came home from the hospital. I thought no it's tomorrow, but then I realized that it was after midnight and agreed with him. I remember thinking it was awesome he was going to be home for our anniversary, April 5th. We weren't sure when he was going to be released from the rehabilitation hospital. They would not release him until he could escape a burning building on his own so his release depended on his improvement. It was great that he was able to be home for our third anniversary. So tomorrow we will celebrate our fourth anniversary at Christopher's World Grill in Bryan, Texas which is where we celebrated our first anniversary.