We Do Things Our Own Way

Posted by random olio

It was not love at first sight. When my husband and I first met we did not like each other. I thought Chris was too nice, and I did not trust a man who was so nice. In my experience, men had not been good to me, so a man who was so nice had to be hiding something. I was also not in the greatest ‘man loving’ space in my life at the time, so Chris did not think of me as such a nice woman. Interesting what view we had of each other, and it definitely is a good reminder that you should never judge a book by its cover. After working together for over a year, through many 16 hour days, I left my job. When I did, I realized that what I missed most was Chris. Funny how what you find you liked least is what you miss the most.

on our wedding day

That was over ten years ago. Today we celebrate nine years of marriage. I can hardly believe it. We are each other’s champion, greatest advocate, and many times hardest critic. You might ask why we are each other’s hardest critic. It is because by our union in marriage, our living our life together, we hope to make the world a better place. Sometimes that means saying the hard things. It means telling the other that how they handled a situation was not their finest moment, that they can do better, push harder, ask for more, take a stronger stand. It makes us better individuals, better citizens, and a stronger couple.

If you were to ask me what encapsulates my marriage. I would answer: we do things are own way. We entered our marriage on our own terms in the way we wanted. We did not succumb to other’s opinions of how we should get married. Our wedding was solely about the moments when we made a vow to each other. A vow that has a foundation on trust, love, honesty, and integrity. Some may not have liked the choices we made, and other still may not like the choices we continue to make, but they are ours to make.

Our hope is that if we speak out to make a situation better for those that come after us, that together we are a strong bond that trickles or pours that goodness into the rest of the world. We are rich by the strength of our bond, by our love, our independence, our determination, and our deep love for each other.

Thank you, Chris, for nine wonderful years, and for doing it our way together.

Lip Dubbed Proposal – Must See Video!

Posted by random olio

Hope you had a relaxing holiday weekend! We had a good weekend of great food, people, and conversation. I decided to take yesterday off from blogging, my mind just needed a bit of a break!

I wanted to share an inspiring video with you that I think has been all over the Internet this past weekend. It is of a Portland couple and their Lip Dubbed Wedding Proposal. It is one of the most clever proposals I have ever seen. This is the background story connected to the video.

Hope you enjoyed it! It is another reason I love Portlanders. They are definitely a clever and creative bunch. It makes me think of all the ideas that could be out there that have not been discovered or shared.

Enjoy your Tuesday!

Incredible people…at the right moment

Posted by random olio

Today is my 100th post! I cannot believe I have been blogging every weekday for 5 months! An exciting accomplishment for me.

I recently read the novel: “Delicacy” by David Foenkinos. After reading it, I learned that the book was made into a movie. I would read the book first before watching the movie. I have added it to my movie list, but I actually already think it will not be as good as the book. Some movies just cannot compare to the description and places your imagination takes you to while reading a book. It is a quick read and quite cleverly written. The author brings you in to support the main character but you will later fall in love with the underdog.

A quote that was shared in “Delicacy” resonated with me. It makes me think about when I met my husband, I had known him for a while before it clicked within me that he had been brought into my life at just the right moment. AND, yes he is incredible.

“Thought of a Polish Philosopher:

There are incredible people whom we meet at the wrong moment.

And there are people who are incredible because we meet them at the right moment.” page 97

It makes me think about the movie: Sliding Doors. It used to be one of my favorite movies. I loved it because of the story line, but also because at the time Sliding Doors came out my hair was very short, and I liked Gwyneth Paltrow’s hair short and long in the movie. Her hair inspired me. I think I related more to her short hair character most. If you have not seen Sliding Doors, then rent it right away. It is a movie that really makes you think. The excerpt from IMDB says:

“Young Helen is fired from her job at a PR company, and when the sliding doors of the tube car close on her, we start to see what would have happened if she’d made the train, and if she hadn’t.”

Whenever I wonder in life what would have or could have happened, I think of Sliding Doors. Where would I be if I had taken that job? What if I said no to a party, would I have met that friend? We all have those questions, and Gwyneth’s character let’s us think about the moment the door closes and we do not make the train, what could have been?

What incredible person have you met at the right moment? What incredible experience did you have at the right moment?

Engagement rings as downpayment?

Posted by random olio

I just started reading “All the Money in the World: What the Happiest People Know about Getting and Spending” by Laura Vanderkam. I am intrigued by quite a few ideas I have read so far, so I have a feeling I might end up writing about this book over the next few days. For those of you that may not know me, I am avidly interested in personal finance. I believe that as we grow up we do not learn about personal finance unless our family teaches us, or we specifically take classes in college, or some other random way. Most of us wind up learning about it by default, and even at that we do not feel completely confident about what we really know regarding finance.

The premise of this book is that even with all the money in the world most of us would still not be happy. The author explains how we can use money as a tool to creatively set ourselves up to do the things we want to do in life. Because I am passionate about money issues and women issues I found the following ideas interesting about engagement rings. The average couple spends $5000 on an engagement ring. My husband and I quasi eloped. We told folks before we left to get married, had a send off party, but went to sun and sand just the two of us, with the officiant, photographer, and videographer as our witnesses. Based on how we got married, I have an interest and intrigue for big and small weddings and how folks decide to get married. With that I have always been fascinated by the engagement process. We did not have a formal engagement, or an engagement ring, our experience was all very non traditional. In her book, Laura talks about how men in the 1930’s would propose to women and then have a string of fiancees. To protect women multiple states added laws that allowed women to sue for breach of promise, meaning that men had expensive consequences when proposing to multiple women. I am shocked (and a bit in awe) that women had very few rights at the time, and yet they could sue a man for breach of promise. This is the background Laura shares:

“Then in 1935, a legislator from Indiana sponsored a bill abolishing broken engagement as a reason to sue for damages. Other jurisdictions followed, which soon raised a question: if a woman couldn’t sue, what could she do to protect herself? One solution would be to demand a large transfer of capital as part of an engagement. That would make any prospective grooms think twice about seducing a woman under false pretenses. The most efficient way to do this would be for the man to give his beloved money. Money can be used for anything, and so this method would at least let the woman do something useful with it, like go to school or start a business. But genteel folks have always found cash a bit tacky in proper situations, so that didn’t catch on. Fortuitously, at the same time brides were looking for something expensive yet respectable to secure their honor, the diamond industry faced a glut of the precious stones and needed some way to move them. Seeing an opportunity, the DeBeers company staged one of the first national marketing campaigns to boost diamond sales. Its advertising agency got Hollywood stars to wear conspicuous rings, and movies soon featured engagement scenes involving diamonds. Within just three decades the diamond engagement ring was welded into the culture, almost universally accepted…” page 18-19

So our current day engagement ring came about from women finding an expensive way to secure their honor. Does that mean if the man breaks off an engagement then the woman keeps the ring, but if a woman breaks an engagement she has to return the ring to the man? It made me start to think: is the cost and purchase of an engagement ring still necessary? Is it the most fiscally responsible way for a groom (or a couple) to spend their money before starting their life together?

Food for thought.

You inside and outside of your marriage

Posted by random olio

Last week I finished reading: “No Cheating, No Dying: I Had a Good Marriage. Then I tried to Make it Better” by Elizabeth Weil. It is an interesting book, a quick read. She has a good marriage and just wonders if there are ways she can make it better. I am in the same boat, although I would not call my marriage good, I would call it exceptional. I know, I am biased, but I just have a great admiration for the communication that happens between my husband and me. Having said all that, there is always room for improvement in any relationship, so I like reading books that could shed light on how I might be able to look at things differently in my marriage and make it that much better.

So a little background. I was very independent when I met my husband. We met at work, and we both remember that we did not really like each other too much. He was too nice to me, and I did not trust that, and he did not like me because I was not nice enough. Go figure. After working very long days together, we got to know each other well, and when I left my job we realized that we missed each other and all the time we spent together. The rest, well, is history in the making. We met almost 11 years ago. We have now been married for almost 9 years. I struggled in the beginning to try to understand who I would be as a wife, while also a strong feminist and very independent. I was not going to be driven in the car (I would drive), I was going to talk to the mechanic about our car, we would share cooking and cleaning, etc.

Over time, we found a balance. He drives (he loves driving and I could care less about the actual driving part) I read and catch up with to-do’s on my phone, I get a report from him about the mechanic, and I no longer cook. Early on I screwed up making pesto and put in way too much garlic. He ate it and smelled for days. Call it love, but it was the beginning of his control of the kitchen. Now I love it and leave him alone when he cooks each night. It is his time. I am the baker. I make the sweet things and the yummy breads and goodies. It all works out. But, it does not mean that I do not wonder if I am balancing who I am independently with who I am in my marriage. Elizabeth and her husband have an agreement: No Cheating, No Dying. My husband and I have a similar strong agreement and have from the very beginning: No cheating, and our trust and honesty in each other is the utmost importance. These questions about balance between being a woman and independent and being a wife is why this quote from Elizabeth’s book resonated with me:

“I was an even less likely candidate than Dan for a wholly merged life. One of my more telling memories of myself as a young woman and of how unbending I was in love happened the evening a new boyfriend wanted to make me a cilantro-lime pesto, and instead of walking with him on that warm spring evening to buy limes, I suggested he run the errand alone. By the time I met Dan, at age twenty-eight, I’d shed some of that rigidity. I knew more about who I was, so I felt more comfortable being swayed. But nearly a decade into marriage, and sincerely hoping to remain married to Dan for many decades more, I did not understand how much I should be swayed by my husband. What algorithm should determine how much I tipped over into the warm bath of our union and how much of myself to keep separate, outside?” page 2.

It is a dilemma many of my married friends have discussed. I love my husband, have excruciatingly high standards for him, and as Elizabeth mentions of Dan, her husband, my husband is the center of my life. Where is the line of who we are as a person, as a woman, and where is that blending of our love for our husbands, our shared desires in marriage and life? I often find that when my husband is traveling I back away into myself. I am quieter and more introspective. Sometimes that is because he is so busy when he travels that we talk briefly sometimes only once a day. I think it is also because I have a different area of space around me when he is away. Maybe for some couples this is not an issue, maybe they lead such separate lives that each individual does not wonder which side of the line they have veered too far across, one that keeps them so remotely independent, or to the side of never being apart from their spouse.

How do you handle independence and closeness with your spouse? How do you ensure you are completely connected, yet also focusing on what makes you keep your groove, what makes you YOU? Would love to hear any insights!