Media Monday- Media and my Marriage

I remember years ago when my husband and I first got together. We barely had a cell phone between the two of us and no internet. The only media that got in our way was the TV in our living room and bedroom. And even then the TV in the living room wasn't hurting our marriage, at least I didn't think so. We did realize, though, that having media in our bedroom was not a good thing and we removed our TV. We got asked all the time how we could live without a TV in our room and to this day I tell people to just ask my husband how things have been since removing the TV from our bedroom. ;-)

Fast forward 8 years and 3 kids and a more stable financial life and you'll see much more media in our life. Between the internet, Netflix, 2 cell phones and 2 game systems (which I still feel is a type of media) we are on technology overload some days. What I do pride myself in is the fact that we don't have a smartphone, iPad, iPhone or even a laptop.

If you ask my husband he'll probably tell you that there are some days that he thinks I'm on the computer way too much and I'm sure it puts a strain on our marriage those days. So to help combat that I'm very proactive when he's home. I ask him if he minds if I go on the computer for a little bit to check my email. Then once I hear, "how much email do you have left?", I know I've been on too long and it's time to make my time about my husband not the computer screen.

I have to say though, the media hasn't been all bad to our relationship. It has helped in a lot of ways. It's helped me be a better wife by finding sites such as Women Living Well and Time-warp Wife. It's also helped me be a better mom by finding other blogs I enjoy reading and getting tips and encouragement from. Some of the best blogs I've found are on how to save money. The way I combat trying to read all the blogs is I have them sent to my email and when I have lots of great articles I want to read I save them in my email for days that my husband is at work and I have some free time in between taking care of 3 children. Another way technology has helped our marriage is it allows me to talk to my husband during times that I probably wouldn't be able to talk to him otherwise. My husband works in EMS so there is no "office" phone for me to call if I need him for something or if the kids would like to talk to him. So without our cell phones there would be days on end that we wouldn't talk him. The computer also allows me to talk to him through Facebook when he's able to get on the computer at work. Since my husband can work sometimes 48 hours in a row, the technology has been an invaluable asset to our marriage of allowing us to stay in contact even if its a quick I love you through text.

I will admit though some days its a real pain to hear the "ding" of our phones going off. Especially, my husbands phone because he gets contacted by his work through his phone. We do try really hard to make family time, family time and not even look at our phones. And if we do look at our phones its a quick look and it gets put away, but its hard some days. The one place I'm trying to get our cell phones away from is the dinner table. I don't want our kids to think our cell phones or what's on it is more important than talking to them. So there is a downfall to the technology and I think we try to work on it all the time but sometimes there are those days I would love to take my husband's cell phone and throw it out the window. But only having some days like that is better than every day. :-) Those reasons is largely in part why we do not have smartphones, iPads, or iPhones.

So all in all, I think we have our technology under control and right now its not hurting our marriage. It is a constant effort every single day for me to remember that I am human and I have human interactions that I need to worry about not keyboard interactions through a screen. Some days are easier than others, especially if its a hot day for great deals! :-) Do you think media helps or hurts your marriage?

Media Monday-Yes I know its Wednesday!

Okay so the Media Monday post didn't happen until today and yes I know its Wednesday, but in my defense we were taking family days and had a little mini vacation learning about things around our area. It was quite fun and nice being unplugged for a few days.

So onto what was suppose to be posted on Monday. :-)

"Could our generation be missing out on time with the Great I AM because of the distractions from the iPads, iPods and iPhones?"

It's not so much my generation that I'm overly worried about. I think if we have already began our walk with God then its just a matter of learning the balancing act. The generation I'm worried about is the generation that is coming after me. The generation that may not have started their walk yet or is struggling with their walk. The generation after me has literally grown up with technology right at their fingertips. I can remember when there was no internet and to look something up you had to go to the library. I remember when there was no GPS and you had to know how to read a map in order to get to where you were going. I remember when going to church was where you learned about Jesus instead of catching it on TV or YouTube.

I think my generation finds it slightly easier to unplug then generations to come. Is the distraction there still? Yes. Do I find it easier then some people? Probably, and that's only because we choose NOT to have an iPad or an iPhone. Actually, we don't even own a smartphone- just a regular cell phone that can only make a phone call or text. The only internet we have is connected to our desktop computer- we don't even have a laptop.

My BIGGEST distraction when it comes to life is social media. I know, I know shame on me. BUT, its my connection to the world. Most days I'm at home by myself with 3 children and to be able to hop onto Facebook and see what other adults are up to or maybe even chat with some is my break. To read my email, is my brief escape from reality. And sometimes social media is an encouragement that what I'm doing is the right thing to do. I get my news from social media. I get my local happenings from social media. I get the greatest money saving deals from social media. For me, some days it's really hard to pull myself away because I'm afraid I'll miss the next best deal that could save my family even more money. I get frustrated when I notice that I'm 2 hours late for a freebie. I'm not sure that any of this has had any bad effects on my walk with God as I'm still able to pick up my Bible and I'm still able to pray when I feel the need to. Am I on the internet too much? If you ask my husband that question he'd probably say yes. Has it affected my relationship with God? I tend to think it hasn't since when I walk away from the internet, I'm able to walk away. I don't have an iPhone, iPad or laptop that can pull me back in. And frankly, I'd like to keep it that way.

For more on this topic or to see what other people think you can go to Women Living Well ministries where you'll find me and tons of other people trying to discover if social media and technology is affecting us in ways we never thought it would.

NEW Media Mondays!

I've recently come across a very interesting question, "How is social media and this digital world of Ipads, Iphones and Ipods affecting our relationship with God, our marriages, our parenting, our homemaking, our friendships and our health?"

Come back in coming weeks starting next Monday to find out my thoughts as well as a link to other people's thoughts on this! Should be a very interesting couple of weeks! Please leave a comment below if you want in on the conversation! You can also find the button on my sidebar to take you to Women Living Well Ministries. :-)

This was started by one of my favorite blogs Women Living Well Ministries.

Some new things...

Again, its been a while since I've posted anything but in the last few months let's just say blogging was truly the last thing on my mind.  The last weeks of my pregnancy were a very painful one to say the least and of course along with that was end of the school year business.

Since then, we have added the newest and most precious gift from God to our family.  Her name is Raelynn and we couldn't be more excited and more happy about finally having a baby girl.  I look forward to all those mother/daughter things we will be able to do when she's older.  I say look forward to but hopefully she stays little for a while.  Let me just say how elated I am about having a baby in the house again and how now our family feels complete.  I think she is the final piece to the little puzzle we call our family.

And with the new baby comes new challenges of how to get my older two to continue helping in the house without me having to tell them all the time of things that need to be done.  And that's where my creativity has come back into play!  I'm quite excited about being back on my feet and to not have that infamous "pregnancy brain" all the time.  This is what I came up with...

I'm hoping this helps in the day to day chores the boys need to get done.  Here's what I did...

I decided I wanted to do something to help the boys get their chores done without me having to hound them all the time.  That's when I grabbed my camera.  Since kids, mostly boys, are visual beings I decided to take pictures of their chores (i.e.laundry, toys, recycling, etc) and then I laminated them so they would hold up well to the wear and tear of every day life.  Then I went to Walmart with the boys in tow and let them pick out their favorite color from a collection of colorful foam boards.  They both agreed on red.  (And for my favorite part of the project...)  Then I turned on my Cricut machine and went to town making all the letters you see in the picture.  I love my Cricut machine and this was just one more reason why!  I made stickers out of the letters and stuck them to the board along with velcro squares I found at Big Lots.  Voila!  A daily chores board!

A little tidbit on the side, I also color coordinated the chores.  Yellow borders means "this is your reminder" like getting dressed in the morning and brushing your teeth.  Green borders means "this is your privilege to live here chore" like making their bed, cleaning up their toys, and putting their laundry away.  Red borders means a paid chore.  These are things like vacuuming, dusting, and watering mommy's plants.  Things that are generally my responsibility.  I made these paid chores so that when they see that red border its a surprise and they know they will get something out of it.  I made the green bordered ones so that they understand that there are certain things they need to do just because they are a part of this family.  My husband and I figure we don't get "paid" for everything it is that we do and we don't want our kids to think that they should either.  We also don't want them to think that mommy will do absolutely everything for them and therefore raising a couple of very lazy boys.  We do make the chores age appropriate and the velcro helps because there are certain chores that don't need done every day like the laundry.  So I am able to pick their chores for the day every day, which also allows me to pick any paid chores for the day.  It also helps the visual aspect because they get to remove the picture when they have finished that chore allowing them to see their own progress.

All in all this board has helped out tremendously with the boys and doing their chores and has cut down on me yelling at them to get them done over and over and over again.  The cost break down of this project was very cheap- $3.00 for the laminate pouches, $4.00 for the velcro squares (2 packs), and $2.88 for the foam board.  We'll see how long the board lasts as far as the boys following it but so far they love it!


And don't forget to hit up one of my favorite blogs Women Living Well!  She is a great inspiration for us all!

A reapproach

As the year moves on and the days pass and I'm feeling better of course the daily routine starts to come back.  It's been a long 24 weeks and although I'm so excited about our little girl that is imminently on her way, I can't help but think about how hard its been.  And mainly, how hard its been on the budget.

I strongly feel like we have not been the best stewards of the gifts we have been given.  My husband has tried his best to make things work and although we aren't behind on our bills we are behind on our goals.  Our budget has continued to fail us, or rather we have failed the budget.  I make the budget and consistently every month I find myself changing the numbers to fit our spending.  Totally wrong way of doing it.  We are making our budget fit us instead of us fitting our budget.  Now, we always pay our bills on time and are not behind on anything but all the extras keep sneaking up on us.  Oops, I spent a little over our blow money- well, no big deal I'll just increase it and then it won't be in the red.  Crap, I spent too much on junk food- oh well, I'll just increase the amount so we stay out of the red.  We are again allowing our money to tell us what to do instead of us telling our money what to do.

So with the return of our tax return we put over half of it into savings, including some savings for Christmas.  Now this in and of itself is a huge accomplishment.  We have never put so much into savings!  Wow, what a feeling of relief and security.  To know that if something goes wrong or there is an emergency we could handle it.  We also decided to pay ahead on our car insurance and pay off 2 credit cards.  Again, wow, what an accomplishment.  These things would typically just sit there and eat away at our budget every single month.  And then the splurging reared its ugly head.  Now granted some of the things we bought we were needing for the house to make it run more smoothly but really when it comes down to it, it was splurging.  These things could have waited because really they are just things. (I think I may have just contradicted myself, lol)

I finally sat down with my husband and said this needs to stop.  We need to get real.  We continue to kid ourselves every single month.  We need to understand and feel blessed for what we have.  And lately, sadly, we haven't.  Greed has allowed us to blow some of that money on essentially nothing.  While the deep conversation had persisted with my husband, although most times one sided, we decided that enough was enough.  We HAD to stop.  So starting today, that's it.  We are done splurging our money and taking much better care of it.  It will not last forever and the Lord could potentially strip EVERYTHING away from us at ANY time.  But my question is, why did it take until now?  Why did it take a large sum of money to smack us in the face to realize what we were doing wrong?  Is it a blessing in disguise?  Is it a lesson that needed to be learned but took until now for us comprehend?

So just like human beings do, we evolve, and now so has our thinking towards money.  We have even decided to forgo a vacation this year in an effort to save money.  (Having a newborn helps with that too!)  I have decided that since I am feeling better that doing more things from scratch including some very common things like butter and couponing need to be a priority again.  My husband has stepped forward again as our penny pitcher so that to tell me no in times that I "so desperately need" something.  We have decided that numbers are what they are and there should be absolutely no increasing them.  We now have savings in order to help with emergency situations or things that come up that we weren't expecting.  That's what having savings is all about.  We are taking a re-approach to something that has always been.  Mint.com has been a huge help but it has also been a huge damper.  They just make it so darn easy to change the numbers!  So I'm working on this and the impulse to just change the numbers.  One thing my husband and I haven't approached again is the cash envelope system, but I'm sure it's coming.

Dave Ramsey always says, "Live like no one else, so later you can LIVE like no one else."  It is our time to live.

It's been so long and now it's a new year!

Wow, it's been so long since I've written anything!  I'm surprised people are still interested!  LOL  My last entry to date was in September of last year and man has a lot happened since then.

In October we found out we were expecting our third child.  How exciting right?  To most it would except I became so sick with morning sickness some days I wondered if I would survive!  My poor house fell apart and my poor husband had so much put on him to keep the household at least running.  I finally made it to the doctor and was able to get some medication that would help with it but the morning sickness never actually went away until around Christmas.  Thank goodness!  We did have a wonderful holiday with wonderful family surrounding us.  It was a lot of fun.

Which brings us to the new year.  Is it really 2011?  We had some wonderful news at the beginning of the year, we will be having a little girl come June!  Now that's exciting and a great way to start the new year off!

So speaking of the new year (even though I know its February!), its that infamous time of year when people start to think about themselves and their lives and think about how to change them for the new year.  I'm definitely one of those people.  I think about my life- financially, spiritually, health, stability, everything.  Now I'm not a resolution person.  I don't think resolutions do anything for the psyche especially if don't happen to keep them.  In fact, most people don't keep them and then have a feeling of failure.  I don't like the feeling of failure.  So here goes with my list of things I want to change or continue getting better at this year without actually making a resolution.  These are more like ongoing goals.

Let's start with health since that's the most popular resolution.  I want to get my family back to eating healthier.  Unfortunately, while I was ill for all those weeks my family slipped from the healthy bandwagon and fell onto the processed foods bandwagon.  I want to get my children eating healthier again.  More fruits and definitely more vegeatables with less brown and beige on the plate.  I love color and best place for it is on my plate!  I also want to continue taking care of my body while I'm carrying this precious child.  It has not been an easy road but when has something easy been worth it in the end?  My goal for after the baby is to definitely drop all the baby weight.  To get myself to a healthy weight again and maybe even better.  I'm hoping the new workout games for the kinect will help with that and then I won't need to go to the gym.

Now the next most popular resolution- finances.  Who doesn't want to get their finances in order?  I think everyone who is concious about their spending wants to get it under control and maybe even get out of debt.  Like most Americans we have debt.  Although we don't have nearly as much debt as others we do have some and eats away at us every month.  We want to get away from using a credit card and using more cash and that includes our debit card.  Its just so darn easy to swipe that plastic and even my kids think its just that easy.  They once told me when they wanted something that we could just swipe our card at the "EMT" (ATM) and it would give us money.  They didn't even begin to understand that we have to put money in to get money out.  All money is to them is plastic.  So on top of getting ourselves financially fit, with help from Dave Ramsey, we hope to get our children financially smart.  I want to make sure they don't grow up just thinking that money is some plastic.  This is definitely not going to a feat well accomplished in a month or two.

My spiritual being needs to be looked at as well.  I've always tried to be a spiritual person but I know I could do better.  I need to finish reading the Bible which I started months and months ago.  And although this is no excuse when I became ill with morning sickness it along with many other things got put to the side.  So one of my goals is to finish it.  I can only begin to understand my being when I have begun to understand the best Book in the world.

My home also needs a little mini makeover.  The winter blahs can really affect someone's pysche.  Now its not typically too hard to makeover something in one's home, the trick?  Doing it on the frugal side which means cheap, free, or reusable.  I have some thoughts on how to do this but we will see.  I will post some pictures when I get it done. 

And of course, there's always the question of stability.  Everyone wants stability.  Some of the goals I have for my family this year could bring stability but I think its more mental stability for myself that my house is able to get back on its feet after my weeks of illness.  My biggest goal this year is to get my family back on track, get the routines back on track and most of all clear all the clutter!  Hopefully this year will bring more blog posts too!  :-)  So here's a Happy New Year and since its February, Happy Valentine's Day!!

Happy Birthday to me!

So as I write this my actual birth day is ending.  It was a typical day in my household today except with a few extra cards and few extra phone calls.  I don't typically think about my birthday too much but this year I've had some time to reflect in the now past year of my life.

I have officially been on this earth for 28 years.  How amazing, 28 years.  Two and three quarter decades.  336 months.  10, 220 days.  245, 280 hours.  Makes you feel ancient when you think of it all that way!  But age truly is just a number.  Some days I feel a lot older and some days I feel younger.

In retrospect, this has probably been one of the best years I've had in a very long time.  I've had some very exciting things happen this year and had some opportunity to watch my children hit some milestones.  We hit some bumps on the road of life and have also had some very smooth sailing.  Maybe even learned a thing or two.  So I've decided to think of some things I've learned in the past 365 days of my life.

1.  I've learned that every time you think your children won't surprise you, they do.

2.  I've learned to be more grateful for the things that I don't have which in turn has allowed me to be content with the things I do have.

3.  I've learned that not everyone will agree with the decisions we make for our family including other family members and that's okay.

4.  I've learned that just because I think I can't be embarrassed by my children they do something else that does.

5.  I've learned that I'm more old fashioned in my ways of thinking than I previously thought.

6.  I've learned that just because something terrible happens doesn't mean it has to ruin the whole vacation.

7.  I've learned that more square footage does require the same amount of cleaning, it just takes more time.

8.  I've learned that I'm more OCD than I previously thought and my husband still loves me for it.

9.  I've finally learned how to budget money correctly to still have money left at the end of the month.

10.  And the last thing I've learned this year is that the love for my family has grown stronger and I couldn't be happier in the decision we made for me to stay home.  It's an amazing feeling when you finally feel you are where you were always meant to be and doing what you were created to do.

So there's my top 10.  I know I've learned many more things in the past year of my life and although some of these things are simple life lessons they are lessons that I've either learned for the first time or finally was able to apply correctly to my life and to the lives of those around me.  I've become a better cook, a better home manager, a better wife and finally a better mom.  So bring it on age 28, I'm ready to tackle you!

Spoil Your Husband

So this week's challenge from Courtney at Women Living Well is to spoil our husbands.  Although I try to do this all the time its not always by food.  Here's my problem this week.  My husband works very long hours because he works in EMS; which, usually entails 16 hour shifts.  For example, my husband works today until 10 PM and then goes back to work at midnight until 8 AM.  So to make him something or his favorite meal can prove difficult.  Now in a normal week he would be home 2-3 days out of it, here's the problem with this week- we are going on vacation on Thursday and Wednesday we have a birthday party to go to that is serving dinner.  See my problem??

So here is my plan: I will make his favorite kind of cookies (if I have the oatmeal) and then make him something for breakfast in the morning.  Then I will just try to be extra nice and complimentary of my husband for the rest of the week.  Spoiling fortunately, doesn't always have to entail food!

This is actually, probably the shortest entry I've ever had on my blog!  Guess short and sweet isn't always a bad thing!  ;-)

Blog Hop- Saturday!

Ok so again, I'm a little late with this Blog Hop, but better late then never.  Thank you for coming here and reading what I have to say and appreciate my words.  Here you will find my journey (although not daily) on being a mom and some of the tribulations I go through trying to keep true to myself and being the best wife and mother I can be.  You may find some interesting insight in the Lord from me and how the Word has spoken to me.  Be inspired and remember your road on the journey called Life is never alone!  If you leave a link to your blog I will be happy to follow you in return!  Thanks for stopping by!!

(The picture above is from the ladies blogs who are hosting the blog hop. Be sure to follow them as well!!)

Completing Him Challenge: Communicating with him

So I've been boiling over this for a while now and not that I don't know how to approach my husband about this, I'm just not sure how to put into words what I mean to convey.  In essence, you never really know what someone will say so its slightly intimidating to get their opinion.  I mean in some instances you are almost asking for a report card!  Everyone should remember what that's like!  You get the card in your hand and you're so antsy to see your grades but yet intimidated by what you may find.

This was my grading time.  Would I pass the way I thought I would?  Were my views of what's important the same as my husbands like I've always thought they were?  Or did I fail miserably taking into consideration only what I felt was important.

Well let's just say I didn't exactly fail, but it wasn't flying colors either.

Most of us forget in the daily grind about our spouse.  Some of us even forget to say, "Good morning, honny.  How was your night?"  There is one song that comes to mind when I think about this simple morning phrase and that's Good Morning, Beautiful by Steve Holly.  The simple melody is so catchy yet such a good reminder that he appreciates his wife and remembers to say good morning to her.  (slightly off subject but it is a great song!)

Don't us wives also forget the simple communication with our husbands at times?  Isn't that how we lose what's important to them in the first place?  Proverbs 10:8 says, the wise in heart accept commands, but a chattering fool comes to ruin.  Don't we wives ruin ourselves to our own chatter.  I know sometimes I do.  There are times when my husband attempts to talk to me and I'm just chattering away with no care as to what he has to say or what he is thinking.  That's how we lose what their priorities are.  We as wives forget that we sometimes can become that fool and begin to think we know what's important to everyone else and our ruin is the communication that we lose in our marriage.  This was the challenge Courtney at Women Living Well has given us for this week.  In the busyness of our day, we need to remember who is important and open that communication back up again.  With that communication opened up again, our time management falls into place.  You have to have the communication open to find out what's important to your husband, then and only then can you really work on your time management.  Courtney was trying to get us to remember our time management of being a busy mom but when I read this, communication is what jumped out at me and sent me to my Bible.  Was the Lord trying to tell me specifically something?  Maybe, and that's what I'm trying to convey here.

Continuing on with the challenge that Courtney set forth, I did talk to my husband.  He was quite surprised honestly, that I was asking him for his priority list for a day.  He didn't quite understand at first and gave me a list of things he appreciates that I do.  I quickly had to try and refocus him to think about himself.  To think about if there was something I was putting first that he would have rather seen me place somewhere else on my priority list.  I was surprised by some of his answers!

1.  Above everything else he wants me to place saving money at the top of the list.  Sometimes I'm really good about this and sometimes I'm not.  I'm working on being a better steward of the gifts He has provided.

2.  Sex.  Isn't this on every mans priority list?  I mean, really.  But seriously, don't we forget how important this is to our husbands?  I know sometimes I do.

3.  A clean house.  I was quite happy to hear that this even made it to his priority list considering its at the top of mine.  At least I know how important it is for my husband to have a clean home compared to other things.

4.  Clean laundry.  I'll admit there are times when I let the laundry pile up.  But in my defense I swear it multiplies when I'm not looking!  ;-)

5.  Spending time with him and the kids.  Again higher on the priority list than I anticipated.  Not that I ever put my family last but there are some times I let other things get in the way of spending good quality time with my husband and children.  You would think this would be top priority for me considering my husband works all kinds of weird hours, but sadly sometimes it isn't.

6. Cuddle time.  By this I know my hubby is referring to my computer time.  Again, in my defense I do a lot of survey sites to try and bring in a few extra dollars. ;-)  Although, in the back of my mind I know I could do better at this.

So as you can see, I didn't fail miserably but I didn't pass with flying colors either.  I'm going to try harder this week to keep my chatter at a minimum and remember to TALK to my husband about his priorities for the day and mesh mine with his in a nice compromise.  Maybe next time report cards are due, mine will have better grades!