Just logged on here today and realized it has been a full 2 months without a single blog post. Wow! I had no idea I had been that deficient in posting but I can't say there is not a legitimate excuse or at least a good reason :)
The past 2 months have flown by! Around here school kids only get an 8 week summer break because of many schools switching to a balanced calendar. And even though I don't have school aged children (and won't really have to worry about a school calendar because of our intent to homeschool) all of our friends and activities are affected by the scheduling so there is a slight trickle down effect.
Today, I was blessed with some quiet time while my girls took a much needed morning nap. For almost a year now they have both been doing only 1 nap a day and it is usually in the afternoon. But today was full of drama, hair pulling, toy stealing, and just general girl hormones that a morning nap was the only way I could see to get past the every 5 minute meltdowns of epic proportions. Just one more thing I get to learn about because I have 2 girls. I have never really been into drama, no teenage rebellion or fabricated scenarios to fight about with my friends. I had 3 close friends growing up. 1 was my older sister, we had our "drama" but it was short lived and forgotten and the older we get the more we avoid any drama like the plague! The other two were friends for as long as I can remember and we just didn't need drama to have fun with our relationship. I really liked that, a lot!
So here's to hoping my girls aren't drama queens and that I have enough patience to guide them successfully away from situations that lead to drama (like intentionally stealing a toy from your sister and you are surprised she pulled your hair to try to get it back, really??) Thankfully they are healthy, loving, adorable sisters and are best friends who can also drive each other nuts!
Anyway, the quiet gave me some time to check email, pay bills and actually read a few news stories. Ok, maybe not technically news stories but entertaining articles that I never get to read. One that I happened upon was 3 mistakes in marriage that lead to divorce. Titles like this always interest me. I am always optimistic that I will click on the article and mistake 1 will be not taking your vows seriously. It is never that, and I am always shocked. I guess I am a slow learner.
According to this article, mistake 1 is altruism or selflessness. I don't know about you but selflessness makes my marriage work! Jesus taught us to be selfless and He is the image I try to follow. This idea that selflessness would lead to the ruin of your marriage intrigued me enough to keep reading. The article's justification is that selflessness leads to resentment which can topple your marriage. I laughed out loud, literally, and just shook my head.
What kind of moron equates selflessness with resentment? If you feel resentment then your action wasn't really selfless. You had an ulterior motive and it didn't get fulfilled aka selfishness. Selflessness is doing something for someone else regardless of your own desires because you recognize that thing as good for the other person. This doesn't mean rolling over and playing dead or never having an opinion. Selfishness is doing something for yourself. Always giving in to your spouses request for a dinner option because you hope eventually he will ask you what you want is not selfless, it is selfish and a little passive aggressive if you ask me.
Speaking of making a marriage work with selflessness, I truly do love my husband. He is a great man. He has struggled for the last 3 years with a lot of medical stuff but he has really tried to be a trooper through it all and keep his attitude positive. Anyone who has suffered with a chronic illness or who has been associated with someone who has knows it is a daily struggle and a daily choice to be optimistic and positive. He has put up with me and my whining through 3 pregnancies during his sick time and he really has kept us going as a family. So now I guess it is my turn to be the selfless one :)
We recently visited a doctor that gave us a plan of action to get him healthy again! I am hoping to write a blog about that in the future. It has only been 2 weeks so I guess I would like to see some tangible results before I praise the doctor too much! Anyway, Leron was put on a pretty strict diet. It's hard on him, harder on me. I am the menu maker, grocery shopper and cook in this house. So I had to learn about his new diet more than he did. I had to make sure I bought and prepared the right things to get him healthy and he just had to eat it.
So far so good, and again once I see some results, more than just 2 weeks of a husband with energy and hope again (such a relief), I will include recipes and details about all of it.
For now, prayers that we can continue down this path to recovery for him, lots of yummy meal inspirations for me, less drama from the girls and a smooth delivery whenever this little human wants to join us on the outside.
God Bless,
Hannah
The Farmer's Wife
