Mourning just "US"

So I obviously have a million emotions coursing through my body right now, and the latest one isn't one I was expecting - almost a mourning or sense of loss. Don't get me wrong, I am SO excited to become a parent and meet Petrie in a few short days/weeks, but this week it just hit me that it will no longer be just me and Tyge - no longer just US.

Some say that before you get married you mourn your single life - I guess that's what bachelor and bachelorette parties are for, right?

Winter 2009

Well I never had that feeling before I married Tyge - I could not WAIT to leave my old single life behind and spend the rest of my life with him. And it's been the best 3.5 years of my life to date!

With him gone this week I've had a lot of time to reflect back at all the wonderful memories we've made since meeting in 2007, and I'm not just being cliche when I say that I fall more in love with him every day. Dating him was so fresh, exciting, and new - he was unlike any other guy I'd ever dated and I knew even back then that there was something special about this one and God had big plans for us.

One of our first photos together, 4th of July 2007

As much as I enjoyed the dating stage, I was thrilled when engagement came in 2008 and was so excited to begin that next chapter of having Tyge as my fiance.

Those 9 months flew by and before I knew it, our wedding day and honeymoon came and went, and we settled into life as newlyweds living together for the first time.

Life was great - we were so in love, so happy to be living together in our rental home, and so giddy about what the future held for us. We had really nothing tying us down, not too many responsibilities, date night whenever we wanted, like I said - life was great!

We took the next step in October of that same year and bought our first house, which brought it's first set of challenges our way - home ownership. :) The house hunting process was stressful at times but Tyge and I leaned on each other and in the end bought our dream home. I remember looking at houses and picturing certain rooms as the kids room, imagining our future family sitting down at dinner together, the possibilities were endless.

A few months into living there and we decided we were ready for a little more responsibility and wanted to try pet parenthood before real parenthood - enter Keely girl!

Our first "family" photo

It may sound silly, but the experience of raising a puppy with Tyge was an awesome one and we learned a lot about each other and how we would raise future children - luckily, we were on the same page for most things! Keely has brought so much joy to our lives and I love watching him with her - he is such a great pet Dad that I know he will be a fantastic "real" Dad as well.

Though our married life together has been amazingly blessed, it hasn't been without it's challenges, the biggest of which came last fall with the miscarriage. Aside from the deaths of two of my grandparents that Tyge has been with me for, it was our greatest loss we've experienced together. He was my rock - I have no idea how I would have made it through that time without him. It truly brought us closer together and made me realize that I was really ready to be a "real" parent with him as my partner.

So I know having a baby will only enrich our lives and make me even more in love with him, and 2 days into that "new" life I won't even be able to imagine life without Petrie, but right now I had to admit I'm feeling a little sad that it won't be just us two anymore. I'm hoping that's somewhat normal? Like I said, it just hit me this week that we really only have a week left (while he's here) of just "us" time before our lives are turned upside down, in a GOOD way, but forever changed nonetheless. With each stage of life we've entered into together it's gotten better and better, and I 100% know with all my heart this next stage of parenthood will be the best one yet. However, I still can't help but feel a little scared and sad that (for the next 20+ years anyway!) it will no longer be just "Tyge & Kate".

I guess all this is to say that for the rest of the days before Petrie gets here I vow to take the time to enjoy my husband, to go on dates with him, spend quality time with him, tell him how much I love him, not worry about to-do lists, not spend time doing menial tasks that can wait, but to just soak up all the time left we have as just US,

before Petrie gets here and our lives are changed for the better when we become a family of three (or four with Keely). :)

First Date

This is totally something only a girl would remember, but 5 years ago yesterday was Tyge and my first date! I'll never forget this week 5 years ago, and it's so awesome to think of how far we've come since then...

So Tyge and I met 5 years ago this past Wednesday night at Barfly - keeping it classy. Coincidentally, on Wednesday I was walking to Crave downtown for lunch and walked right past Barfly so had to stop and take a pic to send to Tyge. :)

Last night I made reservations where we had our first date, Vic's on St. Anthony Main. I still vividly remember our first date from what we wore (black tank top, jeans, heels for me and a black button up with stripes and jeans for him) to what we drank and ate (martinis and Sea Bass) and what we talked about (our jobs, backgrounds, get to know you stuff) . Tonight's date was quite the contrast (I wore maternity jeans, drank lemonade, and we talked about Petrie and parenting) but just as enjoyable, if not more so. Though the "first date butterflies" weren't there, that spark still was and it was fun to relive our first date.

And here we are, 5 years later, married with a child on the way. God is so graceful, so good, and I am forever grateful and blessed that He matched Tyge and I up that night 5 years ago.

Quality Time

When Tyge and I were going through marriage prep in 2008, we read The Five Love Languages - a must read for all engaged or married (or dating!) couples. The basic synopsis is that each person gives and receives love in different ways, so in order to best love your significant other you have to know what their love language is and speak it to them. It explains how it is so important to speak and understand your mate's love language to effectively love them and truly feel loved in return. The book has a test (free example here) you take to determine what yours is - both in how you give and how you receive love. 

Five Love Languages:
1. Physical Touch
2. Acts of Service
3. Quality Time
4. Words of Affirmation
5. Receiving Gifts

When I took the test three years ago, the way I received love was Quality Time - I felt most loved by Tyge when he would spend quality time with me. To me, nothing says, “I love you,” like full, undivided attention. And it doesn't have to be a big expensive date night each time - it can be as simple as siting together in our screen porch drinking coffee and talking (but NOT talking about schedules or to-do lists, which fall into doing a lot). The fact that Tyge is truly present with me—with the TV off, fork and knife down, and all chores and tasks on standby—makes me feel truly special and loved. We have such a busy schedule and so little margin in our lives that carving out this QT is so necessary for me and how I best feel loved by him. I unknowingly get cranky when we don't have enough QT or it's been awhile, and it takes it's toll on our relationship.

Recently (comes with being a homeowner perhaps) I've thought my primary love language was shifting to Acts of Service because I feel so loved and really appreciate it when Tyge does things around the house, gasses my car, cooks dinner for me so I can exercise, lets the dog out so I can sleep in, etc. However, with him being gone for hunting (and the new Call of Duty coming out haha) we haven't had much QT lately and I've found myself getting short, edgy, and stressed. I attributed it to being busy or something, but it wasn't until yesterday that I realized I was just craving QT with the hubs!

He has the whole week off so came downtown to have sushi with me yesterday and it was such a treat! There were a million other things he could have been doing but he chose to come have lunch with me and we had a great uninterrupted hour together. It's amazing how 60 short minutes of quality time with him completely refreshed my "love bucket" and I went back to work so giddy! I noticed I was more patient with him last night and all around happier. I guess my love language is still Quality Time after all, and I am SO thankful for a husband who knows that about me and loves me in that way!

Lessons learned from a door

So last weekend we tackled THE DOOR project, and I learned so much more than just how to paint a door....

We we had NO idea what we were getting ourselves into! Our front door is a nice quality solid cherry wood with decorative glass in the middle, but the outside is all weather warped and looked pretty bad. We thought of sanding and restaining it, but after out neighbors painted their door a cheery bright red, we decided color was the way to go! We toyed with the idea of red, yellow, orange, green and blue and got samples for each color family, easily weeding out most colors. We eventually landed on the "teal" color family and I hit up Menards, Home Depot, Hirschfields, and Sherwin-Williams to get every sample of that color they had. I spent many hours cutting and taping the little paint squares into bigger square and taped those to the door, where they sat for a week while I deliberated on the colors. I posted a picture on Facebook asking for opinions as I just couldn't make up my mind! This past Saturday was the day we had free to start painting, so I had to make a choice and picked color #1 - Joyful Tears (foreshadowing, perhaps?!).

This is the only "before" photo I have of the door - as you can kind of see, worn looking wood and mismatched handle and lock - in lovely 80's brass!

We took a two day approach with Tyge sanding, wood putty-ing deep scratches, and priming the door on Saturday before our evening plans, then finishing up with the 3-4 coats of paint on Sunday after church.

My task was to ORB (oil rub bronze spray paint) the brass door handle and deadbolt, the storm door handles, the adjacent garage door handle and deadbolt, and the doorbell. I had the easy job, right? Wrong. As detailed oriented as I am, you'd think I would make a fantastic spray painter but I do not. I don't have the patience for several thin, even coats so sprayed it at close range and covered the things. They were globby and drippy, and dried even worse. Seriously, it was bad (in my eyes at the time anyway). So not only were the knobs we took off horribly done, but the once we left on were even worse! Left ON, you say? Yes, because they were too hard to take off, we left the storm door handles and garage door knobs on the doors and I just taped around them. BIG mistake. The spray paint leaked through the tape and surrounding paper, so I was left with spots of paint to clean up with mineral spirits and a Q-tip, which didn't quite do the trick.

Nice.

Tyge did SUCH a good job on the door itself that I was embarrassed to ruin it with my horrible handles. He didn't care in the least and never once made a crack about the job I did or made me feel bad. However, I felt so stupid and let that self pity affect my mood and way I acted that day. I let it get to me that the job I did wasn't "perfect" and let my anger and frustration seep out into the way I treated even Tyge. I was short, flustered, snippy, and all around not-so-nice. The worst part is, I didn't fully even realize I was being this was until Monday night, when Tyge and I were reading from the book Love and Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs for one of our couples Bible Studies.

I was reading aloud for the two us us from Chapter 2, aptly title "To Communicate, Decipher the Code", and there were some great points in there. The whole premise of the book is how husbands are biblically commanded to LOVE their wives, and wives are biblically commanded to RESPECT their husbands, as Paul says in Ephesians 5:33, "However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband."

My jaw dropped, my voice got a bit shaky, and I had a gigantic AHA! moment when I came to page 36. Emerson explains that God tells the husband he must love (agape) his wife unconditionally and she must respect him, regardless of if he is loving to her. However through his study of the verse over the years, he came to realize that the Lord never commands the wife to agape love her husband - this is because the Lord created a woman to love. He created her to nurture, be sensitive, loving, and compassionate, all as part of her nature. Basically, God designed the woman to love, so has no need to command her to agape love her husband.

Next Emerson skips to Titus 2:4 which tells the older women to "urge the younger women to love their husbands and children", but not in an agape way. In Titus he uses the Greek word phileo, which means a human, brotherly kind of love. His point is, a young wife is created to agape love her husband and children - she is created to never stop unconditionally loving them. (Here's where my AHA! moment came) However, Emerson decodes this verse and explains that "in the daily wear and tear of life, a wife is in danger of becoming discouraged - so much so that she may lack phileo. A kind of impatient unfriendliness can come over her (who, me?!). She may scold and sigh way too much (was he AT my house last weekend?!). After all, there is always something or someone who needs correcting or fixing (HE IS TALKING RIGHT TO ME). She cares deeply (I do). Her motives are filled with agape but her methods may lack phileo."

Wow - talk about God speaking directly to me. On any other day, those verses and that teaching may just have been a nice lesson, but last weekend it hit my like a ton of bricks.

So the door turned out amazing, I learned a Godly lesson, Tyge still loves me, and all is well.

Keely thinks so too.

Moral of the Story = Home Depot can solve any problem (I bought all new ORB fixtures with the blessing of my ever patient husband, and some gift cards I won at work).

REAL Moral of the Story = When I am struggling or mad at myself, I need to be honest and admit that to my husband, asking for (and be open to receiving!) a little extra love. I can't sulk in silence and let it affect the way I treat him, but rather I need to practice the phileo love that takes work, in addition to the agape love that God created in me to come naturally.

I have the most patient and loving husband in the world.