Less committed

I was thinking about our marriage the other day and I said to Greg, "We sure have come a long way, haven't we?"  I don't want to brag or anything, but sheesh, Greg and I have put a lot of work in our marriage.  I don't know that we are the two easiest people to get along with.  We both fight hard.  We are both opinionated.  We are both passionate.  Our first year of marriage was bumpy.  Nothing serious, just bump, bump, bump.  We were figuring each other out and learning the impossible truth that we might not be perfect. When we argued, we stayed mad at each other all night, and sometimes even into the next day. We refused to bend on the smallest issues.  We were never flexible with each other's plans or schedules.  Neither of us wanted to be the first one to say sorry.  Sorry meant weakness.

It took a lot of months and a few arguments to figure out how to disagree, how to treat each other when we're grumpy, how to compromise.  Each month of marriage gets easier and happier.  The longer we're married, the more secure I feel in the marriage.  I would never want to go back to those first months of marriage- no matter how exciting and new everything was.  We have worked too hard to go back.

"Remember how brutal our fights were?"  I asked Greg, "We wouldn't talk to each other for several hours?  Sometimes into the next day?"

"Yes..." he said slowly.  "We were much more committed to our fights back then."

Committed.  What a funny word to use, I thought.  I always think of commitments as positive- committed to your work, your family, your responsibilities.

I couldn't help but think of other commitments I have that are dragging me down.  Hurting me.  Heavens knows that my marriage got a lot easier when I started to be less committed to our fights.
I sat down and wrote out a list of some commitments I am going to drop, if you don't mind.  After all, I can only be so committed...

I WANT TO BE:

Less committed to complaining.
Less committed to Instagram.
Less committed to my pride.
Less committed to getting my feelings hurt.
Less committed to Bachelorette.
Less committed to nagging for little things.
Less committed to driving fast.
Less committed to leaving five minutes late for everything.
Less committed to trying to control everything.
Less committed to making sure everyone knows how hard I work.
Less committed to trying to make other people's decisions for them.
Less committed to worrying about the future.

What are you going to be less committed to?  Come on, let's all throw away our commitments together!

Movie Theater Popcorn

So here's the thing with Saturdays.  I kinda like always really want to write on Saturdays.  Isn't that weird?  During the school year I won't touch my blog with a ten foot pole on Saturdays.  But during the summer I am drawn to it.  Like nothing is better for my blog than a Saturday morning and my pjs and a quiet time just to write.

Blogging has become quite complicated to me.  I'm still trying to figure out how to balance it all, and perhaps that will be a lifetime struggle.  Somehow I feel my blog week gets totally booked.  Monday I have to announce a link up, Tuesday is a guest post, Wednesday I have to show this outfit, Thursday is Throwback Thursday and Friday is the group giveaway.  When is there time left to just write?

Which is why I'm kind of in love with Saturdays on my blog.  I don't schedule anything on Saturday because it wouldn't be fair to the sponsor because traffic is down.  So Saturdays are always open.  During the school year this meant I didn't post anything on Saturday.  It was my free day.  But now I see it as my day to just write and write and write.

The pictures below were taken on Greg's 25th birthday.  The only thing Greg wanted to do on his birthday was see Pacific Rim in 3-D and isn't that such a boy thing to want to do on his birthday?  The truth is that he knew I would never go see that movie with him normally.  It would demand a special occasion the likes of a birthday.  So he took advantage of the situation, declared the only thing he wanted for his big day was to see Pacific Rim with his sweetheart.  And that is how I ended up watching a movie about fighting robots wearing 3-D glasses that give me a killer headache and eating popcorn that is way too buttery for my likes and way too expensive for me to ignore.  Ah, he's a lucky boy isn't he?

Movie theater popcorn represents a lot of the differences in our marriage.  I grew up with eight kids in my family- there was no such thing as popcorn at the theater- in fact, it was a rare day when we even went to the movies.  Can you imagine- to take ten people to the movies?  That's 100 bones just in movie tickets.  Because I was raised without movie theater popcorn, I never want it now.  I see it as a total waste of money.  Greg sees it as necessary to complete the movie experience because growing up he always had popcorn at the movies. (Only two kids in his family- they ate popcorn to their little heart's content!) A movie wasn't a movie without the popcorn!  So now every time Greg and I go to the movie we always have to decide "Do we get popcorn or not?"  Greg begs for it, I beg not and isn't it a weird world where whether or not you buy popcorn is a legitimate issue in your marriage?

Sidenote:  Strangely enough I am kind of interested in how you all were raised.  Do you get popcorn at the movies?  Or do you even go to the movies?  And what does your significant other think of the whole conundrum?

Here's another weird issue in our marriage we have to face. What kind of milk do we buy? Skim or 1% or 2%? (Whole milk is definitely not even an option. Shudder.)  And when do we throw the milk out?  See, Greg is a bit paranoid about food going bad.  He generally thinks milk is no good when it gets to two or three days before the expiration date.  Heck, in my family we'd drink it after the expiration date as long as it still smelled halfway decent.

Here's another:  how long are leftovers good for?  I'll eat leftovers for a week.  Greg only likes to eat them the day after, or maybe if we're lucky two days.  Therefore, I'm always trying to get him to eat leftovers and lying about when the food was made because I know he won't eat it if it was made five days ago.  Honesty is for the birds when it comes to leftovers.

These are the things no one tells you about before you get married.