Category Archives: Marriage

An Unexpected Gift

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Ever since I had my first son, I’ve deliberated with myself and discussed with my husband when it would be a great time to have another baby.  He thought three years apart was nice.  I wanted my kids to be closer in age. Many times, I recall the years spent with my younger brother. Bathing together. Playing together. We shared a room for many years.  My brother and I are exactly 12 months apart, though.  I knew that was pretty close.  Time came and went.  JR was suckling for the first time in my arms at the hospital and then one day we were at the playground, for his first time, celebrating his first year of life.  
We decided that we would just let it happen; well at least that is what hubby wanted.  I could see where he was coming from.  No one wants to deal with being frustrated because you made the goal of your intimate encounters to be about reproduction and then, no baby. He didn’t want to stress if things didn’t happen right away.  He just wanted to enjoy us and then one day, when God was ready to bless us with another child, he or she would be here.  And then I realized that each family can’t really say what age difference between their kids would have been better or what didn’t work out as well until after it already happened.  We live wholeheartedly for God so I knew I had to just trust Him in this area, like I do with everything else. 
 I can remember this one night….I felt like Hannah, the mother of Samuel in the Bible. She hadn’t had any children yet and she went to the temple one day and prayed to God that He would give her a child. Now granted, Hannah had no children so I can only imagine what that must have felt like, but how I could relate was I wanted to mother more children.  I know some people want to be doctors, or hair stylists or lawyers or I don’t know…just more than a wife and mom, but for me, it’s the reason I know I was born.  Living out my purpose has been the most rewarding thing I could ever have experienced thus far in my life.  I wanted JR to have siblings.  I wanted to teach them to stick together and to be there for each other.  So this one night that I can remember so vividly, it was a few months back, I did what a mother who is a believer in Jesus Christ must always do anyway and I just prayed. And cried. And prayed some more. I prayed that nothing was wrong with my womb. I prayed that all would go well with my pregnancy when it happened and that I could be blessed to go through it naturally.  And after I prayed, I knew I had to leave it alone. 
Even though I had left it alone, each month since I had gotten my period again, at 13 months postpartum, had been a mystery in terms of symptoms and figuring out exactly what day I would get my period.  As time has gone on, it has regulated.  I even downloaded an app that helps me record everything so that I can learn my body again.  Things haven’t been exactly the same, especially since I am still nursing my first baby.  And then, this month came and I realized that day number 31 of my cycle was here and still no period.  I checked back a few months and I could remember it coming on day 32 or 33. So I decided it could be nothing.  Besides, cramping always came on strong right before my cycle started.  Well, after day 33 came and went, I decided maybe I should take a test.  Negative.  This was the absolute last day that I thought that my menstrual cycle would begin.  I decided that maybe it was going to come later than expected. 
 
And then tonight arrived, I realized that day 37 has passed me by.  Hubby isn’t feeling well.  He brings home another test.  After dinner, I decided to see if perhaps I took the first test too early, or maybe there was something wrong with the first one.  And right before my very eyes, there it was, the result: positive.  An unexpected gift.  Our blessing. :)

What Did I Get Myself Into?

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I wrote my post When You Are Discouraged About Your Health about a week before I started writing this one.  Yesterday while I was in our rental office, I found out that we still had a fitness instructor on sight who offered free classes at multiple times.  I thought this could be a great fit for me.  I really missed the idea of working out with people even though I planned on just making due as far as being consistent with working out at home alone is concerned. Hubby said we could work out on his days off, but I knew that fluctuated so I didn’t want to solely rely on that.  

So I let hubby know I wanted to go to the class once he was home from work.  I’m not sure why but when I reminded him today on his way home, suddenly he says, “no, you don’t have to do that.  I will work you out.” I was like huh? Seriously? I’m not sure if I told you all this before, but my husband did personal training for years.  He has gotten his certification in the past but he never renewed it after that so the man knows what he is talking about when it comes to fitness, staying in shape and losing weight.  I guess the issue has been with him needing to work sooo many hours.  He has struggled with finding the time to consistently go to the gym.  He goes at all different times and that is always without me and JR.  We have 2 gyms in our complex that he can use.  So with his schedule being so hectic, I never thought to ask him to work out with me right in our house.  
As my post title states What Did I Get Myself Into? It is what I was thinking during our first session.  We worked on everything and he wants to help me increase my upper body strength because let’s just say its close to zero. He said having better upper body strength is the only way to benefit from a workout.  I have a long way to go, friends. I was quite the dancer once upon a time, but that was mostly core and lower body strength. Figures.  I’ve learned a bit about fitness from him and from doing some research when I used to sell health products on my old health blog, but this is just amazing!  Don’t get me wrong. I’m excited about having my hubby as a personal trainer.  Can you imagine having a hot trainer as a married woman that you can actually hit on with no problem? I’m in complete bliss but at the same time, y’all, the man is working me out! My arms felt like spaghetti after our first session. I’ll definitely keep you all updated on how it goes.  So far, it feels awesome that I get to work out with my husband.  Exercise makes us happy so of course I felt absolutely amazing afterwards! 
Have you ever asked yourself what did I get myself into?
Tell me about your fitness or health epiphanies.  I’d love to hear about them and to find out what you think about our new way to workout together.

When You’re Discouraged About Your Health..

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I woke up this morning, feeling extremely discouraged. I felt disgusted with myself because I felt like I was slacking off in terms of my health. Questions started to arise like was I doing all I could to eat well and stay active like I encourage others to do? Why did I feel like I had fallen off? 

In this post, I’m going to be transparent with my readers because I think it is important that you know the truth.  I think overall I am a very positive person.  I have my moments of weakness just like the next person and I lean on my husband for support and encouragement as he does with me. 
The Obstacles…
- The workouts. So maybe you don’t need to go to a gym to stay in shape, but what happens when you are really motivated by class environments. I was a dancer for lots of years.  I enjoyed it so much. Now I have to encourage myself to do things at home. Alone. We have one car and my husband has to be out with it most of the time for work.  Joining a gym really isn’t financially feasible right now anyway.  I know I would be more consistent with my home workouts if I loved it.  I enjoy the movements and the workouts I do at home, but I know it would be a lot more fun if I was in a class.  That would be so motivating for me to want to stay active besides my daily stroller strides with my son. 
- Eating healthy costs money. I found out we have a farmer’s market very close to us and I looked forward to going when they reopened in the Fall this year.  It turns out they are closed because there is construction in the park where they have it every year. So I should go to the grocery store, right? We have been doing that. Fresh produce can be an arm and a leg even when you buy organic only when necessary and in season there.  The farmer’s market would have been our best bet to get a great deal on veggies. So in the meantime, we have to make due. 
- The toddler. My son started off always eating meat and vegetables since around 9 months up until about 2 months ago (he’s 19 months now). This is rare for most kids his age. I was very proud. Suddenly, he barely wants to touch anything green. I felt discouraged about this. Were we neglecting out goals to keep him eating healthy earlier on so that it would be second nature to him? I felt like we were. Thankfully, I came up with some tips to stay on track with that. He really has made me step my game up with this and I feel like I’ve had to try to reinvent the wheel. 
When you’re discouraged about your health, you should create a realistic action plan, so I talked to hubby about everything I was feeling and we did just that. 
1) Yes, I’m going to create a schedule so I can make sure I stick to my home workouts even more.  I really got off track especially since I was visiting family in New Jersey for 2 weeks at the end of last month.  
2) Even if we can’t buy all organic when we should, we are still going to make sure we’re eating more fresh, green leafy vegetables. You have no idea how much better we both felt when we were eating them every single day and not just a couple times a week. 
Letting hubby know my concerns and how discouraged I felt, I believe, was extremely important. Have you ever tried really getting on track with your health but your spouse was on a different page and would bring junk food into the house? We both come from a life of poor eating habits prior to knowing one another so this would be epic fail for either of us if the other did this.  Being on the same page is crucial in marriage. 
How do you stay motivated to be healthy? Do you feel like you aren’t really motivated to live healthy at all? If not, either way, I’d love to hear your thoughts!

How He Found Me

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Picture me, 24, it’s 2010 and I’m fed up with entertaining guys who lie about their intentions just so they can get my attention.  I’ve been home in the United States for a few months now from Spain and I had just moved into my own apartment that summer.  It’s now the beginning of fall and I’m excited to have started a new chapter in my life.  The chapter where I focus on enjoying my singlehood and my relationship with Jesus Christ.  I figured I had better start enjoying these things now as I knew Mr. Right could be coming any day and I didn’t want to miss being single once he came along, not one bit!  I figured he could be a while though so I decided to forget about the fact that I truly wanted to be a wife and mother one day.  I got lost in my passion for Jesus Christ and in just having fun as a single.  

By the end of September, I can recall sitting in a Bible Study one night and there was a new face there.  Our church was fairly small so it was pretty easy to notice when someone knew was visiting.  It was a guy, with a caramel complexion, small, noticeable grey hair and…was he cute? I honestly didn’t care.  I saw that he was new, waived hello and focused on the lesson.  I never asked anyone who he was, and I didn’t really care to know.  Most people in our church were married so I assumed he was as well.  He didn’t look my age, but he didn’t look old either.  I saw him once, and then another week in Bible Study after that. I still didn’t really care to find out who he was. 

That Sunday as I was greeting everyone in my church as I normally did, one of our Elders asked if I had met his son.  I said no because I had no idea who he was referring to.  He told me who he was and I realized then, who the guy was that was in Bible Study.  He was the son of two elders in my church.  Interesting… I thought. 

The third time that I saw him..a Wednesday night, after Bible Study, he was outside as I was leaving to go to my car.  He approached me as I was leaving and he said “Hey! I’m new to the area.  Is there anything fun that people do around here?  Stuff for singles?”  I hesitated and then I replied, “well, I think our sister church has a Singles Ministry that has events and outings.”  He said “Oh, ok.”  I had to go.  So we told each other to take care and he waived good-bye as I went to my car.  

That night I had a new friend request on my Facebook account.  From the connections, I finally realized that it was him.  His name was Harroll Washington.  I accepted because I knew who he was now.  Over the course of the next few days, I noticed he liked a few of my statuses and then, he messaged me.   We started talking about things to do in the area again and I learned that he was into personal training.  When I found out how old he was, I thought he could be good for my mom.  (My mom had me pretty young…when she was about to be 17 years old…they were the same age, so naturally this made sense, right?) 

It didn’t go as planned to hook them up.  I never ended up introducing them or anything, but I believe it was the next day that we were messaging each other again on Facebook and he was about to go to the gym to work out.  I said I should go one day and that day ended up being that night.  We exchanged numbers so that we could meet up at the gym. When I got there, once we started cardio, I learned that it wasn’t my mom that he had been interested in getting to know, it was me!  I couldn’t believe it!  We worked out and talked, and worked out and talked some more as he showed me different exercises on different equipment.  By the end of the workout, which lasted a few hours maybe with all the talking we had done in between…I realized that not only was this guy attractive, but he was extremely straight forward and genuine.  I liked that about him.  We continued our conversation on the phone after the gym.  We stayed on the phone talking the entire night!  When I woke up the next morning with the phone on my hear, I knew He Found Me….
Thanks for reading our story! Where did you meet the one?  Are you still waiting for that one?  I’d love to hear your comments!  Until next time!

XoXo,