Seeking Ideas for New Year’s Eve

Newlyweds seeking advice for first new year’s eve as married couple. That’s what the ad would read, but since we’re bloggers, that’s what will show up on my Twitter and hopefully we’ll get some good ideas.

This time last year, we were ‘tweeners – between Terry’s romantic proposal on December 15, 2007 beside the Christmas Tree at Lincoln Center in NY following the opera War and Peace and my acceptance, which didn’t come until January 1, 2008. While we were together last year on New Year’s Eve, we didn’t really do anything special that we can carry over as a New Year’s Eve tradition.

So here we are a year later and happily married, but stumped for good ideas for New Year’s Eve. We know that we don’t want to go out, but I hope we get to dance in the garden room to our favorite playlists. We don’t want to eat extravagantly, but we do like experimenting with interesting foods. We love movies, but it seems like it would have to be something special.

It’s almost too much pressure to come up with just the right agenda!

So we’re asking for your advice. What are some of your favorite romantic traditions for New Year’s Eve? What is our favorite New Year’s Eve tradition? @bradrourke, @dswedlow, @johncr8on, and others with children, how would you make the it special if you DIDN’T have the kids for the evening?

Deliberation is Good for the Marriage

As a newlywed and a practitioner of dialogue and deliberation, it won’t surprise my colleagues that my new husband and I have spent every night of our marriage (48 nights as of this writing) engaged in a nightly reflective practice about our day as a couple. Without word, we turn off the television after channel surfing between the monologues of David Letterman and Jay Leno (later if they have compelling guests or our favorite features –small town news, headlines, or the now infamous, but waning in punch, Letterman’s Top Ten) and convene on the back patio with a small cup of home-roasted almonds and a glass of wine.

We knew each other in high school. I was the editor of our high school yearbook; he was the photographer I obviously trusted or liked because we spent hours together in the dark room despite my deep (and first) love with someone else. But we lost contact with each other for thirty-three years until I recently contacted with him using my web search skills and Google’s insatiable application of metadata.

We spend our evenings musing over questions about what was memorable, what we learned, what inspired us, what we hope to accomplish, why we love each other…no topic is off limits as we sit in the dark on the back patio. We are a married couple dating for the first time.

Through this reflective practice, we define who we are as a couple. We define our dreams, our hopes our aspirations. We make plans. We weigh the costs and consequences of our decisions. Should he turn down work to rebuild our leaky garden roof and build a deck for the dormant hot tub we got bartering for his labor? Should he take a full-time job with benefits? What if the money is not commensurate for his contract work, but provides stability and health care benefits for both of us? Will he be happy working for someone else in a dead-end job with limited advancement?

These are exactly the kind of questions that would have frustrated me as an MBA prior to my exposure to deliberative democracy, but I have become (gasp) one who now appreciates process and reflection. Little did I know that learning to be a reflective, deliberative citizen would be good training ground for being a wife.

Late Night Conversation (and getting to really know each other)

Taylor and I frequently watch TV shows simultaneously. She from the house in Texas, me in Michigan. While we are by no means together physically, we are connected in many more and equally as important ways. We will call each other during the commercials and between shows. We will then talk for long periods after the show is over.

This is the time we discuss important events, little know facts about ourselves, or just the days events.

It was during one such discussion that I learned Taylor enjoys trains and has since about age 4. She has a fascination with them. This is another point we share. I, as a child, lived next door to the local ticker-tape / teletype operator for the rail system through our city. I was privileged to enjoy a few free rides on the local passenger train at the ripe old age of 8. Donny, the neighbor’s son, was about the same age. While he and I never had much of anything else in common, we did both enjoy the trains.

Last night, Taylor and I had a great discussion on the topic of cosmic relationships. I explained that I have felt we are all destined to find the one true love of our life. Whether we do so at an early age or later in life is not relevant. That we find that one love and nourish it, is the important factor.

I also told her, and believe truly, that God is in control and has a plan for each of us. However, it is our mission in life to realize what that plan is and act on it. I feel as though I have finally found that love and not going to let it pass me by.

Those who know us, also know I am in the process of packing. Yes, I am making the move to Texas where my true love awaits me.

I am quite sure we will watch shows together. I am relatively sure we will talk in between the shows. I am positive we will discuss all things from trains to cosmic relationships. May we never stop talking or being curious.

May each of you find your true love. ( Unless you already have, in which case I encourage you to keep working on reinforcing that love every day.) While we delve into the cosmic and the religious and every other aspect, may we be guided by the true love we share and project that to all we have contact with.

My wish for you is to be as happy and in love as I am.

Rearranging our virtual furniture

In real life, women are always rearranging the furniture. At least that’s what I’ve heard.

My friend Emma moved sofas, standing lamps, end tables, and entertainment cabinets so often that Jess could go to work in the morning and have no clue what direction he’d be facing as he sat in his favorite armchair to watch the evening news. I can picture Jess coming home bone-tired from a full day of work after one of Emma’s energy-filled home rearrangement fits and sitting down on the cat tree to watch the dining room table. (What did you do with the t.v., Emma!)

My dad is always complaining because my mom frequently determines a better way to arrange the kitchen cabinets. According to my father, this strategy is designed to ensure that he can never find anything on his own.

Once when we were preparing to move for another, better-paying job, my father laid credit (blame) for the move on my mother. He completely shocked me when he stated that my mother, the nesting, creatively domesticated, mostly-stay-at-home mom “got restless”.

It’s time to move on,” he said. “Your mom’s getting restless.

So now, she doesn’t get restless to leave town.

But somewhere in her she’s hard-wired to rearrange the cupboards. Maybe it’s hard-wired into every woman.

Whatever.

It drives my dad nuts when he can’t find … well, nuts, for example. (Dad, they’re under the cabinet that you build on the kitchen table side.)

Or small bowls (up top to the left as you face the sink), or plastic containers (got me there, I don’t have a clue!).

He loves my mom, but this constant changing of the pot and pan storage space doesn’t sit well with him. Personally, I think that’s just an excuse for him to stay out of the kitchen. but that’s a blog for another day.

While Terry and I will surely deal with issues of furniture and kitchen arrangement, it’s also likely that we’ll have issues with the technologies that we use.

OK, everyone who knows me and is surprised that technology plays an important role in our relationship, please stand…I can’t see you…are you standing? Of course not. Silly question

So here’s the real test…when we originally launched our blog, this was the design that I suggested and we used:

But this design has lots of problems. I don’t like the way (or lack thereof) that it shows additional pages. I want a page the is dedicated to telling the story of how we met and re-met. (It’s pretty cool. I’ll get it up there soon!)

I’m tired of the dark background. I like clean and minimalist. Black feels formal. White can go either way which is why I chose this fun header.

I love the multiple meanings behind the two thumbs pointing at each other while our backs are still touching tightly. You can’t see our faces, but you can imagine (and you’d be right) that we are laughing and having a good time. We are also sitting on the floor barefoot so there is a sense of vulnerability, but so confident in our love for each other that we relish being vulnerable to each other. If you could see our smiles, you would understand the playfulness we enjoy with each other, but you could also see the lines and crinkles that indicate we aren’t just naive kids. (if you could see our middle range, you’d definitely know we aren’t kids. At least we aren’t kids who get out and play sports!)

So I made this change to our blog on my own because…

• It’s easy to change back and
• I have more experience with blogs.

But maybe I should have run it by him first. After all,

• We have the same cell phone plan so we talk for free.
• We skype. That’s free and easy.
• We iChat.
• We Twitter.
• We Text.

But we are also living our lives out loud on this blog. And one of the things couples do is to sort out when they do and do not need permission from each other to make changes. Emma never asked Jess where to put the end tables. Mom never asked dad where to put the tarragon.

So where does that place me in this brave new world?

• Can I rearrange this blog and give it a new look?
• Does Terry have that same right?
• If one of us doesn’t like what the other does, how do we discuss that?

We have many things to consider, but none of them scare me.

That’s why I put up the screen shots earlier.

By the time you read this, the header on this blog may change a thousand times just as the two of us will change. But we’ll love each other through every change. Some changes we’ll laugh about upon reflection.

Like these two for example:

I think that we are “much improved”

In the meantime, I’ve captured the screen shots of what the header looked like when I first made the change. That way, if Terry changes it to something else that I and others reading this blog think is goofy, I can always refer to an earlier iteration of my own choosing and say, “see honey, I told you so.”

It’s never too early to start preparing for that eventuality!

BTW, I love you, honey!

Taylor

Relationship Advice from MacWorld?

I was reading the article, “Your Leopard Survival Guide” and the opening paragraph seemed like an appropriate post here, especially given Terry’s most recent post on A Different Way of Thinking:

Sometimes it takes a while to really get to know someone. What at first seems to be a charming quirk can, after prolonged exposure, become an irritating tic. And what at first seems puzzling can start to make sense. If the relationship is to thrive, you have to make the most of the good stuff and work around the bad.

I’m sure my quirks will sometimes be irritating, but hopefully I’ll be more charming than irritating and that my puzzling aspects won’t be too much of a nuisance to Terry. I often say that “a little of me goes a long way.” That’s just my way of acknowledging that I can be rather boisterous, and (a term my brother often uses) “over the top”. I suppose Terry can always retreat to the garden room if I become a bit too much!

In the meantime, back to learning about the best shortcuts, hidden features, and power tips in Mac OSX 10.5!