Sue’s Weblog

The camping trip was great.  Being healthier is fantastic, and having my kid in school puts each week-day at the top of the list for best days in my life time.

It was touch and go for a while.  We didn’t know if he’d be accepted into any first grade, due to some health issues that made toileting kind of iffy for a while.  All that’s over now, and our work days are peaceful again.

I’m reading a great book called: 1001 ways to be Romantic by Gregory J.P. Godek.  I highly recommend it, for anyone who’s been thru high school, and is interested in creating a meaningful lasting relationship.

It doesn’t tell you how to get a guy/girl the way that Getting to I Do does.  Instead it tells you how to keep and enhance/enrich the love you’ve found.  It’s easy reading- great for the bathroom, because the tips are short and sweet.  On average, there are about 10 different tips on a page, and the most that is written in explanation is usually a few sentences.

Getting to I Do I would recommend for anyone from High School on up who is interested in learning how to find/create/hang on to the right kind of relationship.  This is the kind of thing that isn’t taught in school, and really should be.  Our kids are going out looking for sexual/marriage partners using all the wrong parameters by which to measure suitability for a long term relationship.  They simply don’t know what to look for and what role each partner needs to play (and how) in a relationship to make it last.  Getting to I Do spells it out.

Now that I’ve got the time, I’m better able to do the things that matter to our relationship, and when I didn’t have the time, I still found little ways to do little things that made a difference. 

Sometimes I can make my husband laugh.  Sometimes I can make him more comfortable.  Sometimes the best I can do at the end of a long hard day, is snuggle up to him in bed for a few mins. before we both pass out from fatigue.  Even that is a major investment in keeping the good thing I’ve got.

A good relationship is like anything else.  It needs constant maintenance, or like your car, it will stop running.  We women are never satisfied with a thing that isn’t constantly evolving/useful.  When our car breaks down, we immediately see all the things that we won’t be able to do until it’s fixed, and that’s how we measure what it’s costing us, by not working.  If  any relationship isn’t evolving, most people become bored with it, and it de-evolves.  In other words, we drift apart.

One thing that I love to do when I’ve got the time, is find a few days in each month to turn into a long week-end free of parenting duties for myself and my husband, so that we can pretend that we’re grown-ups again.  I was lucky enough to be able to promote a house-cleaner.  She has kids of her own, so I asked her if she wanted to become a house-keeper/nanny, and come on week-ends, instead of during the week.

She and another friend/client of mine both live in the same city, as it happens, and they will each have my son for a day and a night.  A will have him from Sat. afternoon, to Sun. and give him to B. on Sun. who will keep him over-pm and take him to school for me the next am. 

I told my hubby about these dates, and admonished him that he’d best plan something really great for us for those days.  He likes to do the real planning.  Now all I need is a puppy sitter. ……..maybe.  We can be just as happy staying home and playing Scrabble then going out dancing after dinner, and coming back a bit early to watch a DVD together, with some snacks. 

Another thing that I’ve learned, that I’ve probably mentioned before, is that if it isn’t in the calendar, it won’t happen. 

Lovely long romantic week-ends don’t just happen, and you can’t just wait for your partner to plan them, or your boss, so get busy, now, and plan ahead.  Even better, plan something for the two of you, then go on to plan something fun, for the whole family at the end of each week.  We all need things to look forward to.  Life has to be interesting, or we end up sitting around marking time.

I’ve been there.  It’s depressing. 

I used to take jobs through Kelly Temporary Service, and other such agencies, and I did some kid care and tried hostessing at the near-by coffee shop as well.  I lived on my own at the time, and had a beautiful little one person apartment to come home to, but the only thing there to keep me company was a tiny tv (no dish/cable) and a very old and slow computer with internet access. 

I can only Thank my lucky stars that I discovered the book Getting to I Do and was sensible enough to follow the advice within the pages.  It got me the life that I’d always dreamed of, but it’s better than I could ever have imagined, because I used it to find my perfect man who is exactly what I need.

He’s a real Renaissance Man, with the drive and desire to really be a real man, and family man.  That’s hard to find, these days.  The book- Getting to I Do- spelled out for me something I’d never really learned, which was exactly what a real man of Male Energy was supposed to be and do.  He was supposed to want to work for a living and want to support a family by his work, and want to cherish his family. 

The book also told me what I was supposed to want, as a female energy woman, or as a male energy woman.  The book said:  If you’re a woman with a female energy about you, then you want to be cherished, and to nurture a family, a bit more than you want to be the bread winner, and respected for your skill as a bread winner.

We all want a little of both, but there is a scale, and female energy males are happy to be cherished by their hard working wives, and to raise the little-one, and rather more Male energy women are happiest doing that, and then coming home and making the difficult decisions for the family, and cherishing them at the same time.

In talking about Male and Female energy, the author made a point of mentioning that a Male Energy Woman is not necessarly a Lesbian and a Female Energy Male is not necessarily Gay.

The author carfully outlined the roles that each type of person would enjoy playing and mentioned that when we step outside those roles, we have to be careful to not confuse our partner.  It’s okay to color outside the lines, as long as you and your partner are aware that that’s what’s going on, and whether or not it’s temporary, or if you’re actually wanting to renegotiate role parameters.

Well, the book explains it all much better than I just did, and really my main intention was to remind us all again of the importance of fun.  Time for fun, should really be calendared.  Otherwise, it’s going to go by the wayside, because there are many things that always seem to be more important than having fun, or pampering ourselves, or taking care of our health.  We always seem to have time for the stuff that isn’t half as much fun, like going to work, or taking our cars to the shop for scheduled maintenance, but somehow or other, we just never write on the calendar things like: Read a good book; Watch a good show; work on favorite hobby/craft.  Take kids and or dog out for a nice hike/bike ride;  Take hubby/wife out on a date; Go exploring a new town; Go on a picnic; Take a nice hot shower/bath; etc.

Now that you’ve read this, go put something good on your calendar, like a date with your partner, or a good friend, and then plan something a little further down the road, too.  While you’re at it, plan a day to get to the library and get those books that I mentioned.  What were those again?  Guess you’ll have to re-read this blog to remember.  Well that’ll remind you of the important things in life once again.  They’re not free, you know.  They take an investment of some thought or energy at the very least.