A Surprising Location for Inspiration

So often, I tend to expect inspiration to come from pretty likely places; a good friend, a good book, or a family member. Every once in a while it takes me by surprise. This happened today when I found some extremely moving and beautiful commentary in one of the most unlikely of places.

Today, at 3:30 pm, I found myself waiting in the gorgeous reception area of my daughter's orthodontist. She had just gone in to get her initial impressions done, and I was sitting all alone beginning to brace myself for a long and boring wait. Immediately, I though about bemoaning the fact that I'd left my cell phone at home (what if my husband wanted to call, what if a friend sends a text???...) Luckily I caught myself before the third "what if?" and told my mind to let it go, or as at least one of you readers will understand, I commanded myself to "chillax!"

Maybe this was a good thing to be cell phone free (and planner free, I might add). Maybe there is something I can learn by just sitting here quietly with nothing to do. Well I did that for about a minute. My zen sitting turned into me scanning every detail of the room, the ceiling, the art work, the TV monitors, the chairs, the wall plaques, the play area, the receptionists... OK my mind was not still, so in desperation I thought I would read the brochures that the DR. created to inform patients about the practice, and maybe this would keep me from nervously picking the cuticles of my thumb. Here is where my shock came:

My Saturday Problem (and the book that helped)

As is the case with most couples, my spouse and I have a couple of things that seem to always creep up that we argue about, or just can't see eye-to-eye on. Of these issues, there are fewer that we actually fight over.  For us, one of these broken-record fights is SATURDAY. This, supposedly fun day of the week has been a source of contention in our marriage since day one, and we are coming on our 10 year anniversary, so you can figure that we've had a lot of SATURDAYS to enjoy this circus together.

Here's the deal: the Saturday problem started out as a source of strain for us in one way, and has evolved and devolved over the years. At first, when I was a new mom with babies, I wanted Saturday to be a planned day of fun, since I had been dazed all week looking after infants. My husband wanted it to be a day of relaxation with no plans, as he wanted, "to take the day as it came" since he was so tired of the schedule he to keep at work during the week. Well, we've worked through that (if not imperfectly) but it still seems that something always occurs on Saturdays to ruin  it, or leave me and my spouse feeling unsatisfied.

Well, 10 years is a lot of different types of Saturday problems, so I won't get into the distant past, but, I will tell you that last week SATURDAY really blew up for us (not yesterday... I'll get to yesterday's Saturday in a minute).

Relationship Health Thermometer

Have you ever wondered if there was a quick way to find out how healthy your relationship is with your spouse? Well, I think I've got it, with the following simple exercise:

My First "Book" Commentary

O.K. Here's a short and sweet booklet to get you started on the path to personal and relationship success: If You Think You Can...You Can! by Barbara Milo Ohrbach.

I purchased this booklet for my husband (then boyfriend) for Valentine's Day approximately 10 years ago. Try not to laugh, but I thought  that HE needed this book, when, of course, I needed it.

I thought, "how sweet and tender a gesture" to offer to the one I loved best a collection of inspiring, motivational quotes that would help him to be the best he could possibly be in his life and career. (Boy, have I learned a lot about "helping" my husband since then)

Purpose of this Blog

Here are my hopes for this blog: I hope you will find here interesting resources, insights, and tid-bits of encouragement for you and also for your spouse. Much of what I have to share I have discovered through either reading books or having gone through something the hard way. I hope these books and my musings upon them will help you and your loved ones grow in love and joy.

I will keep you abreast of the books that I am currently reading and help to distill through commentary the most salient or common sense parts (Because, often I'll think, "UH crap, I do that, and the author says it's a No-No with a man...ooops!")

I'm sharing this with you because I hope that you share my wish to continue to strengthen ourselves as women and strengthen our relationship with our spouse, and our children.