By D-Day I , of course, mean Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day is always an awkward time at my house. It didn't used to be. Growing up, my Daddy would always give me a big box of heart shaped candies, balloons, and flowers or a stuffed animal. He would have them delivered to school or he would bring them home from work. He did the same for Mama. For my part, I would always make little cards and notes and give them to my parents and it would be a really great day.
But Amos... what to say about Amos? He did do something for me for Valentine's Day once. The first year we were married I was sitting on the couch with his head in my lap. It was a few days before Valentine's Day. He looked up at me and told me he had got me something for Valentine's Day but he was going to give it to me early. So he gave it to me. I could give you twenty years to guess what it was and you'd still never get it. It was.... a pink blackhead remover. Yep. I kid you not. He got me a blackhead remover so that I could remove his blackheads.
I enjoy Valentine's Day. Or I used to. For a long time I got him little treats. Sometimes I would leave his favorite candies in his car. Or I'd get him some boxers or pj's or clothes or pizza gift cards. I would give him love notes. Finally it just got too awkward. I enjoy giving him things. I like to spoil him a little. But every time I gave him something he would say thank you and then lecture me on the lameness of Valentine's Day. Amos subscribes to the theory that Valentine's Day was created by Hallmark to rob people of their money. I subscribe to this theory: Who cares? It's a fun excuse to celebrate. To get dressed up and have a date or a night of romance. I've been over ruled. Continuously. Finally last year I gave up. I did nothing for him. No love notes or hidden treats. We went to get take out (Amos doesn't like sitting in restaurants on Valentine's Day because he says it's too crowded). That was it.
Last night Amos and I were talking and I asked him what he wanted to do for Valentine's this year. His response: "Nothing." So I said "Where do you want to go eat?" His response: " We eat every night." And that was that. I give up. Maybe I am lame for liking Valentine's Day, but I don't care. I'm starved for it. I don't like looking around and seeing all the tenderness and sweetness but not being allowed to participate. I'm okay with being lame.
So, since I won't be celebrating (again) I thought I'd share some fun ideas with you for Valentine's Day.
Creative:
Romance By You - If any of you are Twilight fans, you have the chance to make a new story and your boy toy can be your leading man.
Love Coupons - There's no need to buy this. I would encourage you to make your own. I actually made one of these for Amos one year (last year). I spent hours on it, but in the course of normal conversation he gave me the "Valentine's Day is lame" talk again and I just threw it away. But it was fun to make.
Fortune Cookies - There are other great ideas on this page as well.
A Treasure Hunt - Make little love notes with candies or an inexpensive or handmade gift and hide them throughout the house. You're "treasure" can be whatever you want. Maybe the "treasure" is a candle lit bedroom and some new lingerie. Maybe it's a gift card to his favorite restaurant. Or sports tickets. It could be anything.
Nice:
A play - Get gussied up and go out to a nice restaurant and a play at your local theater.
Indoor date night - I personally love the hustle and bustle of a crowd. On Valentine's Day I actually enjoy looking at all the couples and watching them get all gooey eyed. But I know that for some, they'd prefer the quiet solitude of enjoying their significant other alone. So...grab some movies that you BOTH want to see, throw some blankets on the floor with some pillows and popcorn and have a movie night. You can prelude the movie with a special dinner that you both prepare.
Chocolate and Flowers - Men, do not under estimate the power of the flower. Take it from a woman who has never received flowers from her husband. Grab a $10 bouquet. Buy a $5 vase, $1 bag of decorative rocks, and a $1 spool of fancy ribbon. Put a handful of rocks in the bottom of the vase and tie your ribbon around the vase. Then trim your flowers and place them in your vase. Throw in a heart felt love note and you're gold. You just spent $17 bucks and made your wife feel very special and loved. Remember, the romance comes from the EFFORT not the cost.
Naughty:
His and Hers Lingerie - You knew that one would make the list somewhere.... so there it is.
Game Night - I'm not talking Monopoly here people. Strip poker. Or this . Or this.
Bubble Bath - Crawl into a hot bathtub full of bubbles and oils and enjoy each other. Take turns cleaning each other. To add to the romance, put on soft music and light the room with candles.
There are a million ideas on the Internet. I encourage you to make your man or woman feel special that day. Everyone deserves to feel special. Enjoy.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Care to Have Sex With a Widow?
Did you know that "widow porn" was...like... a thing? You would not believe how many hits I get from people who do Google searches looking for "porn with widow" or "porn sex with widow" or "porn and widow". That means that people mistakenly end up on my blog while they're out searching for a way to get their rocks off. I wonder what they're thinking? I wonder if I have any readers who enjoy porn? I wonder if I have any readers who are addicted to it? Who are hiding it from their significant others? Who are ashamed of it? Who are proud of it?
I wonder...
Do you look at porn?
Here's an honest question to the masses... What is going through your mind when you make that decision to look at porn? Do you look at it with your spouse/significant other? Do you hide it form them? Have you been caught? I want to know what goes on in the mind of those who do it. Or even those who have EVER done it.
Feel free to answer anonymously and please please please be respectful to your fellow commenter.
I wonder...
Do you look at porn?
Here's an honest question to the masses... What is going through your mind when you make that decision to look at porn? Do you look at it with your spouse/significant other? Do you hide it form them? Have you been caught? I want to know what goes on in the mind of those who do it. Or even those who have EVER done it.
Feel free to answer anonymously and please please please be respectful to your fellow commenter.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
I'm Baa-aack
My goal was to try and get back into the swing of things this past weekend but honestly I was just having too much fun. Amos was home and my need for adult human contact was reaching an all time high, I jumped on it. We didn't do anything wild and crazy (still healing from surgery, remember?) but it was so good to just be with him. We were swimming in baby puke and toddler diarrhea but I was happy. After the kiddos went to bed on Sunday, Amos and I popped in Super Mario Brothers 3. Yes that's right. On old school Nintendo. There was alot of teasing and laughing and smiles. It was good stuff.
Until about 4 AM.
About 4 AM is when I started to get the bug. My sweet babies decided to share their virus with both myself and Amos. Those little monsters are lucky they're so cute.
Should we talk about the thing you are really wondering about? Shall we talk about sex? About porn? About masturbation? About romance?
Let's do that. There has been no sex. Abdominal surgery has seen to that. I worry about masturbation. He says there's been none. I ask him and he assures me he's clean. Honestly, I don't believe him. I want to. I try to. I don't. Trust hasn't been reestablished. Maybe he hasn't. I hope he hasn't. Mostly, I hope he isn't lieing.
The program I use monitor our computer is called x3watch . It's the program that caught the porn sites in August. Amos is aware of the program. Last week I found the x3watch program pulled up. I asked Amos about it. He said he didn't do it. I found it open and I KNOW I didn't do it. There's no one else in the house. That means Amos did it. I closed the program and moved on.
I would like to interject here that when you're in a situation like mine, when you are trying desperately to reestablish trust, your mind does some interesting things. You start to wonder... did I pull the program up and forget about it? Did I click on it accidentally and didn't realize it? Does it have some weird automatic setting that causes it to pop up automatically? My brain wants to rationalize it. If this isn't proof that I want to trust him I don't know what it. I'm basically begging to be able to call myself an idiot in order clear his name. Weird huh?
Back to the story. Amos has listed himself as an accountability partner on the x3watch program. This means that he, along with myself, will receive the accountability reports via email. I am 100% okay with that. There is absolutely nothing wrong with him receiving a copy of the same email I have. But now I have the x3watch program screen pulled up for no apparent reason? And apparently no one did it? What's a girl to conclude other than he's tampering with it? I think he sees it as a challenge. He's an IT guy after all. Computers are his forte. Years ago, I put Net Nanny on our computer. It took him about two days to learn how to disable and get around it without my knowledge or notification. Recently (a month or two ago) during a conversation Amos and I were having about our current accountability program, he confessed this to me. In this confession, he told me not to rely on x3watch. He told me he could get around it if he wanted to. It was a rare moment of raw unprompted honesty. And I wonder now, is this what is happening?
All in all, we've had no arguments. Only this cloud of doubt hanging around tainting things. We received "The Love Dare" book for Christmas and we will be participating in that when things calm down. Our next counseling appointment is the 17th. Monday. Honestly, I'm not excited about it. I'm not sure what I expected, but this wasn't it. I feel like we're spending 90 bucks for the ability to feed her 50 minutes worth of back story. There has been no "Let's try doing this when you get home..." Nothing that we can work on at home all. Obviously some changes need to be made but nothing has been pointed out as an area we can work on. I'm not sure how long I'll be keeping that up without some forward momentum.
I must say this though.... Amos has picked up a tremendous amount of slack since my surgery. I've been useless and he's working hard to keep me comfortable. I couldn't ask for anything more from him, and I'd be willing to bet that there aren't alot of men out there who would do so much for their ladies. For that, I'm humbled and thankful.
Let's talk about weight. I weigh 217 lbs. Big girl eh? It's not so bad when you take into consideration that in September I weighed 286 lbs (right after I had my son) and in November (when I really decided to push to lose the weight) I weighed 250. This means that in less than four months I've lost 69 lbs. It's hard to feel bad about that. But I still do. I get excited when I look in the mirror. I see that my face is smaller. Then I'll run an tell Amos all about my smaller face. When I look at my hands, they're smaller too. And my belly, and legs, and arms... But... when I look at myself all put together... I still look the same to me. I still see every stretch mark, every roll, every dimple. I can see the loss when I only look at one individual piece, but the whole picture still depresses me. I'm not stopping. I still have a long way to go, and I'll do it. I'll do it.
Until about 4 AM.
About 4 AM is when I started to get the bug. My sweet babies decided to share their virus with both myself and Amos. Those little monsters are lucky they're so cute.
Should we talk about the thing you are really wondering about? Shall we talk about sex? About porn? About masturbation? About romance?
Let's do that. There has been no sex. Abdominal surgery has seen to that. I worry about masturbation. He says there's been none. I ask him and he assures me he's clean. Honestly, I don't believe him. I want to. I try to. I don't. Trust hasn't been reestablished. Maybe he hasn't. I hope he hasn't. Mostly, I hope he isn't lieing.
The program I use monitor our computer is called x3watch . It's the program that caught the porn sites in August. Amos is aware of the program. Last week I found the x3watch program pulled up. I asked Amos about it. He said he didn't do it. I found it open and I KNOW I didn't do it. There's no one else in the house. That means Amos did it. I closed the program and moved on.
I would like to interject here that when you're in a situation like mine, when you are trying desperately to reestablish trust, your mind does some interesting things. You start to wonder... did I pull the program up and forget about it? Did I click on it accidentally and didn't realize it? Does it have some weird automatic setting that causes it to pop up automatically? My brain wants to rationalize it. If this isn't proof that I want to trust him I don't know what it. I'm basically begging to be able to call myself an idiot in order clear his name. Weird huh?
Back to the story. Amos has listed himself as an accountability partner on the x3watch program. This means that he, along with myself, will receive the accountability reports via email. I am 100% okay with that. There is absolutely nothing wrong with him receiving a copy of the same email I have. But now I have the x3watch program screen pulled up for no apparent reason? And apparently no one did it? What's a girl to conclude other than he's tampering with it? I think he sees it as a challenge. He's an IT guy after all. Computers are his forte. Years ago, I put Net Nanny on our computer. It took him about two days to learn how to disable and get around it without my knowledge or notification. Recently (a month or two ago) during a conversation Amos and I were having about our current accountability program, he confessed this to me. In this confession, he told me not to rely on x3watch. He told me he could get around it if he wanted to. It was a rare moment of raw unprompted honesty. And I wonder now, is this what is happening?
All in all, we've had no arguments. Only this cloud of doubt hanging around tainting things. We received "The Love Dare" book for Christmas and we will be participating in that when things calm down. Our next counseling appointment is the 17th. Monday. Honestly, I'm not excited about it. I'm not sure what I expected, but this wasn't it. I feel like we're spending 90 bucks for the ability to feed her 50 minutes worth of back story. There has been no "Let's try doing this when you get home..." Nothing that we can work on at home all. Obviously some changes need to be made but nothing has been pointed out as an area we can work on. I'm not sure how long I'll be keeping that up without some forward momentum.
I must say this though.... Amos has picked up a tremendous amount of slack since my surgery. I've been useless and he's working hard to keep me comfortable. I couldn't ask for anything more from him, and I'd be willing to bet that there aren't alot of men out there who would do so much for their ladies. For that, I'm humbled and thankful.
Let's talk about weight. I weigh 217 lbs. Big girl eh? It's not so bad when you take into consideration that in September I weighed 286 lbs (right after I had my son) and in November (when I really decided to push to lose the weight) I weighed 250. This means that in less than four months I've lost 69 lbs. It's hard to feel bad about that. But I still do. I get excited when I look in the mirror. I see that my face is smaller. Then I'll run an tell Amos all about my smaller face. When I look at my hands, they're smaller too. And my belly, and legs, and arms... But... when I look at myself all put together... I still look the same to me. I still see every stretch mark, every roll, every dimple. I can see the loss when I only look at one individual piece, but the whole picture still depresses me. I'm not stopping. I still have a long way to go, and I'll do it. I'll do it.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
I'm alive...
Barely. Nah. That's not right. I'm just whining. I'm on pain killers that work for an hour and a half and knock me out for three hours at a time so the past few days have been a blur. Thanks for the well wishes and prayers. I've been blessed in that regard. I have a very supporting social network, both in person and in the big wide world of the Net. Thank you.
The procedure its self wasn't bad. I did not puke in case you're wondering. I was wheeled back into an operating room that had to be something like 20 degrees. My surgeon, anesthesiologist, and a gaggle of nurses all stood ready. I was moved from the cold and hard pre-op table to the colder and harder operation table. The nurse placed a mask over my face (I was told it was oxygen) and I heard someone say "You should start feeling tired soon." Next thing I know I'm in the recovery room and fully lucid. There was no woozy period of waking up. At least not for me. When I opened my eyes I knew exactly where I was and what had happened. What I didn't realize is that there was a large plastic tube down my throat and I began trying to talk around it. The nurse in recovery pulled it from my mouth and I told her to go get Amos. Eventually she did and after the required period of waiting, I went home. It hurts. I won't lie. I greatly underestimated the pain. I thought it would be the incision site only that hurt. But that is wrong. So wrong. It hurts from the area under my breasts down to my hips and around through my back. I consider myself pretty tough when it comes to pain management and I must admit... this is getting old. There's a fun new crackling noise that I make while I breathe now. I only notice it when I'm laying down and there's no pain associated with it but I'll be glad when that's gone nonetheless.
In my rare lucid periods I keep myself entertained with my roku and my nookcolor. I'm currently plowing my way through Jane Eyre. A book that wouldn't be considered light reading (in my opinion) even on my best days. I've got the general gist though. Amos is a gem among men. I haven't had to lift a finger. He will be running the kids to his parents house on the days he has to work and in the evenings he's right there when I need him. When I say I want food, he's on top of it. When I want something just out of reach, he comes running from across the house. He's working double time. I think he might be a smudge envious of the "time off" I get to take.
My medicine is starting to take effect. I could write more, but I've already caught myself writing out our "real" names instead of using our pseudo identities. If I value our anonymity, I should stop.
I haven't been able to keep up with your blogs. I'm anxious to get back to them. I am especially anxious because I know that one of my readers is expecting a new addition soon and I'm itching to find out more. I'll be peeking in as I can.
Until next time.
The procedure its self wasn't bad. I did not puke in case you're wondering. I was wheeled back into an operating room that had to be something like 20 degrees. My surgeon, anesthesiologist, and a gaggle of nurses all stood ready. I was moved from the cold and hard pre-op table to the colder and harder operation table. The nurse placed a mask over my face (I was told it was oxygen) and I heard someone say "You should start feeling tired soon." Next thing I know I'm in the recovery room and fully lucid. There was no woozy period of waking up. At least not for me. When I opened my eyes I knew exactly where I was and what had happened. What I didn't realize is that there was a large plastic tube down my throat and I began trying to talk around it. The nurse in recovery pulled it from my mouth and I told her to go get Amos. Eventually she did and after the required period of waiting, I went home. It hurts. I won't lie. I greatly underestimated the pain. I thought it would be the incision site only that hurt. But that is wrong. So wrong. It hurts from the area under my breasts down to my hips and around through my back. I consider myself pretty tough when it comes to pain management and I must admit... this is getting old. There's a fun new crackling noise that I make while I breathe now. I only notice it when I'm laying down and there's no pain associated with it but I'll be glad when that's gone nonetheless.
In my rare lucid periods I keep myself entertained with my roku and my nookcolor. I'm currently plowing my way through Jane Eyre. A book that wouldn't be considered light reading (in my opinion) even on my best days. I've got the general gist though. Amos is a gem among men. I haven't had to lift a finger. He will be running the kids to his parents house on the days he has to work and in the evenings he's right there when I need him. When I say I want food, he's on top of it. When I want something just out of reach, he comes running from across the house. He's working double time. I think he might be a smudge envious of the "time off" I get to take.
My medicine is starting to take effect. I could write more, but I've already caught myself writing out our "real" names instead of using our pseudo identities. If I value our anonymity, I should stop.
I haven't been able to keep up with your blogs. I'm anxious to get back to them. I am especially anxious because I know that one of my readers is expecting a new addition soon and I'm itching to find out more. I'll be peeking in as I can.
Until next time.
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