Thursday, July 9, 2009

Living with a pessimist when you're an optimist

For the last 19 years I have been married to a man I love with all my heart. We have four kids, have moved several times and have shared many interesting experiences in our journey.  It took me a long time to figure him out, actually, I'm still working on that. But my biggest issue with him is his pessimism.  It wasn't until I learned the meaning of pessimist and optimist that I could really begin to "get him" and his attitude towards just about anything in life.

When we were having our first baby, I remember him saying "watch, he'll probably come in the middle of the night," or "he'll probably cry all night."  I used to back it up with "it is entirely possible that he comes during the day and doesn't cry much at all, have you ever thought of that?"  I remember so many moments when he would take the negative approach to the situation as opposed to just seeing the positive side of thing and that just made me angry and we would end up in a big fight over what? Nothing that really mattered.  I just didn't know how to handle his attitude or his outlook on life.

Today he remains the same, although, he does try a little harder to not ruin a nice moment by throwing in his two cents of negativity.  Recently I heard him say "just plan to go broke when we don't sell the house for the asking price."  I, on the other hand, expect we will sell the house and everything will be fine.  No need to needlessly worry myself or the kids at this point.

He says that he would rather think something wont work then if he does he's pleasantly surprised, rather than think positively and be disappointed if things don't work out.  To me that's just backwards.  I mean, I think one can be a realist at the very least.  I don't see any benefit in thinking negatively all the time.

Negative thoughts stress me out, make me feel defeated before I even start, take away all my energy and everyone pays.  I don't like me with that attitude.  Living a positive life fills me with energy, I become more aware of the beauty that surrounds me and while the possibility of disappointment may be there, I can look back at the experiences in my journey and still be happy, even when things don't go my way.

We've grown together and matured, somewhat, still maintaining who we really are but learning to accept each others quirks.  I seek out quotes, poems, books, and stories that are inspirational and feed the mind in positive ways.  He reads them and never comments on them probably because he will most likely find something negative to say.  He does make me laugh sometimes, which is probably my way of putting up with his negative ways.  I often wonder how he comes up with those comebacks...amazing.

The moral to my story is that we all have quirks and not everyone likes everything about us. We need to always work hard to learn all that we can about the people we love so that we can better understand their behavior and hopefully they will reciprocate.  One thing is for sure, our kids are and will be well rounded.  They are mostly very positive--thanks to me-- but depending on the situation, they are able to be realist and see the potential negative in a situation without letting themselves drown in it--thanks to dad.

I'm sure we wont be living in a cardboard box after all is said and done. It's all good!

Monday, July 6, 2009

Blue Monday- Kids fun day





Blue Monday is hosted by Smiling Sally. Visit her site to see what other blues are being posted today. Sometimes I forget how much blue we have around us.


This weekend we took only our two youngest to see the fireworks at the Yorktown Victory Monument. It was definitely different not having our older kids running after the little ones. We don't make them do it, they just do. Well this time we had to be like the young parents we were with the first two, except those are not 15 and 18 and our babies are 7 and 2.5.

They were wild!! It was so much fun watching them run around all over the place. I just kept thinking how great they would sleep at night. My little bear, 2.5, wanted to run everywhere. I think he'll be joining the track team because he loves to run. It was hillarious. My little peanut, 7 kept wanted to do gymnastics on the lawn or as I said in my post from yesterday, she wanted to play make believe volley ball without a ball.

We were quite the clows but we had a great time and the kids really enjoyed themselves and yes, they slept until 9:30 am the next day.



I am having technical difficulties...aka...ready to throw my PC out the window and stick with a MAC...grrrr!
Have a great Monday everyone!


Sunday, July 5, 2009

Making Memories on the 4th


U.S. Airforce Heritage of America Band
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So I set out to make some wonderful memories for my little ones and I think I did okay. We often see the fireworks from a distance and it's been a while since we've been this close to the action. We made it to the Yorktown festivities last night without any problems. There were thousands of people there but the event was so well organized that parking and leaving the parking lots not an issue at all. That was my only concern.

We arrived early enought to find a spot on the lawn and let the kids run around for a while. We had a great time playing fake volley ball. Yes fake, we didn't have a ball so we made believe we did and played down to running for the ball and hitting the deck to keep it from bouncing. It was quite hillarious and at first people looked at us like we were out of our minds but the kids were having such a great time and laughing so much I could hardley stop. After a while I could see them turning their head from side to side as if they were truly following a ball. I think they were following the reaction to each player.

The baby seen here calm, had a major breakdown just before the fireworks started. Once he saw the first light.....
and heard the first boom, he was set --



They both sat there and oohhed and ahhhed the lights in the sky. I have to admit, this was the best show I have seen. I don't ever want to miss another live fireworks event again. To top it off, the event was enhanced by live music playing in the background and that really tied in well with the lights and the people. We were all one nation, under God!! It was a thing of beauty and we were so glad to have been there to experience this live. There's no better way than to sit under the stars and watch as these mini rockets go off and creat such awesome beauty.

I think it's safe to say that we created some memories last night!!





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I have to recognize that celebrating the American Independance in Yorktown, VA is truly an honor as so many events during the revolutionary war took place in Yorktown. Here is the link to learn more about this topic.
Yorktown Victory Monument
Victory Monument
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