Rearranging Furniture

Yesterday we took on a new project. Anne and I have decided to move all of our family room furniture, to include the TV and couch, downstairs. This will accomplish several things:

1. It will help eliminate the kids' constant video and video game watching/playing.

2. It will free up the family room space for use as a "play" room.

3. It will allow us to designate the main level as a living/family area and dedicate the basement to more recreational/educational pursuits.

We hope these changes will bring about a more active, more easily maintained lifestyle. This change will also encourage us to be more interactive as a family, since we will be less distracted. Anne has to take the credit on this one. The whole thing was her idea... And I hope it's permanent, because there is no way I am hauling all that furniture back upstairs! Not to mention, I think I broke the entertainment center!

Like many changes, this one will incur a little cost. We just purchased a little computer desk online from Walmart ($129) and we may need some storage for the toys, etc. But it will all be worth it in the end when we live in perfect harmony. OK, it may not be that dramatic, but I think it is a step in the right direction.

Here's the desk we chose:

Here are some that we eliminated for, hopefully, obvious reasons...

Response to: Marriage - Putting on the Pounds

I don't know how much I attribute being married to weighing more than I used to, except to blame it on Anne's awesome talents as a chef. It seems to me that age and children are probably more likely factors. Then again, I suppose that having children leaves us with less time to work out and more stress. Here's the thing though, I'm pretty sure there is a statistic out there that says married people live longer. Here, I found an example:

ABC News Article

In fact I just found this interesting article that claims that married people not only live longer, but they are healthier and wealthier too!

The Case for Marriage: Why Married People are Happier, Healthier and Better Off Financially

That last example has a lot of references, so it seems like fairly legit research. I found it interesting to note that the article takes it a bit further by stating that living together does not have the same benefits because it lacks the "permanency" that marriage offers. ...And getting divorced certainly doesn't seem to a be a contributor to happiness, health or longevity either.

So Dr. Dave concludes that, while being married may tend to make one a little heavier, it is better to be fat, dumb and happy than to be less financially stable, less healthy and more likely to die. I don't know, the choice seems pretty obvious to me.

Marriage = Putting on the Pounds?

While on the elliptical at the gym last night (phew, I was at the gym and not sitting on the couch eating cookies), I saw a story on the ABC nightly news about how married couples gain more weight than their single counterparts.

"In the few short years of marriage, a couple is twice as likely to become obese as are people who are merely dating, according to a new study." Article here.

A timely topic for my husband and blog partner Dave and I as for the last few weeks I've been on a big push to consistently work out and eat better. A couple of months ago Dave just finished up his own big push to get in shape and lose weight for the yearly fitness test he has to pass for his work.

Curious to find out more I did a little digging around on the web and found these listed as possible reasons:

* We are no longer trying to attract a partner

* Pregnancy occurs

* We cook for gratification

* We eat as much as our partner

* We put our family's eating preferences above our own

* We become the family's garbage disposal

* Our partner sabotages us

* We are in an unhappy marriage and turn to food for solace

* We have unresolved issues

*article here

I have to admit that part of my motivation is that I *don't* want to "let myself go" as I get older. Too bad food has to taste so dang good! I think tonight I am going to munch down a couple of cookies while sitting on the couch watching TV with my honey!

Same Differences

Stuff We Don’t Agree On… Sort Of:

For my first non-introductory post, I thought I would talk about some of the differences that have already surfaced in the creation of our blog. We had quite a time deciding on the title and the format (still working on that one), much less the type of blog we wanted. Digging into the weeds, we can examine the real-life differences that people deal with every day.

For example, I have the distinct impression that Anne will find my posts (particularly that first one) too cheesy. She’s probably right, but being a man of the arts, it is hard not indulge from time to time… And believe it or not, I actually mean most of what I try to say. I just don’t think it always comes off the way I intend it to. To test these waters, I did intentionally put some kind of really cheesy slogan in the About Us column. It was actually a place holder so I could explore the formatting for our site. She hasn’t said anything yet, but she might bring it up soon. I also think it is funny that she refers to me as DH on many of her posts, but doesn’t want to be referred to as DW. That one I completely agree on, because when you have kids you see a lot of Arthur. And from that perspective, being called DW is kind of an insult.

More Stuff We Agree On:

Blogging takes time, but we don’t want it to take up too much of our time. That’s one of the best reasons to start a blog together. Not only can we share the time that it takes to keep up with one, we can also share the stories, topics and conversations. That sort of thing is good for relationships, and I am hoping that this will bring us closer together. It is difficult to find common ground when it comes to specific interests. For instance, while I enjoy the results of frugal living and good menu planning, I am not as into the actual details such as coupon clipping and, well… Making menus. Likewise, while Anne enjoys using the computer and electronics, she doesn’t really share the same motivation I have to learn every little detail about them. These factors make it difficult to have a conversation regarding these topics. Lately, we have been trying to find more of those things that bring us closer together. …More things that we can share. I recommend making this a priority in any relationship.

Stuff We Can’t Decide On:

We can’t decide on just how much detail to include about our personal lives on a blog. We want to talk about relevant issues, but we don’t want to be Jon and Kate (at this point, no one probably does). On the other hand, the conversation that we hope to have with others will require certain details about our family. We can’t decide whether it is a good idea to post pictures of our kids or tell you what their names are. There are a lot of less-than-reputable people out there that probably can’t spell less-than-reputable but can type a lot of other seemingly innocent terms in search engines. The internet is a wonderful tool that connects people around the world but includes a certain amount of real danger in the process... We also can’t decide which new girlfriend of Jon’s we dislike the most or which parent is to blame for the break-up. But more importantly, we can’t decide whether any of that is really good to talk about at all. I think we are leaning toward, not really at all on that one, but we’ll see.

Closing Thoughts:

As you can see, we will have a lot of things to talk about if we can just decide on what those things will be and how we will talk about them. I think a mix of trivial, useful and serious topics will be the best way to proceed. If you have any suggestions, feel free to throw some of those out there. Until we really get our blog established, we will probably only be writing to ourselves anyway.

From Prairie Grass to Mountain Tops

The creation of this blog has already been an interesting journey. My wife and I have had much discussion on the topic of starting a blog that explores our different (or similar) perspectives. The first discussion we had was about the title. We were trying to avoid pinning down a specific geographic location or come off as clichéd or soap-operatic… Well, we are not sure that we succeeded, but we did agree that starting the blog was the most important thing right now. Another thing we agreed on was a need for explanation of the title that we did choose. I’ll get to that in a minute, but first, a little more about our blogging experience so far.

One of the most important issues with blogging is creating a conversation, and that is what we hope to create with this blog. Anne is a seasoned blogger that has posted on topics ranging from family to finance to menu planning. I have always been impressed with what she has had to say and think she has a unique and skilled voice. So, look forward to reading her posts and opinions soon. I am, however, brand new to the blogging world, so I will have some catching up to do… But we both realize this experience will be an evolution. We kind of just want to see where this experiment takes us. I have recently been interested in a collaborative online “book” called The Lost Book that is written by everyone involved, even by the fans. In that sense, our blog will be written by our experiences as a family, as well as interaction by people who follow our posts. It will be interesting to see where this takes us.

Back to the title explanation: Three States, One Year

We thought this title said a lot about our current lives. We have, in fact, lived in three different states within 12 months. There are six of us, so we have been doing a lot of packing, driving, stressing and adjusting. We started off this journey just about as far north as you can go in the U.S.... North Dakota.

After having endured the fabled long and harsh northern winters, we finally got a chance to escape to a warmer climate… At least for a few months. Yes, the central coast of California was very easy to get used to, but hardly a sensible place to buy a home these days.

Finally, we made it to Colorado where we have been now for almost 3/4 of a year.

We went from the prairie to the ocean to the mountains all in one year and have experienced many ups and downs, highs and lows, twists and turns along the way. …A perfect metaphor for our lives together since we have been married for over 11 years now. A perfect metaphor for most people’s relationships, I suspect. As our blog progresses, we will talk about a lot of these different places and experiences.

So, there you go. It’s a blog about wherever life takes us next. Maybe we’ll be here tomorrow; maybe we will live somewhere else… But at the very least, we will experience life together, arguing, discussing, laughing and even crying along the way. This is the place where will be able to share how we both feel about all of it. We hope you will also come along for the ride.