I’m feeling a little under the weather today, so rather than write a long post, I thought I’d post some links to some older posts that are making the rounds on Pinterest right now.
Here’s one I really like: What Does It Mean to Pray for Blessing? Do we sometimes pray perhaps for the wrong thing?
Have We Forgotten How to be a Mommy? Things that were considered basic parenting in the 1950s and 1960s and 1970s are now largely ignored.
Sheltering is Not a Bad Word. My response to a guy who was flabbergasted that we would raise our kids without TV and would homeschool.
16 Ways to Flirt with Your Husband. This one’s more recent, but it’s awfully popular.
Maybe Balance Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up to Be. Perhaps “balance” is not what we should aim for as homemakers. Maybe purpose is better.
Marriage is for the Long Haul. I guest posted yesterday at One Flesh Marriage explaining one of the biggest lessons about marriage I’ve learned in our twenty years together.
See? That’s six posts and only two have anything remotely to do with sex! So I can write about other stuff.
I know I’ve been preoccupied with sex since The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex came out, and it’s largely because I keep getting emails asking different questions that I do want to deal with. I also really believe in the book, and I’m hoping that more and more of you will purchase it and give it to new brides as gifts as well (thanks to so many of you who have!). But I do think about things other than sex, and for those of you who have joined me on this blog more recently, I thought you may enjoy some of my older thoughts.
Have a great day! I’m going to get some rest.
Sheila Wray Gregoire has been married for 25 years and happily married for 20! She loves traveling around North America with her hubby in their RV, giving her signature "Girl Talk" about sex and marriage. And she's written 8 books. About sex and marriage. See a theme here? Plus she knits. Even in line at the grocery store.
I know growing up in the 80’s, I didn’t watch a lot of tv…nor did I play video games. We didn’t get a video game console in our house until well after I graduated high school. I spent time outside riding my bike during summer vacation but it’s a different world nowadays. I can’t just let my 8yr old son roam the streets alone anymore as I was allowed to do back then…it was safer when I was growing up. Yet I was still obese as a child/teen.
Now, as far as your comment regarding your being more educated than most teachers, I don’t know about Canada but here in the USA, teachers are pretty much required to earn a Masters Degree. My brother has been a teacher in PA since 2004 with a dual Elementary Ed/Special Education degree. He has since gone on to earn additional specialty certification in teaching social studies/history, earned a Masters Degree in educational leadership and finished post-Masters work in Principal certification which permits him to become principal of any school, elementary through high school. I believe he will eventually earn a PhD or Doctoral degree of some sort in the future. His wife is also completing coursework towards her Masters degree at the present time. I know my son’s current teacher here in Ohio also has a Masters degree in k-12 reading support.
I’m college educated too but I know I’m not qualified to teach. I help my son with his homework nightly and I’ve been stumped with how to solve some of the math problems he’s brought home this year. I’m glad homeschooling has worked out so well for your family. For my family, I don’t think it would be successful.
I knew a homeschooling family in the 90’s…all of their children were homeschooled. Mom went to University and got her teaching degree as she was homeschooling. She ran into problems with her boys not being allowed to play on the sports teams of the district’s high school in which they lived AND paid school taxes to even though her children didn’t attend the public school. Her boys were gifted musicians and soccer players….back in the late 80’s-90’s, school districts did not have to allow students to participate in extracurricular activities if the student did not attend school there. I think they’ve changed the laws since then though and that’s a good thing. A child shouldn’t be punished because he’s homeschooled.
I do put my son to bed by 8:30pm. He sleeps well and performs well in school. I think he’s genetically inclined to be overweight because both myself and his father were overweight as children. It’s hard to overcome genetic predisposition.
I hope you feel better soon!
I just want to say, I’m enjoying your blog so much and you’re one of my new favorite writers. I discovered you through The Marriage Bed’s tweet about your “29 Days” series, and I LOVED that topic, but I’m finding I like the variety of subjects you write about. On my own blog, I can never seem to pick just “one” topic or theme on which to focus. I’ve come to terms with that and think it’s fun to have variety. Variety is the spice of life, right?
Looking forward to reading through the links – and yes I am hoping to purchase your newest book 😀 I’ve read the sample on my Kindle and I can’t make my mind up as to whether to buy it there (so I don’t have to blush at someone discovering it in my bookcase!) or whether to get an actual copy of it so that it is in my bookcase and other ladies *do* see it!
Ah, that’s a dilemma! 🙂 I still like print books, but I find I’m buying more on the Kindle. I’m not sure I enjoy them as much that way, though. I’m sure in five years I’ll read everything on a Kindle, but I just feel like the last few novels I read on one I kind of rushed through.
I read “Marriage is for the long haul.” It’s good to have that encouragement – our counselor actually made that point to us, that things aren’t always going to be this way. We have a lot of life yet to experience.
We actually had a great and adventurous sex life from the very beginning. (I mean, obviously we weren’t very practiced at it in the beginning, because we were both virgins, but we “practiced” it a lot, and therefore got a lot better pretty quickly!) We had sex everywhere (and I mean everywhere), in a great variety of ways. We’ve had a LOT of fun! It’s only the past few years that things have been messed up due to mental illness. But, I have faith and hope that our sex life will be blessed again, that life will be breathed back into every aspect of our marriage. As you said, this is just a stage, and we are working through it together.
Thanks for that reminder! I’m so glad that we have the commitment that we do, even through the really tough times.
Thanks I really appreciate this post!
Postscript: I hope you start feeling 100% better asap!
Thanks, Jen! I am feeling a lot better today. I think it’s the weather. We’ve had crazy warm and then cold and then crazy warm, and whenever the weather changes like that too quickly and frequently I get wicked headaches!