Eight years ago today, I said “I do” to my best friend. It was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. A few things have changed since then – we now have two amazing little boys, a house, new friends, and more – but I am still thrilled and grateful to be married to such an amazing woman.
Happy anniversary, my love!
For more details on our wedding in 2003, visit our wedding page.
For the first time in a few years, I didn’t have to work on New Year’s Eve. Since our anniversary is January 4, we combined the two events into an overnight getaway. After dropping off the boys with my parents, we checked in at the Omni Mandalay in Las Colinas. The hotel is BEAUTIFUL and offers great service, making it a popular choice among the locals for wedding nights and weekend getaways for couples.
After checking out our suite and feeling pleasantly out-of-place in such a nice hotel (I have a room key, sir, I swear!), we walked next door to a Japanese hibachi/sushi restaurant called Jinbeh. We love Japanese food but don’t get to enjoy it very often, so this was a rare treat. Dinner was delicious – lobster, filet mignon, white wine, soup, salad, dessert, assorted vegetables, and fried ice cream and chocolate mousse cake for dessert. And there was fire, lots of fire. After rolling ourselves back to the hotel, we relaxed in the sauna a bit before retiring to the room for strawberries, sparkling wine, and more fun things that start with the letter S. (hey, you know you were thinking it!)
In the morning, we slept in and then enjoyed a tasty breakfast at the hotel’s restaurant. Having a bit of time left before we needed to pick up the boys, we wandered the Galleria for a bit. The $100 yoga pants made us continue to feel like interlopers in another world. I gave the “college sports paraphernalia” store the stink-eye for STILL failing to carry a single item with the Baylor logo.
Thanks to my parents for watching the boys for us. We had a wonderful time! I hope all of you had a great New Year’s weekend.
On the last day of 2010, let’s look back on the year and remember some of the highlights for our family.
Jonathan – The addition of our second son certainly tops the list. Since he was born in mid-January, it seems like he’s been part of our family for quite a while. We had to keep reminding ourselves that last week was his first Christmas. His big smile and sweet nature have been a huge blessing for us and many others this year.
School – In September, both Brenden and Jenny started school. Brenden attends the two-year-old class at Colleyville Christian Preschool and having a blast! He has great teachers and classmates, is learning a lot both academically and socially, and even naps at naptime in a room full of toys! Jenny has enrolled at Tarrant County College and eventually plans to enroll in the nursing program. She’s working on her prereqs now and hopes to start nursing classes in fall 2013. She isn’t having quite as much fun as Brenden, but her first class (a health and fitness class) taught her some helpful information and made a nice start to her second degree.
Health and Fitness– We have two different highlights here. First, after not particularly enjoying gestational diabetes during her pregnancy with Jonathan, Jenny wanted to decrease her chances of developing full-blown diabetes later. So she joined Life Time Fitness and started working her butt off with spin classes, yoga, core work, swimming, and more. She also significantly changed her diet by eliminating regular sodas and most desserts, limiting portions, and generally trying to eat better. As a result of her hard work, she has lost 30 pounds since June and is still going. Second, with help from my podiatrist, custom orthotics, and physical therapy, I’ve gotten to run for most of this year after several years of knee trouble. My knee isn’t perfect, but I’ve done several runs of 10k or greater and hope to return to the Cowtown 10k in February.
Ethan – We now have a nephew, courtesy of Jenny’s sister Katy and brother-in-law Eric! He was born in August and is doing great. We look forward to many fun playdates with him and our sons.
Work – Not much to report here. I worked quite a bit (over 260 hours of overtime), and I’m grateful to still have a job I love at a company I love.
House – Our big house project was installing the solar water heater this spring. We’re very pleased with it, and I’m sure it’s saving us money even though it’s hard to measure exactly how much.
Car – In April, after cramming two young children and two adults into the Fit for a few months, we finally broke down and got a minivan. I don’t care if you think they’re corny or ugly or uncool. Our Grand Caravan gets the job done (“the job” being the safe, reliable transportation of our kids and the huge assortment of paraphernalia that they require).
Trips – Travel is hard with two young boys, but we did manage a couple of fun trips. The first was our day trip with Brenden to San Antonio to watch the SWA Duck Derby at SeaWorld. Brenden did well on his first flight and seemed to enjoy SeaWorld until falling asleep in his stroller. The second was our sans-kids cruise to the Bahamas in October, which gave us a much-needed break from daily life.
Home Group – We’re not very organized or particularly spiritual, but we have a great time together. This year we were pleased to add a few new attenders to our crazy group.
We did experience some sad times this year as well, such as the passing of my Great Aunt Will and Brenden’s trips to the ER with breathing trouble. But overall, 2010 was a very good year for us. I hope 2011 brings all of you much love, joy, and peace.
Earlier this week I blogged about “emotional pornography,” the movies, books, and TV shows that seek to replace normal emotions with unrealistic, stylized forms of emotions that create unrealistic expectations. While I thought the idea and the linked article were interesting, I wrestled for a while with my post as I tried to figure out what exactly to say. It didn’t quite seem right. Thanks in part to comments from my mom and grandfather, I think I figured out why: both my article and the one from Relevant are trying to lump two distinct but related issues into a single catchphrase, and it doesn’t quite work. The two issues are:
Expectations in Relationships – Sorry, but I don’t see any way to dispute this one. Fire away if I’m wrong. Whether it’s good or bad is a separate question, but to me it’s very clear that romances and rom-coms intentionally create larger-than-life relationships in order to entertain us. They provide enough conflict to make the storyline interesting, but in the end, there’s generally a happy wedding between the two people we’ve been rooting for throughout the movie. They filter out the messy details of relationships unless those details can generate a good laugh.
We (well, some of us!) LOVE this stuff, right? We cheer for the Man in Black and Princess Buttercup, Jack and Rose, Prince Eric and Ariel the mermaid, and Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in every movie they do together. We imagine how much fun life would be if our lives could be like theirs. And maybe that’s not all bad. Real life is hard. Escaping it for a bit is fun.
I’m just concerned, based on my own experience and what I’ve read and heard from others, that people can be disappointed when their relationships don’t look like the ones they see in the movies. If you’re a woman who thinks she’s married Sir Lancelot, you might be horrified when he doesn’t bring home flowers every night, he gets scared if you assign him to diaper detail, and he occasionally pees in the shower because it’s more convenient. If you’re a man who thinks he married Charlie from Top Gun, you might be really confused when sometimes she isn’t in the mood because she’s PMSing, she gets mad when you get drunk and embarrass her in public, and she occasionally has to do decidedly unladylike things like taking a dump.
Emotional “Manipulation”?
This, I think, is the more interesting question. As you might have seen in the comments, my grandfather astutely points out that many of our greatest films and books have a huge emotional impact, which is one of the features that make them so great. I’ve seen hundreds of movies, if not thousands, and many of the most memorable got me involved on an emotional level. I cared about the characters, celebrating their triumphs and mourning their losses.
Rudy comes to mind. The cynic might dismiss Rudy as manipulative and even silly. Sure, Rudy’s obsession with playing football for the Irish could be considered foolish and immature. But tell me you didn’t tear up when the crowd started chanting his name in that final game or when he sacked the quarterback on his final play. The filmmakers intentionally changed some historical details, found a perfect actor for the role, and designed the film to make you care about Rudy’s quest as much as possible. You ache for him every time he gets rejected. You cheer for him when he finally gets to suit up and get on the field.
Is it manipulative to craft a story to elicit the maximum emotional response? I’m not sure.
An artist can tell the same story in many, many different ways. I don’t really write much that’s creative anymore, but when I did, I had to make countless decisions about what to include and what to exclude. Every word and every detail in a story, poem, or screenplay needs to contribute somehow – by developing a character, advancing the plot, expressing a theme, or preferably some combination thereof. I definitely tried to involve my readers emotionally as I told my story. I wanted to move them in some way, whether to laughter, fury, or tears.
If you don’t get emotionally involved with a piece of art, and it’s not making you laugh or entertaining you in some other way, then what’s the point? Why bother watching or reading until the end? I hear some critics call certain works “emotionally manipulative” in a negative sense. Perhaps I’m missing something, but I’m not sure how to make an engaging movie that doesn’t manipulate the viewer’s/reader’s emotions somehow. I suppose a lowbrow comedy could probably succeed, but most other genres need to engage our emotions. Otherwise, we just won’t care.
On Tuesday night, I went to Bass Hall with Jenny and some of my family and friends to see the Canadian Tenors perform with the Fort Worth Symphony. They were FANTASTIC. The program mixed Christmas music with songs from their debut album, featuring fresh arrangements that highlighted the beauty and power of their voices. For me, the highlights included Victor’s mesmerizing performance of the Lord’s Prayer by Malotte and the quartet’s beautiful renditions of “The Prayer,” “O Holy Night,” and a French version of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”. The four Canadians obviously enjoy singing and get along well, and their enthusiasm adds warmth to the music. Thanks to my mom for introducing me to these guys.
After enduring a couple of weeks of being sick with a mild sinus infection that refused to go away on its own, I finally waved the white flag on Wednesday and sought professional help. Losing most of my voice finally pushed me over the edge. I knew it was a sinus infection and knew the solution was antibiotics. Instead of calling my primary care physician (PCP), who I assumed was booked solid with sick patients just like me, I tried something new: the MinuteClinic at CVS.
So-called convenience care clinics (CCCs) like MinuteClinic are a new trend in medicine. They offer a limited menu of services in exchange for the convenience of coming in without an appointment and, in many cases, lower costs. Staffed mostly by nurse practitioners or physician’s assistants, they are available in retail stores such as CVS or Wal-Mart and keep much longer hours than those of a typical PCP office. They can’t treat your brain tumor or deliver your baby, but they can be a great option for simple illnesses like sinus infections or UTIs, vaccinations, or routine physicals. Our insurance company is creating a special reduced copay of $15 for CCC visits starting in 2011.
Jenny and I both went separately to MinuteClinic on Wednesday. One person was ahead of me. After entering some basic new-patient information (into a real computer instead of an archaic paper form), I waited for maybe five minutes before seeing the PA. She entered all my symptoms into a computer, checked my vitals, and gave me a prescription plus some printed info about my condition. From arrival to completion took maybe 20 minutes. She sent my prescription to the in-store pharmacy, and I walked out with my amoxicillin.
The whole experience was very fast, relatively cheap, and extremely convenient. For minor illnesses in the future, I plan to return to MinuteClinic. My only complaint was a lack of warmth and friendliness by the PA. She was very businesslike and spent most of her time looking at her computer. But maybe she was just shy, or her native culture (she sounded African, but I’m not sure about the specific country) doesn’t include friendliness toward patients. But to me, that’s a pretty minor thing. I walked in with an illness and no appointment, and maybe half an hour later, I walked out with the medicine I needed. That’s hard to beat.
Have any of you tried a convenience care clinic? If so, how was your experience?