Love is... showing it (Week 5)

First off, I just want to say that I am so excited to be a part of this amazing concept and alongside such
wonderful women. Already the “Love is…” for this year, and for what’s coming in February, has changed
my life. I can’t wait to see all the love we will spread and what this year has in store for all of us.

I am so very blessed to have two amazing women in my life. They would do ANYTHING for me. They
have always been there for me growing up, but I don’t think I ever really noticed how much they do
for me until I had my son, Marek. Anytime I need help with him, a last minute sitter, or just a mommy
break, I can count on them. I can honestly say that I would be lost without them in my life.

To my mom, Maria, and my sister, Rheanna…I love you both more than you will ever know.

I wanted to start my first week of love is by “showing” a big THANK YOU. Although we might say “thank
you” on a daily basis, how often do we really show it?

I really wanted to show my mom and sis how important they are to me. My mom has said on occasion
that she feels I don’t make enough “girl time” for her. She might be right. I have a full time job, a child
to care for, a 52-dates-a-year commitment to my spouse, amazing friends that I want to see all the time,
and of course ME time, right? As much as they do for me, why aren’t they on this list??

So I decided to set aside a day where it will be just me, mom and sis! Through tons of schedule
complications, and weather permitting, I figured out a perfect day and started to plan events. I sent the
girls an email the day before saying to be at my house by 4pm and to not eat!

4pm sharp they both showed up asking questions. I wouldn’t tell them anything, only to wait and
see. The first surprise…I had a Henna Tattoo artist come over to my house and she gave us all Henna
Tattoo’s! My mom and sis were so excited! I’ve never mentioned it to them, but they said they’ve
always wanted one! Woohoo! After the artist left, I told them we had to hurry and go! They thought I
meant me and Owen go somewhere and they stay and watch Marek!! Haha! Silly girls! This is your day!


Surprise TWO…we jumped in the car and headed to Hester’s! I told them about it on the way and
they were really excited to finally go there. They have never been and I knew it would be a perfect
place for them to try. Unfortunately it was closed. Not sure if it was due to weather, but I was pretty
disappointed. The girls didn’t seem to mind. I asked them where they wanted to go next and they said
Cracker Barrel, because now they were craving breakfast.

We had a great dinner and I explained what I was doing. How I appreciate them for everything…I
even got a little chocked up. Third surprise: after dinner we headed to Elite nails for pedicures!! I let
them pick out whatever they wanted. Mom just go color, but Rheanna got a French tip. She has a big
homecoming dance tomorrow, so it was perfect timing.

The next surprise…we headed to the movie theater. We got there pretty early so we just spent the

extra time enjoying each other’s company.

At the end of the night they seemed to have had a great time. They were surprised and excited with
everything. I hope they know how much I appreciate everything they do. Even though I say it all the
time, I think it was so important to really spoil them. I plan on setting aside a “date” every month for
just the three of us.

Is there someone you need to spoil???

Regina

Project 52 Date #5

Oh yah that's right, we had a BAKE OFF tonight
Mano y .... Womano :)


Our date tonight was to have a bake off, where we each baked something and had it "judged" and during the baking play Battle of The Sexes.
At first I was a little bummed about the start of our date.... JT baked during the day so that I would have full use of the oven, but that was part of the date... to bake together! A little discouraged I realized it was easier that way because JT could concentrate on playing the game with me while I took over the kitchen :)
He went for the traditional pineapple upside down cake while I went for a brand new never tried before and tweaked a little bit cupcake recipe! While I baked JT started the Battle of the Sexes game and we were both amazed at our knowledge level, we did pretty good I think!
After I finished baking, we took both desserts to our judge (my mom). She liked both of the presentations but was already leaning towards JT as the winner with a classic. After she sampled both of ours, I ending up winning but only by default. JT's dessert wasn't cooked all the way.

JT Looking nervous when the judging started

So we went back to the game, which seemed to go on forever because during the second half neither one of us could get one right but in the end I won, by a WILD card, that said congrats take your player to the finish line! So both of my wins were by defaults, but I'll take it. This was a great date and I had alot of fun! Thanks babe for being a good sport!

JT Says: Great date! But I'm not interested in talking about my baking issues(I almost won...dang you Betty Crocker!) or how I've lost yet another board game to my lovely wife. Just Kidding....sorta. Had alot of fun and baked up something I had never tried before. As for the board game, well, lets just say I've added another title to the long list of games I won't play with Mia cuz she always wins........

Love is.... picking up where someone else left off! (Week 4)

This blog I have been looking forward to writing all week!
Ever heard the term, "It take a village to raise a child" Well that is the way it is sometimes with my marriage. It takes a village to help it grow sometimes.

I have always been surrounded by amazing friends but the best ones are the ones that will call, email or text JT and say " Mia just said she would love to do this" or "Mia would really love it if you guys went to do this" etc etc. It's helps our marriage grow leaps and bounds I assure you! For example, one fantastic friend gave me a date jar, full of 80 dates that didn't include one movie or one TV show. It was all interactive time with my spouse in and out of my home. She also made one for herself but it was a little less fun because she wrote them all so she kinda had an idea of where the date was going as soon as it began.

So I called her husband (she knew I was calling him for something, but I told her not to ask!) and asked what his Valentines Day plan was. I knew that there was a specific date in the jar for the night but I asked if he wanted to add a little bit more to it to make it a little more special and also make it a surprise for her as well. So I told him about this craft idea I had, and all the other date night elements to go along with it (music, food, etc). I bought all the craft stuff (because I'm doing it for JT too) and have it all prepped and ready and he is coming over one day to have a craft day with me to prepare something special for his wife.


I know that I personally steal all my good ideas from other people, blogs, websites etc, so I figured I would pass it along this time to someone that probably didn't research Valentines ideas like I did. But I'm not stopping there. If anyone else wants to join in on this craft day, I have plenty supplies for everyone. I would love to have you over and help you plan something special and simple for your spouse or loved one! For those of you that live far away, I can tell you all about it and even mail you some of the stuff I have to make it simple for you. This is my Valentines Day Gift to you :)

Project 52 Date #4

Ever seen the NBC show One Minute to Win It? Well it's pretty much a whole bunch of tasks to be completed in a minute to win a prize. Sounds simple right! Wrong? So my date assignment was to create my own version of the game for us to play. So I came up with 4 games.

1. A Bit Dicey: you have to hold a Popsicle stick in your teeth and stack 6 dice, one on top of the other on the end of the stick, and hold them all there for at least 3 seconds.


2. Penny Hose: drop a penny in each leg of a pair of panty hose, with one hand in each leg, and having to use each hand independently of each other, get to the bottom of the hose leg and grab the penny and pull it out.


3. Roll With It: unroll two rolls of toilet paper that are set on a bar so they can free spin, unroll them by spinning your arms around like a windmill, with one roll for each arm.


4. Hangover: hang 6 coat hangers, in a chain, without letting any of the coat hanger hooks slide to the corner of any hanger.


You can look em all up on http://www.nbc.com/minute-to-win-it/how-to/ to see how it's all done. So I scour the house for supplies and come up with 3 pairs of dice and 6 hangers and 4 rolls of Tp. I had to make a store run and find Popsicle sticks and panty hose. $5 later and I'm out the door and good to go. So Mia gets Jocelyn to bed and I set everything up and we get it on, I mean, we get the competition started...It's pretty much evenly matched for A Bit Dicey and Penny Hose. Mia pulls ahead in Roll With It cuz I changed directions on my arm spin and it cost me some precious seconds. Hangover put me back even with her and we ended up calling it a draw! Anyways, it was a bit of a short date night but we had a lot of laughs watching each other attempt each "event". And not to brag but I'm pretty awesome at the Hangover!

Mia says: To say that we had alot of laughs is an understatement, I was rolling on the floor watching my husband try to use one hand to get a penny out of the bottom of a pair of pantyhose and I lost it completely while he attempted a windmill motion for the toliet paper! We had a blast, yes it was short, but it was so much fun and just something that he put alot of thought into and I loved it Way to go babe!

Love is ... cookies (Week 3)

LOL I mean seriously, is there any explaination that I need to give more then that? Or maybe I have been doing this Daniel Fast a little too long :)

Okay with a little more background on it, here it is... I miss my brother and his family. We aren't the overly mushy "I miss you" people but I love the chance when I get to talk to him, or catch up with him on email or just get to see his family all in the same room and feel the love that is there. He has been all over the place since he graduated from the USNA but most of the time has been sent overseas! We catch up with each other as often as we can but with our own families growing and demands on our time it gets harder and harder to make the time. And although Skype is nice, its nothing like the real face time you get.

So when I heard that girl scout cookies were out for sale, a light bulb went off in my head. Right now my brother is a ship in Japan and I'm pretty sure they don't get girl scout cookies out there, so I figured I would send him a box, and I figured if I was sending him a box then why not a few since there are alot of our Men and Women serving with him that may like a little reminder from home. So I saved up some of my fun money and order the cookies. The best part... is when a friend found out that I was doing that, she wanted to be a part too so she pitched in and bought 8 extra boxes as well, and then another friend heard, and she bought two extra boxes to be sent as well.
So this afternoon I am off to the USPS to get some FPO boxes, fill them with girl scout cookies and send them on their way. The good news is that I have enough to fill another box to bless someone else, so unless someone sends me some info on a group that needs it, I'm just going to scour the internet for the first one I find that is overseas! So my love is just kinda spilling over to more people, both the giving and the receiving which just makes me smile from ear to ear! I love it!

Project 52 Date #3

This date I have been looking forward to for awhile because it took quite a lot of planning to get it right.... Last week I picked a date specific date from the jar that said " Your off to the Circus, it's in town on the 21st-23rd." (Yes this is two out of the house dates in a month, but it was just by chance) My first thought was, oh no, JT works those nights this is going to be impossible to do! Until I ran across some tickets for the circus in Kingsville on Tuesday night (which I had already set aside for our date night) PERFECT! Okay there were a few other snags that happened, such as the city posting the wrong times on their website, the point of contact for the circus not answering her phone for 2 days, the location of the circus not showing up on any mapping system or JT trying to take over the navigating of the drive to the date. But we decided to chance it all and try our luck for the Circus. Boy are we glad we did!

So we kissed Jocelyn goodbye, and said thanks to Grami for watching her and off we went. We had a nice conversation on the way there (45 minutes to chat) about when we were last at the circus, what were we looking forward to etc etc. Throw in a few conversations here and there and it made the time pass pretty quickly. We get there and we both said "this is it??" It was a small little expo center in the middle of no where. But the good part was, we had front row seats, I mean literally we were three rows from the front. I was even bummed that I forgot our binoculars so we could see all the awesome details but we didn't even need them!

Before the circus started, I turned to JT and said "you are now a 10 yr old boy, GO!" He laughed but it was really fun watching him watch with intensity at the white tigers, chuckle out load at the clown with his stuff elephant (really a small dog in an elephant costume) and gaze in wonder at the acrobatics! We had a really great time.... long drive... but definitely worth it. I'm really looking forward to our next date to see what is in store.

JT Gazing in Wonder

JT Wants to Teach Shadow how to do this for Jocelyn

Maybe our date #4???

JT Says: I knew i had a surprise coming my way on Tuesday night but would never have guessed I'd be going to the circus! I didn't even know there was a circus in town! I'm not a huge circus fan but I do like Lions and tigers doing tricks, and who doesn't like 25 clowns popping out of a little car? So we hop in the car and drive about 45 minutes to K'ville and make our way to this obscure venue out in the boonies(sorta) of Kingsville. It's a small circus run by the Shriner's (we had to google Shriner's on the way home to figure out what they really were). It was great! White tigers and ladies swinging from the ceiling by their fingertips and even stunt poodles! Yes, I said stunt poodles. We didn't stay for the whole show because it's a bit of a drive out there and back but I had a good time reliving some childhood circus memories and creating a couple new ones with Mia.

Love is... Helping Others (Week 2)

It's me again, I'm going to go ahead and do the first 4 weeks to give all the people that offering to participate some time to come up with some post ideas.

So this past week I thought about all the different ways that we show love and the first thing that came to mind were the five love languages. If you have never heard of this phrase, the 5 are words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of services and physical touch. I know that there are many other ways to show love and my personal love language is receiving gifts (it could be a flower from the side of the road because you thought of me, or a smoothie because you knew I was hungry etc )so I was trying to think of other things to do for people instead of just gifting people with things.

As I was thinking, I went along with my normal to do tasks and went off to the grocery store. I was standing in the cereal aisle deciding what type of oatmeal to get Jocelyn, when an elderly woman in her motorized cart came up next to me. She too was browsing the oatmeal's, but from a distance due to the cart. I pondered for a minute, debating on asking to help out or not, with the only thing stopping me was if she didn't want me help. I realized that what was holding me back was my fear. (Really what could she have said... No??)

So I asked.... "Can I grab an oatmeal for you"

She replied "Would you? That would be so helpful! My provider seems to have gone somewhere else and I can't reach it"

Easy enough, so I helped her out and then took it a step further and asked if there was anything else I could do. She had this shocked look on her face as though to say "really??"

She said "If you wouldn't mind there is a few more things on my list that I could use some help with"

So off we went to complete her shopping, all the while Jocelyn and she were smiling at each other, making each other laugh. It was actually a welcome break in my day and it seemed to bring her a smile or two as well. Funny that I was willing to let a little thing like "no I don't want your help" stop me from doing the right thing and helping out someone that was in need. I could have been any of the people that walked by and saw her in need and did nothing.

Please do not mistake this for any kind of bragging because it is quite the opposite. Often times I am that person that is often to busy to help others as I am trying to get in and out the store in less then 15 minutes :) But this one day reminded me (and I hope that it encourages you) that it only takes a few seconds to make a positive difference in someone else's life and also in all reality she made an positive difference in my day as well!