Show Me The Money

     From the time before we said 'I Do', Mr. Awesome and I knew that when we chose to become "one flesh" that included our finances. Since finances are a huge part of life, what is the point of getting married and sharing everything except that, right? We began preparing for that in Premarital Counseling and started phasing some things in before the wedding. The process of consolidation has been fun, interesting, but not without its challenges as we try to merge two money systems. Being the computer expert that he is, Mr. Awesome had already constructed a clever financial spreadsheet on his computer that he had used for quite some time. However, I was accustomed to hand writing my financial decisions down on a pre-printed budget sheet with color coded ink pens (on sale, of course). When he looked at my color coded pens and I looked at that highly detailed spreadsheet on his computer, I don't think that we really believed that we were going to have to change those things when it was time to consolidate. Needless to say, my pens are now in the desk drawer unused and his spreadsheet has taken on a different format that he says is difficult to read. Personally, I like the new spreadsheet and I am sure that he is thrilled not to have to see a bright orange or fuschia colored ink pen.

      One thing that has made consolidation a bit easier is that neither of us came into this with much debt, having only mortgage and a student loan. We both have roughly the same goals, but the biggest dilemma is agreeing on the path that we will take to get there. However, we do know that this is all a process and we are now in a financial class (by Dave Ramsey) to help us as we get it smoothed out. One thing I can say is that as we sat across from each other at the dining room table with exhausted looks in our eyes after trying to consolidate again, I am thankful to have a man who is willing to put in the work and has the character to make sure that we are in good financial shape as a family. Those are my desires as well.  Honestly, I thought that I had my finances in good shape before, but I am glad that Mr. Awesome has introduced me to new methods to make it even better. And I am introducing him to new methods, also (without using my bright orange or fuschia colored pens). :)

Dating or Courtship?

    

      In the last post, Our Story,  an almost obsolete concept was introduced as I referred to how Mr. Awesome and I officially started our relationship. Courtship.  He asked me if he could go into courtship with me and I gladly agreed. Yes, it does sound like something from the 1950's and our society has gradually pulled away from the concept in favor of dating, but it was very beneficial in that we got to know each other on a deeper level without certain distractions that come with regular dating. Now, I will not claim that neither of us has never experienced dating before, because we have, but the courting aspect was so much more beneficial when it came to us and I am very happy that we did it that way.
    

*Dating:  an engagement to go out socially with another person; often out of romantic interest.
*Courting: to try to gain the love or affections of; especially to seek to marry

     Much like courting,  dating begins with the act of socializing and learning another person in a way that may determine if it is something that you want to pursue further.  However, with dating the issue comes when the sequence of learning a person is turned upside down and it takes on  the typical "try on for size" approach. In a lot of cases, a person (male or  female) will date the person, use their emotions, bodies, and waste their time without any real prospect of a permanent future.  With dating, it is believable that you can "try it before you buy it" and no one gets hurt.  If we look around, it is evident that the "nobody gets hurt" part is not true. Sometimes people escape with emotional scars and sometimes people escape with scars that they have to deal with for life.  Sometimes people get stuck in relationships where they wonder 'where is this going" after they have played the role of "wife" or "husband" for years. My personal "favorite" memory of dating is the waiting game.  Some years ago, I was once in a situation, where I was being told whatever lie needed to be told in order for me to stay in the situation while the guy decided on what he ultimately wanted to do.  PSA: Ladies, if a MAN really wants to be with you, it does not take him years upon years to do it.

    I am so glad that Mr. Awesome came with the best "game" ever.  When he asked me if he could court me, I was happy to know that he was the man I had been praying for and he had enough respect for the two of us that he did it in an honorable way. Most of the things that society tells us to do, we did not. We actually waited until our wedding day to have our first kiss.  We put off a lot of self gratification in order to keep our vision clear and our respect for each other. It was definitely not easy, let me tell you, but in the end it has been well worth it. . . . . . . . Please respond and let me know what you think about dating or courting.

Our Story

  
     Our story is one that I love to tell, because it happened in a way that neither Mr. Awesome nor I could have made happen on our own, especially considering that we were over 1300 miles apart. It was during our wedding that I realized quite a few of the people there did not know how we met or even came together.  Maybe some of those people were just there for the food anyway. :) Since ours is a unique story we would like to share it, here it is:


   It was in third grade that Corey and I shared Mrs. Johnson's class together at East Chattanooga Elementary. Our encounter was nothing more than that of classmates and our promotion to the next grade level sent us into two different schools for the next five years. After that, irony would have it that I went to high school out of my district and it was there that we met back up.  Our friendship grew over those next four years and we shared laughs thanks to Corey's comedy relief until graduation sent us, yet again, into two different directions. Corey went to serve in the U.S. Navy and I went to school at T.S.U. in Nashville and then on to Houston, TX after graduation. During this time, neither of us kept in touch with each other as we were doing our own thing including a couple of fruitless relationships. However, we both kept in touch with a mutual high school friend, Chantae.

    One day about ten years after high school graduation, I was on the phone talking to Chantae and we were reminiscing about people that we went to high school with. I asked about Corey and she told me how he was doing and then we continued on with our talk. It was during this conversation that he happened to call her on the other line and she connected him into the conversation. After she told him that there was someone on the phone that he hadn't talked to in a long time, I decided to play the 'guess who' game and was very surprised at how quickly he guessed who I was. We started to catch up and decided to exchange numbers to keep in touch. I was excited to be in touch with an old high school friend, but thought nothing more of it.   We talked off and on for a while getting reaquainted and learning each other on a deeper level, while just maintaining the friendship. Our sporadic conversations turned into daily conversations in which we realized that we had a lot in common. After a good while, he began to express interest in me and I was developing feelings also but I was afraid to show it. After our many talks, I realized that he was everything that I had been praying for, but inside I strongly fought it, puting it off on the distance factor as the reason why it couldn't go past friendship. Besides, we hadn't seen each other in over ten years, how is that going to work?

     Valentine's day roles around and he surprisingly sends a beautiful bouquet of Tulips {my favorite} to my job that he had never been too. Somehow he had secretly gotten the address from a co-worker and had them delivered to me. This officially started what would eventually become our courtship. We, then agreed to meet up a few months later in Washington D.C. 13 years to the day that we graduated high school. This would serve as a mini reunion that only included us two. It was the first time we had seen each other since graduation and it was the most pleasant trip. During that weekend is when he asked if he could court me. Yes, court. I responded with a resounding Yes and that is what began our courtship.  . . . . . . . . . The Proposal, next .....................

The List: Yes, I Made One.

    It is very debatable whether someone should have a list of requirements before they would even consider getting to know someone as a potential mate.  In fact, I was against it for a long while, because I felt like it was a ridiculous idea to make a "grocery list" of requirements that I wanted in order to cook up a good mate. A list is for someone who thinks too much of themselves, right? Yes, I prayed to God for a good mate, but I kept running into Mr. Not Good Mate. It had gotten to a point that if I was able to go on a half decent dinner date with a clean conversation, then I was doing good. On top of the statistics (and I am not a fan of statistics) that says that I, as a black woman, will have a better chance of getting struck by lightening than to find a good mate, things were looking grim. But deep in my heart, there was still hope.  There was hope in the God that had always been there with me.

     One day, I ran across an article of a woman who had gotten frustrated about not finding her Mr. Right and how she was prompted to write a list of what she was looking for and to believe for it.  The desires of her heart were granted shortly after.  From that story, I was inspired to make a detailed list and take the same leap of faith.  So I began writing those things down that were most important to me and the more that I wrote, the more things started to flow out of my heart. I finished my list, closed my book, and did not return to the list for several months. It was during this time that what I had asked for was revealed to me. After my prayer was answered, I looked back at my list and realized that Mr. Awesome is everything on it that I asked for and I am so THANKFUL for him.  The things that were most important to me were not things that were superficial such as the type of car that he drives or whether he has a six pack or not, but were things that really mattered in the long run. After all, cars break down and so do six packs.  Some of the things that I prayed for and wrote were:

* A man who fears the Lord and has a personal relationship with God. God is #1 in his life.
* A man who knows how to prioritize me among other things in his life.
* A man who has self discipline.
* A man who will respect my wishes for celibacy before marriage.
* A man who has personal integrity with himself and those around him.
* A man with financial integrity and wants something out of life.
* A man who is disease free.
* A man who treats the females in his life with respect and integrity {mom, sister, etc.}.
* A man with a sense of humor (I truly married a comedian)
* A man who is romantic.


There are a few more things on my list of desires that I did not publish here, but Mr. Awesome has far exceeded what I asked for (and he is super handsome too).  So, is a list a bad thing? I don't think so, but I do feel that what someone expects should reflect what really matters when it comes to something long term.  The name brand of clothes that he wears is not as important as whether he reads his bible or not.

The Reason For The Season

     As a template for our first Christmas together, my hubby introduced the concept of taking the commercialism out of Christmas and celebrating it for its true meaining, the birth of Jesus.  This is nothing outlandish to me as we share the same belief on the subject.  Jesus is the reason for the season and although it is nice to give gifts to others during this holiday, a lot of the true meaning of giving has been lost to commercialism. Commercialism has convinced us that we need to spend money that we don't have in order to prove that we care for someone.  Commercialism says that we must stand in a long line, in the freezing cold for hours, just to scramble for one of a limited number of hot ticket items that will be on sale even after Christmas. Do we really need to be stressed out during a time that is supposed to be joyous? Is the celebration of Jesus' birth really a good time to concentrate on strengthening a struggling economy?

     There are many great aspects of the holiday season outside of the mall and that is what we were hoping to concentrate on and our first Christmas together was a reflection of that. Although it may take a couple of Christmas holidays to work out our new traditions, I am glad that most of our concentration was kept on the real reason for the celebration. Of course we had ham, turkey and all the trimmings {between the first holiday meal that I cooked and the dinner invitation that we recieved}, but the most important part was remembering Jesus on this day and all days and I was more than happy to celebrate it with my awesome hubby and new family.

 Photo courtesy of Eclipse Photography

You Are Who You Associate With

  
  One of the things that I first noticed when my husband and I were courting, were the types of people that he associated with.  A lot of the people were slightly older and they were married with families.  I thought it was unique for a single man to associate with a number of friends who were not only married, but believed in the institution and seriousness of marriage. Before I could ask, he offered the explanation that he knew that he wanted to be married and that it would do him justice to absorb the knowledge that these men had so that he could use it when he got married. And I must say that it has been beneficial, but usually how many think of it that way?
   
     Far too often, we find people socializing with certain types of people and wonder why they can't get ahead.  How many times have we seen a group of women sitting around bashing men and then wonder why Mr. No-Good-Afraid-To-Commit-Lying-Broke-Busted-And-Disgusted keeps showing up?  How many times have we witnessed the guys just sitting around talking about everything about a woman except her mental strength and value and wonder why they attract women who only want the green in their pockets? A lot of times, it is in the company that one keeps.  In I Corinthians 15:33, it speaks about how bad company corrupts good works.  Although I knew this concept for a little while now and have had very few positive marital examples myself, it really blessed me when I saw my husband use it to his advantage.  I have been positively touched by the number of people that I have met through him who have done nothing but praise the institution of marriage and offered sound advice from a perspective of 'We are in this for life'. They never have sugar coated the level of work that it takes, but have shown us that it has and can be done.  In a society that says that you can jump ship if he leaves the cap off the toothpaste, it is refreshing to know that there are people out there who believe what the bible says about marriage and I would much rather associate with those.

From 'Me' to 'We'

     Our vehicle was parked at the airport while we were on our honeymoon and the summer sun heated and melted some of the contents left inside, including the candles that we used to light the Unity candle at our wedding. Upon examining the candles in their newly wilted state, I couldn't help but laugh.  I found it amusing, but then realized how symbolic it was to be holding the two wilted candles while the Unity candle was not wilted and was standing strong.

    It made me think of the lyrics by Neyo, "I'm a movement by myself, but we're a force when we're together". This had me thinking of the process of transitioning from 'Me' to 'We' and all that I had learned and am still learning as we become a 'Force'.  I did not imagine how much of a force I would feel like until we said I DO, but I can only imagine how much stronger it gets from here.  However, I won't say that transitioning has been easy as my single self "wilts" in favor of the unity that we are building. Yet, the benefits have been great. Some of the biggest lessons that I have learned in this time have been:

   - Having Mr. Awesome in my life is worth the work that it is taking to make the transition 
     from 'Me' to 'We'.
   
  - Going from 'Me' to 'We' has shown me how selfishness has no place in Unity building.
  
  -Transitioning has taught me a valuable lesson in compromise.


     Transitioning has been very delightful as well as challenging, but I wouldn't want it any other way because we are building a force that has definitely been GREATER than my individual movement.